Show AS OBSERVER ON TOURISTS Visitors to Tue Shoddy Giggling the Mormon Tabernacle SALT LAKE CITY June 12 1885 EDITOR DEMOCRAT To any person whose mind contains even a moderate I spirit of fairness the actions of many strangers and tourists while visiting the I Tabernacle to hear the Mormons preach is disgusting It is a notorious fact that I they keep up a continual giggle and undertone un-dertone conversation most of the time they are in the building and thereby annoying an-noying congregation of people whom they take special delight in calling polygamous barbarians It appears asI I if they had come here for the sole purpose i pur-pose of showing these polygamous barbarians i bar-barians that 0 visitors from the highest high-est civilization are merely a lot of hairbrained dudes and dudines who have come to punch up and annoy the animals ani-mals on exhibition in the great Mormon Mor-mon menagerie Although a casual observerbeing in no way associated with the Mormon Church or even in sympathy with its doctrinesI think that if strangers had an atom of selfrespect they would try to set a good example and by showing good breeding give this people the benefit ot their higher cultivation But no they seem to take special delight in making themselves appear ridiculous and cause the friends of good order and civility to blush for them A disregard for common forms of politeness mingled with natural aversion of the Mormons leads them to perpetrate breaches against unstinted hospitality with the impunity of Fiji Islanders The Mormonsno matter what their faults may bearc noted for hospitality and the consideration they exercise in reserving the best seats in their meetinghouses meeting-houses for strangers at least entitles them to some mark of respect So under those circumstances it cannot can-not be otherwise than humiliating to the antiMormon element of Utah to see people peo-ple whom they have paraded before the Mormons as examples of good order and as peers of the monogamic system show that they lack the most common attributes attri-butes of comporting themselves as ladies and gentlemen should If the question is not too pointed to admit of an answer I would like to know when the ladies and gentlemen of that traveling shoddy aristocratic element are going to show that they are more fitted to be called ladies and gentlemen than those barbarians they come to see If the parties of tourists who visited this city recently and made themselves generally gen-erally obnoxious in religious meetings are from the higher class of people in the East and West I fervently pray God help the middle and lower classes In no other community would such disgraceful conduct be tolerated Those same people would not dare visit Eastern churches and create so much confusion for fear they would be violently reprimanded repri-manded or forcibly ejected They are very well aware that they would be and why they are so prone to make themselves them-selves the objects of contempt of the Gentile part of the community and the laughingstoek of the Mormons a query none but themselves can answer The retrograde efforts of such people tend more towards perpetuating Mormonism Mor-monism than the abolition of mission schools in our midst would effect the educational advancement and enlightenment enlighten-ment of children of Mormon parentage for the mind of a child will necessarily become prejudiced against those who make themselves butts for ridicule and the confidence and respect of that child when once lost may never be regained The reason I have cited the children in this instance js because through them Utah is to be reclaimed from the blight of Dolvlmv I am sorry for the more considerate strangers and tourists sorry for the anti Mormon residents of the Territory i sorry for the Mormons themselves that such unwarranted breaches of good manners have prevailed heretofore I sincerely hope that the day is not fat distant when strangers to this community will realize that that kind of mission work will never gain the encomium and esteem of I this peculiar people OBSERVER |