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SINNERS AND SAINTS
SINNERS AND SAINTS
A TOUR ACROSS THE STATES, AND ROUND THEM WITH THREE MONTHS AMONG THE MORMONS BY PHIL ROBINSON AUTHOR OF "IN MY INDIAN GARDEN," "UNDER THE PUNKAH," "NOAH'S ARK,'" ETC., ETC. NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION LONDON 1892 Inscribed, WITH AUTHOR'S GRATITUDE, TO A FRIEND, JOHN STUART DOWNING....
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I.
I.
It was during the Afghan War. I had just ridden back from General Roberts' camp in the Thull Valley, on the frontiers of Afghanistan, and found myself stopped on my return at the Kohat Pass. "It is the orders of Government," said the sentry: "the Pass is unsafe for travellers." But I had to get through the Pass whether it was "safe" or not, for through it lay the only road to General Browne's camp, to which I was attached. So I dismounted, and after a great deal of palaver, partly of bribes, par
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II.
II.
I was in Omaha. I had just crossed Thirteenth Street, and, turning to look as I passed, at the Catholic church, had caught an idle glimpse of the folk in the street. Among them was a woman at the wooden gateway of a small house, hesitating, so it seemed to me afterwards, about pushing it open, for though she had her hand upon the latch, yet she did not lift it, but appeared to me, at the distance I passed and the cursory glance I gave, to be listening to what somebody was saying to her through t
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
IN LEADVILLE. The South Park line—Oscar Wilde on sunflowers as food—In a wash-hand basin—Anti-Vigilance Committees—Leadville the city of the carbonates—"Busted" millionaires—The philosophy of thick boots—Colorado miners—National competition in lions—Abuse of the terms "gentleman" and "lady"—Up at the mines—Under the pine-trees. STARTING from Denver for Leadville in the evening, it seemed as if we were fated to see nothing of the very interesting country through which the South Park line runs. At
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CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IV.
FROM LEADVILLE TO SALT LAKE CITY. What is the conductor of a Pullman Car?—Cannibalism fatal to lasting friendships—Starving Peter to feed Paul—Connexion between Irish cookery and Parnellism—Americans not smokers—In Denver—"The Queen City of the Plains"—Over the Rockies—Pride in a cow, and what came of it—Sage-brush—Would ostriches pay in the West?—Echo canyon—The Mormons' fortifications—Great Salt Lake in sight. WHAT is the "conductor" of a Pullman car? Is he a private gentleman travelling for h
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CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
THE CITY OF THE HONEY-BEE. Zion—Deseret—A City of Two Peoples—"Work" the watchword of Mormonism—A few facts to the credit of the Saints—The text of the Edmunds Bill—In the Mormon Tabernacle—The closing scene of the Conference. I HAVE described in my time many cities, both of the east and west; but the City of the Saints puzzles me. It is the young rival of Mecca, the Zion of the Mormons, the Latter-Day Jerusalem. It is also the City of the Honey-bee, "Deseret," and the City of the Sunflower—an e
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CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
SUA SI BONA NORINT. A Special Correspondent's lot—Hypothecated wits—The Daughters of Zion—Their modest demeanour—Under the banner of Woman's Rights—The discoverer discovered—Turning the tables—"By Jove, sir, you shall have mustard with your beefsteak!" IT has been my good fortune to see many countries, and my ill-luck to have had to maintain, during all my travels, an appearance of intelligence. Though I have been over much of Europe, over all of India and its adjoining countries, Afghanistan, B
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CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER VIII.
COULD THE MORMONS FIGHT? An unfulfilled prophecy—Had Brigham Young been still alive?—The hierarchy of Mormonism—The fighting Apostle and his colleagues—Plurality a revelation—Rajpoot infanticide: how it was stamped out—Would the Mormons submit to the same process?—Their fighting capabilities—Boer and Mormon: an analogy between the Drakensberg and the Wasatch ranges—The Puritan fanaticism of the Saints—Awaiting the fulness of time and of prophecy. "I SAY, as the Lord lives, we are bound to become
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CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SAINTS AND THE RED MEN. Prevalent errors as to the red man—Secret treaties—The policy of the Mormons towards Indians—A Christian heathen—Fighting-strength of Indians friendly to Mormons. I HAPPENED some time ago to repeat, in the presence of two "Gentiles," a Mormon's remark that the Indians were more friendly towards the Saints than towards other Americans, and the comments of the two gentlemen in question exactly illustrated the two errors which I find are usually made on this subject. One
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CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER X.
REPRESENTATIVE AND UNREPRESENTATIVE MORMONISM. Mormonism and Mormonism—Salt Lake City not representative—The miracles of water—How settlements grow—The town of Logan: one of the Wonders of the West—The beauty of the valley—The rural simplicity of life—Absence of liquor and crime—A police force of one man—Temple mysteries—Illustrations of Mormon degradation—Their settlement of the "local option" question. SALT Lake City is not the whole of "Mormonism." In the Eastern States there is a popular imp
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CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XI.
THROUGH THE MORMON SETTLEMENTS. Salt Lake City to Nephi—General similarity of the settlements—From Salt Lake Valley into Utah Valley—A lake of legends—Provo—Into the Juab valley—Indian reminiscences—Commercial integrity of the saints—At Nephi—Good work done by the saints—Type of face in rural Utah—Mormon "doctrine" and Mormon "meetings." THE general resemblance between the populations of the various Mormon settlements is not more striking than the general resemblance between the settlements them
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CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
FROM NEPHI TO MANTI. English companies and their failures—A deplorable neglect of claret cup—Into the San Pete Valley—Reminiscences of the Indians—The forbearance of the red man—The great temple at Manti—Masonry and Mormon mysteries—In a tithing-house. FROM Nephi, a narrow-guage line runs up the Salt Creek canyon, and away across a wilderness to a little mining settlement called Wales, inhabited by Welsh Mormons who work at the adjacent coal-mines. The affair belongs to an English company, and i
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CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIII.
FROM MANTI TO GLENWOOD. Scandinavian Mormons—Danish ol—Among the Orchards at Manti—On the way to Conference—Adam and Eve—The protoplasm of a settlement—Ham and eggs—At Mayfield—Our teamster's theory of the ground-hog—On the way to Glenwood—Volcanic phenomena and lizards—A suggestion for improving upon Nature—Primitive Art "MY hosts at Manti were Danes, and the wife brewed Danish ol." Such is the entry in my note-book, made, I remember, to remind me to say that the San Pete settlements are compos
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CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XIV.
FROM GLENWOOD TO MONROE. From Glenwood to Salina—Deceptiveness of appearances—An apostate Mormon's friendly testimony—-Reminiscences of the Prophet Joseph Smith—Rabbit-hunting in a waggon—Lost in the sagebrush—A day at Monroe—Girls riding pillion—The Sunday drum—Waiting for the right man: "And what if he is married?"—The truth about apostasy: not always voluntary. SOON after leaving Glenwood, cultivation dies out, and for twelve miles or so the rabbit-brush and grease-wood—the "atriplex" of disa
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CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XV.
AT MONROE. "Schooling" in the Mormon districts—Innocence as to whisky, but connoisseurs in water—"What do you think of that water, sir?"—Gentile dependents on Mormon charity—The one-eyed rooster—Notice to All! SITTING at the door next morning, I saw a very trimly-dressed damsel of twenty or thereabouts, coming briskly along under the trees, which there, as in every other Mormon settlement, shade the side-walk. She was the schoolmistress, I learned, and very soon her scholars began to pass along.
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CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVI.
JACOB HAMBLIN. A Mormon missionary among the Indians—The story of Jacob Hamblin's life—His spiritualism, the result of an intense faith—His good work among the Lamanites—His belief in his own miracles. LEAVING Munroe, we find cultivation gradually disappearing, and, after two or three miles, unmitigated brush supervenes. A steep divide now thrusts itself across the road, and, traversing near the summit a patch of pebbly ground which seemed a very paradise for botanists, we descend again into a w
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CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVII.
THROUGH MARYSVALE TO KINGSTON. Piute Count—-Days of small things—A swop in the sage-brush; two Bishops for one Apostle—The Kings Of Kingston—A failure in Family Communism. FROM the brow of the cedared hill south of Munroe a splendid view is obtained, and Piute County opens with fair promises; for a superb-looking valley, all natural meadow, lies spread out on either side of the Sevier, while from a gulch in the mountains on the right, a stream of vegetation seems to have poured down across the l
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CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
FROM KINGSTON TO ORDERVILLE. On the way to Panguitch—Section-houses not Mormon homes—Through wild country—Panguitch and its fish—Forbidden pleasures—At the source of the Rio Virgin—The surpassing beauty of Long Valley—The Orderville Brethren—A success in Family Communism. NEXT day we started over the hills for Panguitch, some forty miles off. And here, by the roadside, was pointed out to me one of those "section-houses" which a traveller in Utah once mistook for Mormon "homes," and described "ca
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CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XX.
DOWN THE ONTARIO MINE. "Been down a mine! What on earth did you do that for?" said the elder Sheridan to the younger. "Oh, just to say that I had done it," was the reply. "To say that you had done it! Good gracious! Couldn't you have said that without going down a mine?" No, Mr. Sheridan, you could not; at least not in these latter days. Too many people do it now for the impostor to remain undiscovered. Take my own case, for instance. I had often read descriptions of mine descents, and thought I
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CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXI.
FROM UTAH INTO NEVADA. Rich and ugly Nevada—Leaving Utah—The gift of the Alfalfa—Through a lovely country to Ogden—The great food-devouring trick—From Mormon to Gentile: a sudden contrast—The son of a cinder—Is the red man of no use at all?—The papoose's papoose—Children all of one family. IT is a far cry from the City of the Saints to the city of the Celestials, for Nevada stretches all its hideous length between them, and thus keeps apart the two American problems of the day—pigtails and polyg
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CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXII.
FROM NEVADA INTO CALIFORNIA. Of Bugbears—Suggestions as to sleeping-cars—A Bannack chief, his hat and his retinue—The oasis of Humboldt—Past Carson Sink—A reminiscence of wolves—"Hard places"—First glimpses of California—A corn miracle—Bunch-grass and Bison—From Sacramento to Benicia. IS a bugbear most bug or bear? I never met one yet fairly face to face, for the bugbear is an evasive insect. Nor, if I did meet one, can I say whether I should prefer to find it mainly bug or mainly bear. The latt
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CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
San Franciscans, their fruits and their falsehoods—Their neglect of opportunities—A plague of flies—The pig-tail problem—Chinamen less black than they are painted—The seal rocks—The loss of the Eurydice—A jeweller's fairyland—The mystery of gems. SOMEBODY has poked fun at San Francisco, by calling it the "Venice of the West," and then qualifying the compliment by explaining that the only resemblance between the two cities is in the volume and variety of the disagreeable smells that prevail in th
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CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Gigantic America—Of the treatment of strangers—The wild-life world—Railway Companies' food-frauds—California Felix—Prairie-dog history—The exasperation of wealth—Blessed with good oil—The meek lettuce and judicious onion—Salads and Salads—The perils of promiscuous grazing. I HAD looked forward to my journey from San Francisco to St. Louis with great anticipations, and, though I had no leisure to "stop off" on the tour, I was not disappointed. Six continuous days and nights of railway travelling
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CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXV.
The Carlyle of vegetables—The moral in blight—Bee-farms—The city Of Angels—Of squashes—Curious Vegetation—The incompatibility of camels and Americans—Are rabbits "seals"?—All wilderness and no weather—An "infinite torment of flies." THE cactus is the Carlyle of vegetation. Here, in Southern California, it assumes many of its most uncouth and affected attitudes, puts on all its prickles and its angles, and its blossoms of rare splendour. Those who are better informed than myself assure me that th
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CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THROUGH THE COWBOYS' COUNTRY. The Santa Cruz Valley—The Cactus—An ancient and honourable Pueblo—A terrible Beverage—Are Cicadas deaf?—A floral Catastrophe—The Secretary and the Peccaries. YUMA marks the frontier between California and Arizona. But it might just as well mark the frontier between India and Beluchistan, for it reproduces with exact fidelity a portion of the town of Rohri, in Sind. A broad, full-streamed river (the Colorado) seems to divide the town into two; on the top of its steep
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CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVII.
American neglect of natural history—Prairie-dogs again; their courtesy and colouring—Their indifference to science—A hard crowd—Chuckers out—Makeshift Colorado. "HAVE we struck another city?" I asked on awaking, and finding the train at a standstill. "No, sir," said the conductor, "only a water-tank." "You see," I explained, "there are so many 'cities' on the Railway Companies' maps that one hardly dares to turn one's head from the window, lest one should let slip a few—so I thought it best to a
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CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Nature's holiday—Through wonderful country—Brown negroes a libel on mankind—The wild-flower state—The black problem—A piebald flirt—The hippopotamus and the flea—A narrow escape—The home of the swamp-gobblin—Is the moon a fraud? IN the morning everything had changed. Vegetation was tropical. Black men had supplanted brown. Occasional tracts of rich meadow, with splendid cattle and large-framed horses wading about among the pasture, alternated with brakes of luxuriant foliage concealing the strea
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CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Frogs, in the swamp, and as a side-dish—Negroids of the swamp age—Something like a mouth—Honour in your own country—The Land Of Promise—Civilization again. ARKANSAS remains on the mind (and the traveller's notebook) as a vast forest of fine timber standing in swamps. There are no doubt exceptions, but they do not suffice to affect the general impression. And if I owned Arkansas I think I should rent it to some one else to live in; especially to some one fond of frogs. For myself, I feel no tende
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