Show hf AT ANY elte r v M ie majority 9 mau who laa cohabitation with more than one wife until the present time may be indicted for each day week or month on the charge jep habited und ertho edmunda law chief justice zane and mr 1 I f been V lamenting until recently that the penalty provided for the punishment of the alleged crime of unlawful cohabitation was not enough they knew that congress never intended anaf those who might be guilty of continuous co habitation with their wives from year to year could t to prison for life or longer by the aggregation of separate charges made out of the one continuous of lense but did not six months imprisonment satisfy the malicious cruelty of these federal tyrants we sup tand well knowing that the monstrously prejudiced state of public opinion against the mor mons would shield them from effectual criticism they determined to stretch the proper intention of the law so to make the penalty of unlawful cohabitation as little or as great as they might choose to have it in this way the evident in tent of congress is violated and tho courts virtually assume the functions of despotic and arbitrary law makers it is true indeed that chief justice zane maintains the regality of his ruling in regard to jahe number of indictments that may be obtained against a person charged with unlawful cohabitation but BO have the usurping tyrants of all ages likewise maintained the legality of their despotic acts by specious pleadings by way ot analogy it is said that it a man steals a hogane day and goes and steals ano ther the next ida yand so on for year hes liable each separate theft andthil and this is true and it also looks very plausible to say that a man who cohabits with more than one woman one day and keeps it up from day to day is liable to indictment for during which h violated vio latel the law against cohabitation enee of unlawful cohabitation does not con desist in any one specific act as in the presumed case ot the man who steals ft hog daily for a given period the courts have ruled that unlawful cohabitation is not necca harily consummated when a man has sexual intercourse with two or more women the edmunds law und erthe construction of the utah courts ignores sexual immorality and harlotry A man may bayeas many distresses mistresses mi stresses or concubines as heliker hel ikea and hold sexual intercourse with as many women as he chooses but still the offense of unlawful co habitation would not be complete unless such a man held out these women aliis wives and honorably recognized and provided for their children front the nature of nl awful cohabitation as bitely defined by our territorial courts it must be a continuous of fence A man cannot simultaneously hold with two armore can he out more than one woman as hia wives very conveniently but a man may steal an entire hog or an of any kind all at once in other words a theft can be consummated bulhe unlawfully f vc the 1 1 b w aa property of another whereas the of unlawful cohabitation depends upon a contingency of circumstances cum stances which give it a continuous nature it is therefore obvious that ano single act of unlawful cohabitation may not be fully consummated sum mated and completed in every essential particular for years in larceny a man may take anc hog or hun ime but in the case where one hundred swine are stolen at once there can be but one charge of larceny preferred but one indictment procured and but one conviction had so in of un lawful cohabitation yaman maybe guilty of holding out and having intercourse with more than man single time or a hundred times in inq continuous we are sorry that associate justice 0 W powers lias hastened to emulate tho exam the Chief justice in this the alleged crime of unlawful under tho edmunds w that justice powers will before he assigns men to the peny on that ara manifestly a part and portio bof one of TeDge toe edmunds y law lotse of tyranny can bb anade such byi igal and thosa who act the part of tyrants whether on the bench at the head of an army or through the pow erin any way should remember that there are certain limits even to human patience and endurance for caesar had his Brutus charlesia Char lesII hi cromwell of more modern profit by these examples |