Sometimes the "engaged" couple do not marry. The man perhaps in his long courtship discovers traits that weary him, and he breaks off the match. If he is wealthy the average American girl may sue him for damages, for laceration of the affections. One woman in the State of New York sued for the value of over two thousand kisses her "steady company" had taken during a number of years' courtship, and was awarded three thousand dollars. The journal from which I took this made an estimate that the kisses had cost the man one dollar and a half each! Sometimes the girl breaks the engagement, and if presents have been given she returns them, the man rarely suing; but I have seen record of a case where the girl refused to return the presents, and the man sued for them; but no jury could be found to decide in his favor. A distinguished physician has written a book on falling in love. It is recognized as a contagious disease; men and women often die of it, and commit the most extraordinary acts when under its influence. I have observed it, and, all things considered, it has no advantages over the Chinese method of attaining the marriage state. The wisdom of some older person is certainly better than what the American would call the "snap judgment" of two young people carried away by passion. One might find the chief cause of divorce in America to lie in this strange custom.
I was invited by a famous wag last week to meet a man who could claim that he was the father of fifty-three children and several hundred grandchildren. I fully expected to see the Gaikwar of Baroda, or some such celebrity, but found a tall, ministerial, typical American, with long beard, whom —— introduced to me as a Mormon bishop, who, he said, had a virtual congé d'élire in the Church, at the same time referring to me as a Chinese Mormon with "fifty wives." I endeavored to protest, but —— explained to the bishop that I was merely modest. The Mormons are a sect who believe in polygamy. Each man has as many wives as he can support, and the population increases rapidly where they settle. The ludicrous feature of Mormonism is that the Government has failed to stop it, though it has legislated against it; but it is well known that the Mormon allows nothing to interfere with his "revelations," which are on "tap" in Utah.
I was much amused at the bishop's remarks. He said that if the American politicians who were endeavoring to kill them off would marry their actual concubines, and all Americans would do the same, the United States would have a Mormon majority the next day. The bishop had the frailties and moral lapses of prominent people in all lands at his fingers' ends, and his claim was that the whole civilized world was practising polygamy, but doing it illegally, and the Mormons were the only ones who had the honor to legitimatize it. The joke was on ——, who was literally bottled up by the flow of facts from the bishop, who referred to me to substantiate him, which I pretended to do, in order totally to crush ——, who had tried to make me a party to his joke. The bishop, who invited me to call upon him in Utah, said that he hoped some time to be a United States senator, though he supposed the women of the East could create public sentiment sufficient to defeat him.
I once stopped over in Utah and visited the great Mormon Temple, and I must say that the Mormon women are far below the average in intelligence, that is, if personal appearances count. I understand they are recruited from the lowest and most ignorant classes in Europe, where there are thousands of women who would rather have a fifth of a husband than work in the field. In the language of American slang, I imagine the Americans are "up against it," as the country avowedly offers an asylum for all seeking religious liberty, and the Mormons claim polygamy as a divine revelation and a part of their doctrine.
The bishop, I believe, was not a bishop, but a proselyting elder, or something of the kind. The man who introduced me to him was a type peculiar to America, a so-called "good fellow." People called him by his first name, and he returned the favor. The second time I met him he called me Count, and upon my replying that I was not a count he said, "Well, you look it, anyway," and he has always called me Count. He knows every one, and every one knows him—a good-hearted man, a spendthrift, yet a power in politics; a remarkable poker player, a friend worth knowing, the kind of man you like to meet, and there are many such in this country.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Probably Senator Bruce.