Already, however, its subject has ceased to be contemporary and become historical. Mormonism, as I depicted it, is as dead as Slavery, for the Yankee—as I foreshadowed he would do, in this very book—has put down Polygamy. Future generations, therefore, may turn to this book as they will turn to Uncle Tom's Cabin, for a record of a system which once flourished, and which, when all is said and done, did quite as much good as harm. I confess, indeed, that I am sorry for the Mormons; for I think that they are more sinned against than sinning. Polygamy is abolished in America, but a far fouler evil, Prostitution, flourishes, in both public and private life. The Mormons crushed this evil and obliterated it altogether, and if they substituted Polygamy, they only did openly and politically what is done, and must be done, clandestinely, in every country, under the present conditions of our civilisation.
The present is the first cheap edition of the book, and the first which bears the author's name on the title page. It will be followed by a cheap edition of White Rose and Red. I shall be quite prepared to hear now, on the authority of the newspapers, that the eulogy given to St. Abe on its first appearance was all a mistake, and that the writer possesses no humour whatsoever. I was informed, indeed, the other day, by a critic in the Daily News, that most of my aberrations proceeded from "a fatal want of humour." The critic was reviewing the Devil's Case, and his suggestion was, I presume, that I ought to have perceived the joke of the Nonconformist Conscience and latterday Christianity. I thought that I had done so, but it appears that I had not been funny at all, or not funny enough. But my real misfortune was, that my name was printed on the title page of the work then under review.
I cannot conclude this bibliographical note without a word concerning the remarkable artist who furnished St. Abe and his Seven Wives with its original frontispiece. The genius of the late A. B. Houghton is at last receiving some kind of tardy recognition, chiefly through the efforts of Mr. Pennell, whose criticisms on art have done so much to free the air of lingering folly and superstition. When I sought out Mr. Houghton, and persuaded him to put pencil to paper on my behalf, he was in the midst of his life-long struggle against the powers of darkness. He died not long afterwards, prematurely worn out with the hopeless fight. One of the last of the true Bohemians, a man of undoubted genius, he never learned the trick of wearing fine linen and touting for popularity; but those who value good work hold him in grateful remembrance, and I am proud to think that so great a master in black and white honoured me by associating himself with a book of mine.
Robert Buchanan.
ORIGINALLY PREFACED TO SAINT ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES.
TESTIMONIES OF DISTINGUISHED PERSONS.
I. From P—————t G———t, U.S. Smart. Polygamy is Greek for Secesh. Guess Brigham will have to make tracks.
II. From R. W. E———n, Boston, U.S.