The West Side of Main Street—Salt Lake City—including a view of the Salt Lake Hotel. It is a temperance hotel*. I prefer temperance hotels—altho' they sell worse liquor than any other kind of hotels. But the Salt Lake Hotel sells none—nor is there a bar in all Salt Lake City—but I found when I was thirsty—and I generally am—that I could get some very good brandy of one of the Elders—on the sly—and I never on any account allow my business to interfere with my drinking.
*(At the date of our visit, there was only one place in Salt Lake City where strong drink was allowed to be sold. Brigham Young himself owned the property, and vended the liquor by wholesale, not permitting any of it to be drunk on the premises. It was a coarse, inferior kind of whisky, known in Salt Lake as "Valley Tan." Throughout the city there was no drinking-bar nor billiard room, so far as I am aware. But a drink on the sly could always be had at one of the hard-goods stores, in the back office behind the pile of metal saucepans; or at one of the dry-goods stores, in the little parlor in the rear of the bales of calico. At the present time I believe that there are two or three open bars in Salt Lake, Brigham Young having recognized the right of the "Saints" to "liquor up" occasionally. But whatever other failings they may have, intemperance cannot be laid to their charge. Among the Mormons there are no paupers, no gamblers, and no drunkards.)
There is the Overland Mail Coach.—That is, the den on wheels in which we have been crammed for the past ten days and ten nights.—Those of you who have been in Newgate* —————————————————————————————-and stayed there any length of time—as visitors—can realize how I felt.
*(The manner in which Artemus uttered this joke was peculiarly characteristic of his style of lecturing. The commencement of the sentence was spoken as if unpremeditated; then when he had got as far as the word "Newgate," he paused, as if wishing to call back that which he had said. The applause was unfailingly uproarious.)
The American Overland Mail Route commences at Sacramento—California—and ends at Atchison—Kansas. The distance is two thousand two hundred miles—but you go part of the way by rail. The Pacific Railway is now completed from Sacramento—California—to Fulsom—California—which only leaves two thousand two hundred and eleven miles, to go by coach. This breaks the monotony—it came very near breaking my back.
This edifice is the exclusive property of Brigham Young. It will comfortably hold 3,000 persons—and I beg you will believe me when I inform you that its interior is quite as brilliant as that of any theatre in London.
The actors are all Mormon amateurs, who charge nothing for their services.