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Show Contemplating Another Raid. The editor of the Philistine must be contemplating contem-plating another raid on Salt Lake and Utah. In his number for June he devotes many pages to the work and character of the Mormon people, which we do not object to, though the most ardent ar-dent Mormon would fall to recognize himself or his people by the description; bu toward the close he quotes from one Carpentei, a relative and disciple of Edward Carpenter, whom he describes de-scribes as a wealthy Englishman who has lived in every part of the globe where railroads run, steamships ply and caravans carry; who is a linguist, a traveler, a student, a thinker, and who "had no sympathy with the theological ideas of the Mormons, but after living with them for years, he gave it as his opinion that under Brig-ham Brig-ham Young's rule they were the most virtuous people in the world, as by their system of allowing allow-ing plural marriages they eliminated prostitution absolutely and had neither outcast women, sick women, nor orphans, and placed a ban upon the sly, sneaking, dark and devious ways of the ! average respectable married man of our so called cultured East, where a penalty is placed upon nothing but being found out." And he adds that "Carpenter has a bushel of vital statistics, hospital hos-pital records and orphan asylum data to prove his case." We do not charge all the foregoing to Mr. Carpenter, because we presume the Philistine Phil-istine phrase-maker quoted merely from mem- ory, and his memory often lacks co-ordination and gets mixed with the Philistine's imagination and inventive powers, and they are both abnormally abnor-mally enlarged. The first thing that strikes the reader in the foregoing is the wonderful efficacy of polygamy as a moral anti-toxin, for in those days the elders of the church were wont to as-seit as-seit that in the most vehement manner that only some two and a half per cent of their people were In polygamy. The Philistine's statement is certainly a most emphatic endorsement of the homeopathic principle in the cure of immoral diseases. i I I ! I I The next striking feature is where in Utah Mr. Carpenter obtains his hospital records in Brigham Young's time, inasmuch as there was no Mormon hospital in Utah or elsewhere. Indeed, In-deed, Brigham Young savagely upbraided his own daughter for employing a physician when desperately ill. Doubtless Mr. Carpenter stands prepared to make the old declaration that there were no saloons and no houses of "the under world" in those original chaste days. The fact that the masses were so desperately poor that carrots were a legal tender will supply a hint why there would have been difficulties in the way of maintaining establishments of the nature described. For instance, had the editor of the Philistine when last here been forced to accept vegetables for the admission fees of his audience, audi-ence, it is not difficult to believe that he would never have repeated his lecture and would never I have received the Inspiration to publish all the falsehoods he has since published about the Mormons and Gentiles of Utah. No doubt ho has studied the Mormon question ques-tion and Mormon history deeply, else he would hardly venture with so much confidence to appear ap-pear on all occasions as their attorney. And by his showing Mr. Carpenter, "the linguist, traveler, trav-eler, student and thinker", must have given the system a still more profound study. Accepting that as true, both must have seen that in Brigham Brig-ham Young's time the keystone of the arch of Mormonism was polygamy; that no man could attain to the highest rewards in Paradiso who had not on earth been a polygamist, and that women have no show of recognition In the hereafter here-after except through a whole or fractional mar rlage. Thus the system was founded on animal ism as much as was that ancient one that flour ished in the early world. Of necessity, children born under that sys tem and trained through childhood In it must have been, when reaching a marriageable age, saturated with animalism. Will Mr. Carpentei or the Philistine explain what the natural effect must have been? Both are doubtless skilled in the science of phylogeny, and if so and can trace causes up to effects, what must be their sclen tific conclusion as to where such training would certainly lead. It is not necessary to pursue the theme further. fur-ther. It is only proper to remember that there are a class of men on earth who, knowing their own hearts thoroughly, are always glad to find as a poultice for their own self-abasement "and self-contempt anything through which by contrast con-trast they can attack decency in any form. A great writer says that no man ever wrought out anything finer than he had himself witnessed; that no painter ever produced a picture, no sculptor ever perfected a statue more beautiful than he had seen in person. In the same way we presume it is fair to say that no writer or speaker can ever portray anything more foul or depraved than they had in their lives sometime been witness to. And our own belief is that when the editor of the Philistine, or Mr. Carpenter, Carpen-ter, if he is correctly quoted, picture the majority major-ity of the decent people of this country as lustful hypocrites, they need go no further than their own secret natures to find their inspiration and their models. |