Show THE BARSINISTER The Question of Its Authorship Settled The authorship of this book which appeared anonymously a little over a year ago has been a subject of considerable consider-able dispute here where there is naturally more interest felt in the characters and the treatment they receive than there would be elsewhere Many persons were quite sure the book was written by Miss Kate Field Others were good enough to credit me with the authorship while still others who professed pro-fessed to be in the seen et asserted that it was written by the wife of a well known Senator I knew I did not write it and was almost as sure that Miss Field did not for it contained inaccuracies in the matter of local descriptions that would not have appeared in its pages if written by one who had spent as many months in Salt Lake as she did Lately I have been inclined to think Mary J Holmes the author as she visited vis-ited Salt Lake with the avowed purpose of gathering materials for a book but the question is set at rest by the publishers who advertise it as written by Mrs Major Walworth the I wellknown Southern authoress I do not know whether Mrs Val worth has ever visited Salt Lake but 1 suspect that if she has been here at all she has only l remained a few days Still she shows a remarkable acquaintance with the manner in which fanaticism does its work in leading conscientious women to accept poly amy as something divinely ordered Her pictures of the effects of polygamy are also true to the life in most respects though I doubt if any woman could be so stunned by the discovery of her husbands perfidy as to give no heed to the dying agonies of her little child Many a wife has lived on for her chil drens sake has clung to life when it held nothing but torture for her because be-cause she would not abandon her little ones to the tender mercies of those around her A few years ago I had a neighbor a first wife who was slowly dying of an incurable in-curable disease Though so weak that she could barely totter across the room she used to rise every day from her sickbed sick-bed and creep about the house to do what was needful for the comfort of her two little ones The second wife was a coarse brutal woman a terror to her family and to the neighborhood and the mother of those two helpless babes used to say I i i dare not die I must live If I die that dreadful woman will get my children Mothers all know what it is to put aside their own sorrows and think only of their children but no mother is so absorbed ab-sorbed in her own sufferings as to forget her children Two things in The BarSinister made me feel a natural curiosity as to its authorship author-ship On pages 257 and 258 there are paragraphs taken verbatim from a story of mine His Second Wife which appeared ap-peared in The Continent of September 19th 1883 One of the chapters is entitled en-titled In the Toils and another After Many Days the title of the concluding chapter ol my first book It may be that the undeserved credit of the authorship of the book was given me by some parties on this account but there is so much in it that stamps it as the work of one whose literary training has been superior to mine that I have not judged any disclaimer dis-claimer necessary It is certainly encouraging to ub to know that a gifted woman from the outside world is willing to use her pen in our be half and I regard it as a hopeful sign that authors philanthropists and statesmen states-men are turning their regards this way If anything I have written has been of I service to Mrs Walworth I am glad of it and I think the columns of our daily I papers if read by writers abroad would furnish them with material for books of absorbing interest Without making the mistake of think ing that the Utah problem is the only question before the Nation we feel that j I i it is much more than a local issue and j that it demands earnest consideration on I j the part of all who have the welfare of j our country at heart If the multiplication I multiplica-tion of books on this subject can help to make the question a National one The BarSinister and every book written with a like purpose ought to have a hearty welcome from us CORNELIA PADDOCK Stir LVKE Cm Oct 15 188G I |