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Show AN APOLOGY FOR CRIME. The Xews of last night offers an apology for the crime of polygamy. The apology of the Xews is the worst arraignment of polygamy it has ever been our fortune to see. It quotes this from the Democrat: If a polygamist in Utah died intestate, all his polygamous wives and children had no rights whatever in bis estate, and could get no standing in court. That is true notwithstanding the lame attempt of the Xeivs to make it appear otherwise. It quotes from an old statute of 1852 in which the word family is used, and sa3'S that the word family might not be open to dispute, and the children xl plural wives called illegitimate by claimants to the estate, the same statute contained the following provision : Illegitimate children and iheir mothers inherit in like manner from the father, whether acknowledged by him or not, provided pro-vided it shall be made to appear to the satisfaction sat-isfaction of the court that he was the father of such illegitimate child or children. The Xews wants to know how this looks beside the statement of -the Democrat. Demo-crat. It looks extremely bad, and it looks worse the more it is considered. That provision was for the benefit of illegitimate ille-gitimate children and their mothers, and the Xews, the official organ of the Mormon Mor-mon church, cites this provision to show in what esteem and consideration a Mormon Mor-mon Legislature, composed mainly of po-tygamists, po-tygamists, held plural wives and their offspring ! Is it not a beautiful tribute to a divine system of marriage to" place it on the level of illicit love and to do to the offspring of such love the meagre justice of giving them a pittance of property as a compensation for their illegitimacy ? So imbued is the Xews with venalitv that it cites Sec. 4, T. 11 of Chapter XLIV., Laws of Utah, which has to do with the Estates of Decedents, and is in the language lan-guage following : Every illegitimate child is an heir of the person who acknowledges himself to be the father of such child; and in all cases is an heir of his mother, and inherits his or her estate, in whole or in part as the case may be, in the same manner as if he had been born in lawful wedlock. The issue of all marriages null in law, or dissolved by divorce, di-vorce, are legitimate." If a polygamist should not acknowledge his children, where would the rights of such children be under this provision ? And, again, the rights which this section sec-tion gives to illegitimate children under certain circumstances are offered as an I excuse and justification for polygamy. Has a Mormon Legislature ever attempted to make legal a polygamous marriage, and make the issue of such marriage the equal in all respects of the issue of a legal marriage mar-riage ? Do not the very provisions of the laws of Utah which the Xews has cited, prove that the Mormon polygamists alwaj'S intended to treat their polygamous children as inferior in all respects to the children of a legal marriage, by only re- i terring to them in their laws as illegiti- ! mate children? Would it riot have been a very easy thing for the Mormon Legislature Legis-lature to have said that polygamous wives and their children shall have the same rights and standing before the law that the legal wife of the common law has? The Mormon Legislatures of Utah never once attempted to do such a thing, but contented themselves to treat their plural wives as mistresses and their polygamous children as illegitimate. Has a Mormon Legislature attempted to. do anything for Mormon polygamous children that it has not done for the illegitimate child of the common street-walker? Rather has it not put Mormon polygamous children in the same category with the children of the libertine and the strumpet? The Xews has marshalled all the hosts it can in favor of the record of Mormon Legislatures on the question of polygamous polyga-mous children, and that record shows that they have always deemed such children base-born and illegitimate. All this may be a comfort to the Xews and its following, and if such it is, no one will wish to deprive them of this creature comfort ; and while it is not our purpose to descend to the low personality and insinuation of the Xews, yet we cannot but say that the reference to the fouled nest was very unhappy in view of the record which the Xews presented of Mormon legislation in regard to polygamous polyga-mous childre n. The Xeivs takes exception to our praise of the Edmunds law for its legitimization of polygamous children, and says we find fault with the Mormons for not doing this same thing; and then it makes its cita-: tions of the Utah statutes in regard to illegitimate children. We would remind the Xcics that the Edmunds law expressly ex-pressly spoke of polygamous marriages: and Mormon marriages, and specially' legitimatized the issue of such marriages ; ; and that the .Mormon Legislatures never once spoke of such' marriages. If the Mormon Legislatures had in view pol'gamous children of Mormon parents when they enacted the provisions for I which the Xews has so much praise, why did they refer to such children specifically the same as the Edmunds law did? The Xeivs would never have used the argument of provision for illegitimate children as a defense of polygamy did it have the soul to understand that, Good name in man and woman, my dear lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls : Who steals my purse, steals trash; 't is something, some-thing, nothing: 'Twas mine, 't is his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Bobs me of that which not enriches him,-And him,-And makes me poor indeed. |