



Produced by the Mormon Texts Project
(http://mormontextsproject.org), with thanks to Steven
Fluckiger, Mariah Averett, and Lauren McGuinness.








SINNERS AND SAINTS

A TOUR ACROSS THE STATES, AND ROUND THEM

WITH

THREE MONTHS AMONG THE MORMONS


BY PHIL ROBINSON

AUTHOR OF "IN MY INDIAN GARDEN," "UNDER THE PUNKAH," "NOAH'S ARK,'"
ETC., ETC.


NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION


LONDON

1892



Inscribed,

WITH AUTHOR'S GRATITUDE, TO A FRIEND, JOHN STUART DOWNING.



CONTENTS.

--

CHAPTER I.

FROM NEW YORK TO CHICAGO.

By the Pennsylvania Limited--Her Majesty's swine--Glimpses of
Africa and India--"Eligible sites for Kingdoms"--The Phoenix
city--Street scenes--From pig to pork--The Sparrow line--Chicago
Mountain--Melancholy merry-makers.


CHAPTER II.

FROM CHICAGO TO DENVER.

Fathers of Waters--"Rich Lands lie Flat"--The Misery River--Council
Bluffs--A "Live" town, sir--Two murders: a contrast--Omaha--The
immorality of "writing up"--On the prairies--The modesty of
"Wish-ton-Wish"--The antelope's tower of refuge--Out of Nebraska into
Colorado--Man-eating Tiger.


CHAPTER III.

IN LEADVILLE.

The South Park line--Oscar Wilde on sunflowers as food--In a
wash-hand basin--Anti-Vigilance Committees--Leadville the city of
the carbonates--"Busted" millionaires--The philosophy of thick
boots--Colorado miners--National competition in lions--Abuse of the
terms "gentleman" and "lady"--Up at the mines--Under the pine-trees.


CHAPTER IV.

FROM LEADVILLE TO SALT LAKE CITY.

What is the conductor of a Pullman car?--Cannibalism fatal to lasting
friendships--Starving Peter to feed Paul--Connexion between Irish
cookery and Parnellism--Americans not smokers--In Denver--"The Queen
City of the Plains"--Over the Rockies--Pride in a cow, and what came
of it--Sage-brush--Would ostriches pay in the West?--Echo Canyon--The
Mormons' fortifications--Great Salt Lake in sight.


CHAPTER V.

THE CITY OF THE HONEY-BEE.

Zion--Deseret--A City Of Two Peoples--"Work" the watch-word of
Mormonism--A few facts to the credit of the Saints--The text of the
Edmunds Bill--In the Mormon Tabernacle--The closing scene of the
Conference.


CHAPTER VI.

LEGISLATION AGAINST PLURALITY.

A people under a ban--What the Mormon men think of the Anti-Polygamy
Bill--And what the Mormon women say of polygamy--Puzzling
confidences--Practical plurality a very dull affair--But theoretically
a hedge-hog problem--Matrimonial eccentricities--The fashionable
milliner fatal to plurality--Absurdity of comparing Moslem polygamy
with Mormon plurality--Are the women of Utah happy?--Their enthusiasm
for Women's Rights.


CHAPTER VII.

SUA SI BONA NORINT.

A Special Correspondent's lot--Hypothecated wits--The Daughters of
Zion--Their modest demeanour--Under the banner of Woman's Rights--The
discoverer discovered--Turning the tables--"By Jove, sir, you shall
have mustard with your beefsteak!"


CHAPTER VIII.

COULD THE MORMONS FIGHT?

An unfulfilled prophecy--Had Brigham Young been still
alive?--The hierarchy of Mormonism--The fighting Apostle and his
colleagues--Plurality a revelation--Rajpoot infanticide: how it was
stamped out--Would the Mormons submit to the process?--Their fighting
capabilities--Boer and Mormon: an analogy between the Drakensberg and
the Wasatch ranges--The Puritan fanaticism of the Saints--Awaiting the
fulness of time and of prophecy.


CHAPTER IX.

THE SAINTS AND THE RED MEN.

Prevalent errors as to the red man--Secret treaties--The policy of the
Mormons towards Indians--A Christian heathen--Fighting-strength of
Indians friendly to Mormons.


CHAPTER X.

REPRESENTATIVE AND UNREPRESENTATIVE MORMONISM.

Mormonism and Mormonism--Salt Lake City not representative--The
miracles of water--How settlements grow--The town of Logan: one of the
Wonders of the West--The beauty of the valley--The rural simplicity of
life--Absence of liquor and crime--A police force of one man--Temple
mysteries--Illustrations of Mormon degradation--Their settlement of the
"local option" question.


CHAPTER XI.

THROUGH THE MORMON SETTLEMENTS.

Salt Lake City to Nephi--General similarity of the settlements--From
Salt Lake Valley into Utah Valley--A lake of legends--Provo--Into
the Juab valley--Indian reminiscences--Commercial integrity of the
saints--At Nephi--Good work done by the saints--Type of face in rural
Utah--Mormon "doctrine" and Mormon "meetings."


CHAPTER XII.

FROM NEPHI TO MANTI.

English companies and their failures--A deplorable neglect of claret
cup--Into the San Pete Valley--Reminiscences of the Indians--The
forbearance of the red man--The great temple at Manti--Masonry and
Mormon mysteries--In a tithing-house.


CHAPTER XIII.

FROM MANTI TO GLENWOOD.

Scandinavian Mormons--Danish ol--Among the orchards at Manti--On the
way to Conference--Adam and Eve--The protoplasm of a settlement--Ham
and eggs--At Mayfield--Our teamster's theory of the ground-hog--On
the way to Glenwood--Volcanic phenomena and lizards--A suggestion for
improving upon Nature--Primitive Art.


CHAPTER XIV.

FROM GLENWOOD TO MONROE.

From Glenwood to Salina--Deceptiveness of appearances--An apostate
Mormon's friendly testimony--Reminiscences of the Prophet Joseph
Smith--Rabbit-hunting in a waggon--Lost in the sage-brush--A day at
Monroe--Girls riding pillion--The Sunday drum--Waiting for the right
man: "And what if he is married?"--The truth about apostasy: not always
voluntary.


CHAPTER XV.

AT MONROE.

"Schooling" in the Mormon districts--Innocence as to whisky, but
connoisseurs in water--"What do you think of that water, sir?"--Gentile
dependents on Mormon charity--The one-eyed rooster--Notice to All!


CHAPTER XVI.

JACOB HAMBLIN.

A Mormon missionary among the Indians--The story Of Jacob Hamblin's
life--His spiritualism, the result of an intense faith--His good work
among the Lamanites--His belief in his own miracles.


CHAPTER XVII.

THROUGH MARYSVALE TO KINGSTON.

Piute County--Days of small things--A swop in the sage-brush; two
Bishops for one Apostle--The Kings of Kingston--A failure in Family.


CHAPTER XVIII.

FROM KINGSTON TO ORDERVILLE.

On the way to Panguitch--Section-houses not Mormon homes--Through wild
country--Panguitch and its fish--Forbidden pleasures--At the Source of
the Rio Virgin--The surpassing beauty of Long Valley--The Orderville
Brethren--A success in Family Communism.


CHAPTER XIX.

MORMON VIRTUES.

Red ants and anti-Mormons--Ignorance of the Mormons among
Gentiles in Salt Lake City--Mormon reverence for the Bible--Their
struggle against drinking-saloons in the city--Conspicuous piety
in the settlements--Their charity--Their sobriety (to my great
inconvenience)--The literature of Mormonism utterly unreliable--Neglect
of the press by the Saints--Explanation of the wide-spread
misrepresentation of Mormonism.


CHAPTER XX.

DOWN THE ONTARIO MINE


CHAPTER XXI.

FROM UTAH INTO NEVADA.

Rich and ugly Nevada--Leaving Utah--The gift of the Alfalfa--Through a
lovely country to Ogden--The great food devouring trick--From Mormon to
Gentile: a sudden contrast--The son of a cinder--Is the red man of no
use at all?--The papoose's papoose--Children all of one family.


CHAPTER XXII.

FROM NEVADA INTO CALIFORNIA.

Of bugbears--Suggestions as to sleeping-cars--A Bannack chief, his
hat and his retinue--The oasis of Humboldt--Past Carson Sink--A
reminiscence of wolves--"Hard places"--First glimpses of California--A
corn miracle--Bunch-grass and Bison--From Sacramento to Benicia.


CHAPTER XXIII.

San Franciscans, their fruits and their falsehoods--Their neglect
of opportunities--A plague of flies--The pigtail problem--Chinamen
less black than they are painted--The seal rocks--The loss of the
Eurydice--A jeweller's fairyland--The mystery of gems.


CHAPTER XXIV.

Gigantic America--Of the treatment of strangers--The wild-life
world--Railway Companies' food-frauds--California Felix--Prairie-dog
history--The exasperation of wealth--Blessed with good oil--The
meek lettuce and judicious onion--Salads and Salads--The perils of
promiscuous grazing.


CHAPTER XXV.

The Carlyle of vegetables--The moral in blight--Bee-farms--The city of
Angels--Of squashes--Curious vegetation--The incompatibility of camels
and Americans--Are rabbits "seals"?--All wilderness and no weather--An
"infinite torment of flies."


CHAPTER XXVI.

THROUGH THE COWBOYS' COUNTRY.

The Santa Cruz valley--The cactus--An ancient and honourable pueblo--A
terrible beverage--Are cicadas deaf?--A floral catastrophe--The
secretary and the peccaries.


CHAPTER XXVII.

American neglect of natural history--Prairie-dogs again; their courtesy
and colouring--Their indifference to science--A hard crowd--Chuckers
out--Makeshift Colorado.


CHAPTER XXVIII.

Nature's holiday--Through wonderful country--Brown <DW64>s a libel
on mankind--The Wild-flower State--The black problem--A piebald
flirt--The hippopotamus and the flea--A narrow escape--The home of the
swamp-goblin--Is the moon a fraud?


CHAPTER XXIX.

Frogs, in the swamp and as a side-dish--Negroids of the swamp
age--Something like a mouth--Honour in your own country--The Land of
Promise--Civilization again.



CHAPTER I.

FROM NEW YORK TO CHICAGO.

    By the Pennsylvania Limited--Her Majesty's swine--Glimpses of
    Africa and India--"Eligible sites for Kingdoms"--The Phoenix
    city--Street scenes--From pig to pork--The Sparrow line--Chicago
    Mountain--Melancholy merry-makers.

"DOES the fast train to Chicago ever stop?" was the question of a
bewildered English fellow-passenger, Westward-bound like myself, as I
took my seat in the car of the Pennsylvania Limited mail that was to
carry me nearly half the distance from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
"Oh, yes," I replied, "it stops--at Chicago."

By this he recognized in me a fellow-innocent, and so we foregathered
at once, breakfasted together, and then went out to smoke the calumet
together.

--

To an insular traveller, it is a prodigiously long journey this,
across the continent of America, but I found the journey a perpetual
enjoyment. Even the dull country of the first hour's travelling had
many points of interest for the stranger--scattered hamlets of wooden
houses that were only joined together by straggling strings of cocks
and hens; the others that seemed to have been trying to scramble over
the hill and down the other side but were caught just as they got to
the top and pinned down to the ground with lightning conductors; the
others that had palings round them to keep them from running away, but
had got on to piles as if they were stilts and intended (when no one
was looking) to skip over the palings and go away; the others that had
rows of dwarf fir-trees in front of them, through which they stared out
of both their windows like a forward child affecting to be shy behind
its fingers. These fir-trees are themselves very curious, for they give
the country a half-cultivated appearance, and in some places make the
hillsides and valleys look like immense cemeteries, and only waiting
for the tombstones. Even the levels of flooded land and the scorched
forests were of interest, as significant of a country still busy over
its rudiments.

"All charcoal and puddles," said a fellow-traveller disparagingly; "I'm
very glad we're going so fast through it."

Now for my own part I think it looks very uncivil of a train to go
with a screech through a station without stopping, and I always wish I
could say something in the way of an apology to the station-master for
the train's bad manners. No doubt people who live in very small places
get accustomed to trains rushing past their platforms without stopping
even to say "By your leave." But at first it must be rather painful.
At least I should think it was. On the other hand, the people "in the
mofussil" (which is the Anglo-Indian for "all the country outside one's
own town") did not pay much attention to our train. Everybody went
about their several works for all the world as if we were not flashing
by. Even the dogs trotted about indifferently, without even so much as
noticing us, except occasionally some distant mongrel, who barked at
the train as if it was a stray bullock, and smiled complacently upon
the adjoining landscape when he found how thoroughly he had frightened
it away.

There seemed to me a curious dearth of small wild life. The English
"country" is so full of birds that all others seem, by comparison,
birdles. Once, I saw a russet-winged hawk hovering over a copse of
water-oak as if it saw something worth eating there; once, too, I saw
a blue-bird brighten a clump of cedars. Now and again a vagabond crow
drifted across the sky. But, as compared with Europe or parts of the
East which I know best, bird-life was very scanty.

And presently Philadelphia came sliding along to meet us with a stately
decorum of metalled roads and well-kept public grounds, and we stopped
for the first of the twelve halts, worth calling such, which I had to
make in the 3000 miles between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

How treacherously the trains in America start! There is no warning
given, so far as an ordinary passenger can see, that the start is under
contemplation, and it takes him by surprise. The American understands
that "All aboard" means "If you don't jump up at once you'll be left
behind." But to those accustomed to a "first" and a "second" and a
"third" bell--and accustomed, too, not to get up even then until the
guard has begged them as a personal favour to take their seats--the
sudden departure of the American locomotive presents itself as a rather
shabby sort of practical joke.

The quiet, unobtrusive scenery beyond Philadelphia is English in
character, and would be still more so if there were hedges instead
of railings. By the way, whenever reading biographical notices of
distinguished Americans I have been surprised to find that so many of
them at one time or other had "split rails" for a subsistence. But now
that I have followed the "course of empire" West, I am not the least
surprised. I only wonder that every American has not split rails, at
one time or another, or, indeed, gone on doing it all his life. For
how such a prodigious quantity of rails ever got split (even supposing
distinguished men to have assisted in the industry in early life)
passes my feeble comprehension. All the way from New York to Chicago
there are on an average twenty lines of split rails running parallel
with the railway track, in sight all at once! And after all, this is
only one narrow strip across a gigantic continent. In fact, the two
most prominent "natural features" of the landscape along this route are
dwarf firs and split rails. But no writer on America has ever told me
so. Nor have I ever been told of the curious misapprehension prevalent
in the States as to the liberty of the subject in the British Isles.

In America, judging at any rate from the speech of "the average
American," I find that there is a belief prevalent that the English
nation "lies prostrate under the heel of a tyrant." What a shock to
those who think thus, must have been that recent episode of the queen's
pigs at Slough!

Six swine and a calf belonging to her Majesty found themselves, the
other day, impounded by the Slough magistrates for coming to market
without a licence. Slough, from geographical circumstances over which
it has no control, happens to be in Buckinghamshire, and this country
has been declared "an infected district," so that the bailiff who
brought his sovereign's pigs to market, without due authority to do
so, transgressed the law. Two majesties thus came into collision
over the calf, and that of the law prevailed. Such a constitutional
triumph as this goes far to clear away the clouds that appeared to be
gathered upon the political horizon, and the shadows of a despotic
dictatorship which seemed to be falling across England begin to
vanish. The written law, contained probably in a very dilapidated
old copy in the possession of these rural magistrates, a dogs'-eared
and, it may be, even a ragged volume, asserted itself supreme over a
monarch's farmyard stock, and