No doubt their poor women are already relapsing into a condition, that is truly pitiable, as elsewhere intimated, and their tendency must be rapidly to the worse. Evidently the Saints take care to seclude them from Gentile gaze, as much as possible; but a more dreary, homely, pokey set of women, as a whole, were never seen. I may have been unfortunate, but in all Utah, I did not see a truly happy and sunny countenance, or noble and serene, on a mature Mormon woman; nor did I anywhere hear of one, who would fully realize our old and fond ideal of
"A perfect woman nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit—still and bright—
With something of an angel's light!"
But, what else could be expected in a country, where a husband signifies only the fractional part of a man, and a wife—any number of women you please? Beyond controversy, their "peculiar institution" of polygamy is a "relic of barbarism"—yea, verily, a "twin-relic" to slavery—as the Republican party in 1856-60 had the manliness and courage to pronounce it. "Peculiar" institutions, of whatever character, have no business in a republic; they mean inequality, and inevitably tend to violence and disorder. No doubt, had Abraham Lincoln lived, when we had finished our first "twin" right thoroughly, he would have found a way to look well after the other. We owe this to our mothers and sisters, to our wives and daughters,
"The graces and the loves, that make
The music of the march of life—"
to all of womankind, the broad continent across and the wide world over; and Congress should take care, that we lend not the sanction of our flag to this hideous crime, an hour longer than we must. Our age, so far, has largely honored itself, in honoring and respecting womankind, and it is too late now to let Christian America barbarize any portion of herself, with the exploded savagery of pagandom. We must have freedom of speech and of the press there, security of person and property—absolute and perfect—the same as in New York or Massachusetts, or our flag is a lie. We must maintain and execute our national laws against polygamy, the same as everywhere else, no matter who opposes, or our government is a sham. And if Mormon juries won't do this, refusing to indict or convict, and nothing else will do, so that we have to fall back on the bayonet, why then I see nothing in Utah so sacred, that we should not give Brighamdom the bayonet, the same as we did Jeffdom. I believe in the Pacific Railroad, and hope much from its civilizing and refining influences; I have great faith in the locomotive and the telegraph; but I also believe, with Judge —— in "the moral power of bayonets, when nothing else will suffice—especially when used on the right side." We have just had to use them against one "twin-relic," when nothing else would do, in spite of our Railroads there; now let them charge down upon the other, if Utah will not obey the laws, and that right speedily. Were Mormonism merely a religion, as a republic we should be the last to touch it. But polygamy, its baleful flower and fruit, and the source of all Utah's woes, is an unmitigated barbarism; an outrage and crime, not only against woman, but humanity; an organized insult to the Christianity and civilization of the age; and we Americans, of this generation, owe it to ourselves and to history, to end it—to stamp it out if need be—sans ceremony and instanter. Let us not dally with it, as we did with Southern slavery. Else may God, in his just wrath, break us again with a rod of iron, or haply dash us in pieces as a potter's vessel. Let Congress and the President but do their duty in the premises, and Brigham Young I predict will receive a "new revelation," that will quickly end the whole trouble. The power is with them, and History will hold them justly responsible.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
SALT LAKE TO BOISÈ CITY, IDAHO.
It was our intention originally to proceed from Salt Lake to San Francisco direct, via Nevada; but our long sojourn at Salt Lake induced us to go via Boisè City and the Columbia instead. When arranging for our departure, we happened to meet Mr. Ben Holliday, the great stage-proprietor of the Plains there, and he advised us to inspect Idaho first, or we would be caught there in winter. He was then temporarily at Salt Lake, on one of his semi-annual inspections of his vast stage-lines. The Pacific Railroad has supplanted these now, in the main; but they were then the only means of rapid transit, and a great and important agency of civilization throughout all that region. His line of stages commenced then at Fort Kearney on the Platte, and ran thence to Denver, about five hundred miles; thence to Central City, in the heart of the Colorado mines, about forty miles; returning to Denver, thence along and across the Rocky and Wahsatch Mountains to Salt Lake, about six hundred miles; thence through Idaho and Oregon, to Umatilla on the Columbia, about seven hundred miles, with a branch at Bear River, through Montana to Virginia City, about four hundred miles more. In all, his stage-lines then footed up about two thousand two hundred and forty miles, through the great frontier heart of the continent. From Kearney to Salt Lake, he ran a daily stage each way; over the balance of his routes, only a tri-weekly. From Salt Lake to California, about seven hundred and fifty miles more, there was also a daily stage each way, but this line was owned and run by Wells, Fargo & Co., then and still the great Express Company of the Pacific Coast. Mr. Holliday, in anticipation of the Railroad, with his wonted sagacity, was just completing the sale and transfer of all his stage-lines to Wells, Fargo & Co., whose stage-business alone thus became one gigantic enterprise, reaching from the Missouri to the Pacific, and from Salt Lake to the Columbia. What a prodigious undertaking! How colossal in its proportions! It was estimated that these lines would then foot up over three thousand miles, and to operate them would require about five hundred coaches, and fully ten thousand horses and mules, first and last. Mr. Holliday said his lines had been very profitable some years, but in others again he had lost heavily. Sometimes the Indians stole or destroyed a quarter of a million's worth of his property per annum, and then again his expenses were always necessarily enormous. Stations had to be erected and maintained, ten or fifteen miles apart, along all the routes. Grain had to be hauled, in the main, from either the Missouri or Salt Lake, although Colorado and Idaho had begun to yield something. Hay had to be transported often fifty miles, and fuel sometimes a hundred and fifty. He paid his General Superintendent ten thousand dollars per year, and his Washington Agent about the same; his Division Superintendents about half that sum; his drivers and station-keepers from seventy-five to a hundred dollars per month and their board; and then there were ten thousand and one incidental expenses besides. One would have supposed, that the oversight and management of his vast stage-enterprises would have been enough for one man to carry. But, in addition, he owned and ran a line of steam-ships on the Pacific from San Francisco to Oregon and Alaska, another to Lower California and Mexico, and was planning to get more business still. He was a man apparently of about forty-five, tall and thin, of large grasp and quick perceptions, of indifferent health but indomitable will, fiery and irascible when crossed, and a Westerner all through. Apparently he carried his vast business very jauntily, without much thought or care; but he crossed the continent twice each year, from end to end of his stage-routes, and saw for himself how matters were getting on. When he went through thus, extra teams and coaches were always held in readiness, and he had made the quickest Overland trip recorded. Time was everything with him then; horse-flesh and expense—nothing. Once he drove from Salt Lake to the Missouri, over twelve hundred miles, in six days and a half, and made the total trip from San Francisco in twelve days. The locomotive beats this now, but nothing else could. The usual schedule-time was about twenty days; but it often took two or three more.