Co-operation, by the way, is an important feature of Mormon life, and never, perhaps, so much on men's tongues and in their minds as at the present time. The whole community has been aroused by the consistent teaching of their leaders in their addresses at public "meetings," in their prayers in private households, to a sense of the "suicidal folly," as they call it, of making men wealthy (by their patronage) who use their power against the Saints; and the Mormons have set themselves very sincerely to work to trade only with themselves and to starve out the Gentiles. And it is very difficult indeed for an unprejudiced man not to sympathize in some measure with the Mormons. By their honesty they have made the name "Mormon" respected in trade all over America, and have attracted shopkeepers, who on this very honesty have thriven and become wealthy in Utah--and yet some of these men, knowing nothing of the people except that they are straightforward in their dealings and honourable in their engagements, join in the calumny that the Mormons are a "rascally," "double-dealing" set. For my own part, I think the Church should have starved out some of these slanderers long ago. Even now it would be a step in the right direction if the Church slipped a "fighting apostle" at the men who go on day after day saying and writing that which they know to be untrue, calling, for instance, virtuous, hard-working men and women "the villainous spawn of polygamy," and advocating the encouragement of prostitutes as a "reforming agency for Mormon youth"! Meanwhile "co-operation" as a religious duty is the doctrine while of the day, and Gentile trade is already suffering in consequence. The movement is a very important one to the Territory, for if carried out on the proper principles of co-operation, the people will live more cheaply here than in any other State in America. As it is, many imported articles, thanks to co-operative competition, are cheaper here than further east, and when the boycotting is in full swing many more articles will also come down in price, as the Gentiles' profits will then be knocked off the cost to the purchaser. Every settlement, big and little, has its "co-op.," and the elders when on tour through the outlying hamlets lose no opportunity for encouraging the movement and extending it.