Indeed the governor suggests that it may have been "the promptings of a secret instinct," which led the "Mormons" to "discern their fellows" and induced them to settle in Hancock in preference to other localities open to them. All which may be regarded as an ingenious thrust at the Latter-day Saints, but which fails of reaching its mark from the fact that it was the criminal element chiefly in Hancock county's population which arrayed itself in antagonism against the Saints, and against whom they were arrayed in all their conflicts in that county. Whereas, under the governor's theory, this criminal element among the "old citizens" and the Saints should have been as hand in glove in their cooperation of encompassing evil things. But to the contrary; from the time the "Mormons" appeared on the scenes at Commerce, in 1839, until they were expelled, they steadfastly and emphatically set their faces against the evils that cursed that community, and denounced all manner of evil both as manifested in a few of their own delinquent members, apostates and camp followers who trailed after the main body of the Church from Missouri, as well as in others: such as dram-drinking, swearing, Sabbath-breaking, contracting debts under pretense of poverty and distress without any prospects or intention of paying, [7] and especially did they denounce stealing, under any and all pretexts whatsoever. [8] And as it was largely the criminal element among the "old citizens" that was arrayed against the Saints (with unprincipled politicians and a few bigoted and jealous religious leaders added), so was it the conservative and law-abiding portion of the community among whom they had many friends; and nearly all of whom were at least so far friendly with the Saints that they could not be induced to oppose them, much less join in acts of mob violence to the injury of their persons or property; for which reason this portion of the non-Mormon population were called by the contemptuous name of "Jack-Mormons," which epithet was invented by the editor of the Warsaw _Signal,_ Thomas C. Sharp, who also originated the term "Jack-Mason" when editing an anti-Masonic paper in western New York. In all probability it was this second name which suggested the first. {XXVIII} _VII. Educational Status of the People of Western Illinois._