The Complete Works of Artemus Ward (HTML edition)Ward, Artemus
General
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward (HTML edition)
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
The President of this remarkable community--the head of the Mormon
Church--is Brigham Young.--He is called President Young--and Brother
Brigham. He is about 54 years old--altho' he doesn't look to be over
45. He has sandy hair and whiskers--is of medium height--and is a
little inclined to corpulency. He was born in the State of Vermont.
His power is more absolute than that of any living sovereign--yet he
uses it with such consummate discretion that his people are almost
madly devoted to him--and that they would cheerfully die for him if they
thought the sacrifice were demanded--I cannot doubt.
He is a man of enormous wealth.--One-tenth of everything sold in the
territory of Utah goes to the Church--and Mr. Brigham Young is the
Church. It is supposed that he speculates with these funds--at all
events--he is one of the wealthiest men now living--worth several
millions--without doubt.--He is a bold--bad man--but that he is also
a man of extraordinary administrative ability no one can doubt who has
watched his astounding career for the past ten years. It is only fair
for me to add that he treated me with marked kindness during my sojourn
in Utah.
The West Side of Main Street--Salt Lake City--including a view of
the Salt Lake Hotel. It is a temperance hotel*. I prefer temperance
hotels--altho' they sell worse liquor than any other kind of hotels.
But the Salt Lake Hotel sells none--nor is there a bar in all Salt Lake
City--but I found when I was thirsty--and I generally am--that I could
get some very good brandy of one of the Elders--on the sly--and I never
on any account allow my business to interfere with my drinking.
*(At the date of our visit, there was only one place in Salt Lake City
where strong drink was allowed to be sold. Brigham Young himself owned
the property, and vended the liquor by wholesale, not permitting any
of it to be drunk on the premises. It was a coarse, inferior kind of
whisky, known in Salt Lake as "Valley Tan." Throughout the city there
was no drinking-bar nor billiard room, so far as I am aware. But a
drink on the sly could always be had at one of the hard-goods stores,
in the back office behind the pile of metal saucepans; or at one of
the dry-goods stores, in the little parlor in the rear of the bales of
calico. At the present time I believe that there are two or three open
bars in Salt Lake, Brigham Young having recognized the right of the
"Saints" to "liquor up" occasionally. But whatever other failings
they may have, intemperance cannot be laid to their charge. Among the
Mormons there are no paupers, no gamblers, and no drunkards.)
There is the Overland Mail Coach.--That is, the den on wheels in which
we have been crammed for the past ten days and ten nights.--Those of
you who have been in Newgate*
-----------------------------------------------------------and stayed
there any length of time--as visitors--can realize how I felt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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