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Show A CHOICE. The case of John Daynes seems to be a matter of vital importance in the community, com-munity, if the News voices its sentiments. , Mr. Daynes asked the Court with which of his wives he might live in the future, j and the Court told him, in substance, that he might live with either he chose. This greatly insenses the News, and last night it reviewed the case at length. Mr. Daynes was tried for unlawful cohabitation and found guilty and promised obedience to the law in future. It was a question ques-tion of unlawful cohabitation and nothing else. If Mr. Daynes chooses to live with his polygamous wife no one can prevent him ; and then Mr. Daynes has precedent for such a proceeding proceed-ing among Mormons who have not prom ised to obey the law. If Utah had any statute against adultery such cases might be punched, but Utah has no such statute. If Mr. Daynes' first and legal wife chooses to bring an action for divorce against liim, and allege .as a cause for the granting of it, his unlawful association with his second wife, there is no doubt that the decree prayed for would be granted. Even the simple charge of abandonment, without any allegation of lewd association, would be sufficient ground for granting a divorce either in the Probate or District Court. That the Territory has no statute making a wilful abandonment of a legal wife for the purpose pur-pose of consorting with another woman a crime, is a disgrace, and one that is due to the action of the Utah Legislature, a Legislature absolutely abso-lutely Mormon. The News, in commenting com-menting .upon the Daynes case, says, "the iK)wer on the bench did not keep him in suspense long; while it was the 'moral' duly of the trafficker in wives to live with and maintain his first or 'legal' companion, unless there were some other reasons for, a separation not appearing then and there, still, there was no law making it compulsory for him to do so; but in any event he must not 'hold out' or live with more than one." If a man docs not follow the line that the News would lay down for him, but promises prom-ises obedience to the law, he i3 termed a trafficker in wives. Is such a man any mora a trafficker in wives out of the Mormon church than in it if he marries more than one? Is the right to have more than one living and undivorced wife at the same time a right belonging only to a Mormon, or is it a right belonging belong-ing to all men? The News asks "if Daynes elects to choose her as the legitimate legiti-mate partner of his toil, his feelings and his fame, by simply exercising his preference prefer-ence under the sanction of the Court, how can the latter recognize the antagonizing antag-onizing conditions which he helps to create cre-ate when he-announces in almost the same breath that a 'male person' must not live and cohabit with one of the opposite sex if he already has a living and undivorced wife?" What condilions w?ould the Court have to recognize? Simply these, that Daynes had abandoned his first and legal wife and ceased to treat her as his wife, that he might consort with another woman. mat is all that he would have to recognize. recog-nize. That the law has no remedies for such wrongs is the fault of the Utah Legislature, and not of any judge. He would recognize another thing, which is that the general moral sense of the community com-munity is so blunted that such things have not been looked upon as greatly wrong. All of which goes to show that Utah is sadly in need of some fundamental funda-mental and wholesome laws with regard to marriage and morals. Will the Legislature Legis-lature enact these much-needed laws, or will they permit a barbaric state of things to continue? The deplorable and dis-disgraceful dis-disgraceful state of things here is the result of inaction on the part of the Legislature, or hostility to any measure that might in the remotest degree tend to suppress the practice of polygamy or in any way abridge the privileges of the members of the church cause. It is to be hoped that the President Presi-dent will recommend to Congress the enactment of such measures as will eradicate erad-icate the evils under which the Territory now suffers, and introduce a better and more wholesome moral condition of affairs. Whatever measures may come, it will lie necessary to allow a very considerable con-siderable time in which to bring about a willing acquiescence in the changed, condition con-dition of things. Amputatious may be made, but time alone can cure the wound. |