Modern Leaders: Being a Series of Biographical SketchesMcCarthy, Justin
History
Modern Leaders: Being a Series of Biographical Sketches
McCarthy, Justin
Biography
The place is unspeakably dreary. Hardly any women are ever seen in the
streets, except on the Sunday, when all the families pour in to service
in the huge Tabernacle. Most of the dwelling houses round the city are
pent in behind walls. Most of the houses, too, have their dismal little
_sucursales_, one or two or more, built on to the sides--and in each of
these additions or wings to the original building a different wife and
family are caged. There are no flower gardens anywhere. Children are
bawling everywhere. Sometimes a wretched, slatternly, dispirited woman
is seen lounging at the door or hanging over the gate of a house with a
baby at her breast. More often, however, the house, or clump of houses,
gives no external sign of life. It stands back gloomy in the sullen
shade of its thick fruit trees, and might seem untenanted if one did not
hear the incessant yelling of the children. We saw the women in
hundreds, probably in thousands, at the Tabernacle on the Sunday--and
what women they were! Such faces, so dispirited, depressed, shapeless,
hopeless, soulless faces! No trace of woman's graceful pride and
neatness in these slatternly, shabby, slouching, listless figures; no
purple light of youth over these cheeks; no sparkle in these
half-extinguished eyes. I protest that only in some of the _cretin_
villages of the Swiss mountains have I seen creatures in female form so
dull, miserable, moping, hopeless as the vast majority of these Mormon
women. As we leave the Tabernacle, and walk slowly down the street amid
the crowd, we see two prettily-dressed, lively-looking girls, who laugh
with each other and are seemingly happy, and we thank Heaven that there
are at least two merry, spirited girls in Salt Lake City. A few days
after we meet our blithesome pair at Mintah station; and they are
travelling with their father and mother on to San Francisco, whither we
too are going--and we learn that they are not Mormons, but
Gentiles--pleasant lasses from Philadelphia who had come with their
parents to have a passing look at the externals of Mormonism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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