Show NOT nor THE MORMON WAY not only in statements published in this city but more frequently in correspondence from here published in outside newspapers there has been of late a good deal of malicious falsehood and sentimental drivel about the desertion of plural wives and their families by husbands and fathers who put forth their duty to the laws of the country as a pretext for thus ignobly relieving themselves of the care anu ana responsibility which such relations had bad imposed upon them the NEWS has baa not felt called upon to take up these sto stories ries and brand them as the they y deserve for the reason that there was at best beat but the flimsiest flims iest foundation for them and every reasonable person in utah knew them to be essentially untrue the frequent quotation and repetition of the scandalous falsehood however cannot be permitted to go 90 on indefinitely without protest and dei denial Dial and when it happens as in a cor respond resDon denee enee frum from this city to the chicago II cago tribune now before us that the reportorial fancy has fairly revelled bevelled revel led la in atrocious mendacity it la Is time that lift lice should be stigmatized as such so BO that those who might be innocently misled by them may be able to accord them the treatment that known lab are worthy of and usually receive it Is a singular fact that no matter what the cormons mormons Mor mons do or try to do they are invariably the subject of some souls cools complaining to writers for the press especially have this thie people been a veritable mine of bastions hypocrisy and cant we wore were criticized criticised it we pursued a certain policy and were criticized criticised when we abandoned it for some other we have been blamed if we did and blamed if we until in sheer disgust at fickle metas mens shifting views if such had ever had ill influence fluence with us at all we would have been justified in doing as we pleased and sending public opinion whirling to the bowwows now as to this charge of deserting plural wives and leaving them hem and their families in destitution the NEWS has only this much to say it to is a sin neither counseled or permitted by the priesthood nor practiced by any latter latier day saint in good standing in the church every mormon knows that no law can be enacted to absolve a man from the duties of supporting and caring for those who have these sacred claims upon him no man with the least spark of honor would seek to evade responsibilities of this kind incurred under other conditions with the saints religious duty as well as human honor constitute a pledge that cannot be ignored members of the church have needed no instruction on the subject and need none now least of all fro from m those these who as above stated scan their conduct with a microscope to discover something to find fault with that all men having plural wives and families are the soul of honor and the ideal of integrity is a claim we shall not attempt to make but we cannot can not be contradicted in the statement that the almost universal rule and practice Is that such mendo men do forand for and cherish the wives whom the law may prevent them from living with and do support the children from whose association changed conditions may have more or less cut them oft off the contempt which the entire community would feel for a father who acted otherwise is a penalty which jao DO man would wish to incur still more unlikely Is it that a man who values his standing in the church and the good will of his fellow members and those who preside over him would care to invite the odium that with this people attaches to a re canter a coward and a sneak fortunately mormon husbands and fathers are not made of that kind of stuff if there is one of this sort we do not t happen to know of him we trust there are none and are certain there can be but very few in view of this statement of the case came will not our supercritical super critical whose extreme anxiety that we tread bravely the path of duty and steadfastness is sometimes as ludicrous an aa it is contradictory do us the credit to say eay that the he mormons cormons are not in the habit of deserting anybody |