I chanced also one day to be with an authority when a man called in to apologize for not having repaid his emigration money; and to me the incident was specially interesting on this account, that very few writers on the Mormons have escaped charging the Church with acting dishonestly and usuriously towards its emigrants. I have read repeatedly that the emigrants, being once in debt, are never able to get out of debt; that the Church prefers they should not; that the indebtedness is held in terrorem over them. But the man before me was in exactly the same position as every other man in Logan. He had been brought out from England at the expense of the Perpetual Emigration Fund (which is maintained partly by the "tithings," chiefly by voluntary donations), and though by his labour he had been able to pay for a lot of ground and to build himself a house, to plant fruit-trees, buy a cow, and bring his lot under cultivation, he had not been able to pay off any of the loan of the Church. It stood, therefore, against him at the original sum. But his delinquency distressed him, and "having things comfortable about him," as he said, and some time to spare, he came of his own accord to his "Bishop," to ask if he could not work of part of his debt. He could not see his way, he said to any ready money, but he was anxious to repay the loan, and he came, therefore, to offer all he had--his labour. Now, I cannot believe that this man was abused. I am sure he did not think he was abused himself. Here he was in Utah, comfortably settled for life, and at no original expense to himself. No one had bothered him to pay up; no one had tacked on usurious interest. So he came, like an honest man, to make arrangements for satisfying a considerate creditor, but all he got in answer was, that "there was time enough to pay" and an exchange of opinions about a plough or a harrow or something. And he went off as crushed down with debt as ever. And he very nearly added to his debt on the way, by narrowly escaping treading on a presumptuous chicken which was reconnoitring the interior of the house from the door-mat.