the three selectmen in each organized county. Besides the Probate Courts, the Mormons have instituted, as will presently appear, Ecclesiastical High Council under the Church authorities and the President, provided with ample powers of civil and criminal jurisdiction, and fully capable of judging between Saint and Saint.
In describing the operations of the two conflicting judiciaries, I shall borrow the words of both parties.
According to the Mormons, the increased chicanery of the federal government has arrived at full development in their Territory.[1] The phrase has been, "Any thing is good enough for Utah." The salary is too inconsiderable to satisfy any but the worst kind of jack-in-office, and the object of those appointed is to secure notoriety in the Eastern States by obstructing justice, and by fomenting disturbances in the West. The three judges first appointed from Washington in June, 1851, became so unpopular, that in the autumn of the same year they were obliged to leave Utah Territory—one of them with a "flea in his ear" duly inserted by Mr. Brigham Young. I shall not quote names, nor will the reader require them. Another attempted to break the amnesty in 1858, and when asked for suggestions by the Legislative Assembly, proposed an act for the prevention and punishment of polygamy, and urged the Senate to divide the land between the proposed Territories; finally, this excellent Christian hung a Gentile brother on the Lord's day. Another killed himself with opium; another was a notorious drunkard; and another was addicted to gambling in his cellar. A judge disgraced himself with an Indian squaw, who entered his court, and, coram publico, demanded her honorarium, and another seated on the bench his mistress—la maîgre Ada, as she is termed by M. Remy, the Gentile traveler—and the Mormons have not yet learned to endure Alice Peirce, or to worship the Goddess of Reason in that shape. Another attempted to convict Mr. Brigham Young of forgery. The marshal was, in one case, a ci-devant teamster, who could hardly write his own name. Besides the vileness of their characters, their cliqueism and violent hostility have led to prostitution of justice; a Mormon accusé was invariably found guilty by them, a Gentile was invariably acquitted. Thus the Probate Courts, properly jurisdictors of the dead, were made judges of the living in all civil and criminal cases, because justice was not obtainable from the Supreme District and the Circuit judges appointed by the federal government. To the envenomed reports of these officials the Saints attribute all the disturbances in 1857–58, and sun-
- ↑ The Utah correspondent of the "New York Herald," writing from Salt Lake under date of April 26th, states that the fall of Fort Sumter and the secession of Virginia had created intense interest among the "Saints." The news was read in the Tabernacle by Brigham Young, and the disciples were asked to believe that this was merely the prediction of Mr. Joseph Smith about the breaking up of the American Union.
