private-property system interferes with, and limits this arrangement, by imposing upon every one the duty of a watch-dog over his own little pile. True, he may hire a lawyer to be his watch-dog; but it is rather expensive, and there still remains the necessity for watching the dog.

"Again it is the appropriate work of civilization, to supply the individ. ual's every want in the most economical manner, and therefore on the largest scale consistent with the exigencies of business. But the institution of the little separate household, steps in and limits this work at a certain point, declaring that civilization shall go no further than to furnish material more or less elaborated for human use, and that the finishing touches of this work must be performed by means of the expensive, wearing, monotonous, and, we might add, Indian and uncivilized methods, which necessarily pertain, in a greater or lesser degree to the isolated household.

"For another thing, the motives for industry that are held out to man under the private-property system, are of the lowest and coarsest kind. We have already shown that this is true of the savage condition. 'Root, hog, or die,' says barbarous society to its members. Root, hog, or die,' echoes the private-property system. It may be objected to this view of the matter, that it is an inexorable law of our being that applies as well to civilized as to savage society, that if any would not work neither should he eat. We subscribe heartily to that doctrine, but at the same time hold that there are many motives for industry that are infinitely higher than that of merely getting a living. We maintain that in a true state of heart-civilization, these higher motives could be more successfully appealed to, and that this rule of the private-property system, which appeals so constantly to the lower motive, may be classed with the law spoken of in Scripture, which is made for the lawless and disobedient. One of the evil fruits of this constant appeal to the lower motive for activity is, that it leads people to regard all labor as a curse, and a state of plethoric sloth as the highest earthly heaven.

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'But,' says an objector, 'supposing that we were to admit, for the sake of the argument, that the institutions of private property and marriage are relics of barbarism. Pray tell us how you propose to change things for the better? What is your higher cultivation, and how will you introduce it? Do you propose to banish the private-property and marriage systems at once, because they are barbarous institutions? A pretty mess you

would make of it l'

"No, Mr. Objector, I don't propose to do any such thing. It is rather too large a job for me or any one man to undertake. Indeed it appears to be a work of such magnitude as to be worthy of no less a power than that of the Almighty himself to take the control of. And this thought suggests the idea that he may have particularly directed the advance of civilization

in the past, and that we might profitably study the work that he has already done, with a view to discovering his plan in regard to it and to form. ing some estimate of what we might reasonably expect in the future. Patrick Henry said, 'that he knew of no means of judging the future but by the past.' Though we may not all of us subscribe to that doctrine in its fullest extent, yet it is generally admitted to be a pretty safe way of reasoning. We may perhaps in another paper take up and discuss the methods by which civilization has progressed in the past, with a view to discover how we might reasonably expect that it will ultimately displace these barbarous institutions that we have been considering."

Fig. 170.

The date of copyright of this book shows when the foregoing matter was prepared. The Oneida Community was then an interesting social experiment, and the writer thought it worthy of notice in these pages. Complex marriage and other exceptional features of this experiment were abandoned in the year 1881,"by unanimous consent," as a member informs us, but at a time when there was a determined assault upon the complex marriage system by outsiders who were intent upon procuring legislative measures, if necessary, for its suppression. The property interests were, at the same time, re-adjusted by the formation of a joint stock corporation, "The Oneida Community, Limited," and

the division of stock among the members. A large number of marriages took place among the members of the old Community immediately after the change, and they now live in separate families on the monogamic plan. Apparently a preference for this change was developing among the members within coincident with the pressure exerted from without.

The other open departure from our monogamic system of marriage, referred to in the introduction of this subject, has been suppressed by congressional statutes since this book was first issued.

IN UTAH, among the Mormons, we had polygamy of what was claimed to be a Christian type, and, as a social study, we permit the account to remain unaltered, as it was written. A man by the inevitabl name of Smith was born in 1805, who, during his boyhood, had man

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visions, and soon after emerging from his "teens," was directed by an angel of the Lord to a place where he found some gold plates bearing an unintelligible record. But apples never grew without hands to pick them, and beautiful landscapes were never made without eyes to see them. Fortunately for Smith, a pair of gold spectacles were found in the same earth, with which he could read all the gold plates had to say, and the stones of these spectacles were called the "Urim and Thummim;" the characters on the plates were "Reformed Egyptian," but sitting behind a screen where no one could see him and with the aid of the aforesaid spectacles, Joseph, surnamed Smith, was able to read and interpret them, while a man outside the screen took down all that Joseph read to him.

The manuscripts were printed in 1830, making a volume of several hundred pages, and this publication was straightway called the "Book of Mormon," and by some the "Golden Bible." This work now consists of sixteen distinct books, professing to have been written at different periods by successive prophets.

The Mormon Church was first organized in the State of New York, but soon after removed to Kirtland, Ohio, where an immense temple was built. Here Smith was joined by Brigham Young and several others, who have become prominent in the Mormon Church. Pecuniary disasters finally drove them from Ohio to Missouri, and the incensed people of the latter State made such war upon them that they were expelled from its borders. Their next foothold became more permanent. They built another costly temple at Nauvoo, Illinois, and finally a considerable city; and Smith the Great was not only the prophet of the church, but the mayor of Nauvoo. Polyg amy had not been thought of however until about 1838, when Smith "persuaded several women to cohabit with him, calling them his spiritual wives." This occasioned a matrimonial rumpus in Smith's family, for his legal wife was made jealous by the conduct of the prophet; but the family fracas ended by the complete surrender of the incensed wife, who, to pacify her Smith, received in the summer of 1843 a revelation authorizing polygamy." The church first disputed this, and proclaimed itself opposed to polygamy, but ten years later it openly accepted the revelation and defended the new order of things. There was however a large number of dissenters, between whom and the prophet there arose a sharp conflict, resulting in the death of Smith by a bullet from a mob. Finally Nauvoo was cannonaded for three In the autumn of 1848 Brigham days, and all the Mormons were driven out. Young, who succeeded Smith as prophet and leader, found himself surrounded by the faithful at Salt Lake, Utah, where the church has flourished and received accessions till it numbers in Utah, at this writing, one hun. dred thousand members. For the facts from which I have made up the foregoing brief narrative of the Mormons up to the time of their settlement

in Utah, I am indebted to the New American Cyclopedia. The subjoined information with all the quotations are derived from an interesting book by William Hepworth Dixon, recently published and entitled "New America." Mr. Dixon was hospitably received by the "saints," and consequently enjoyed unusual opportunities to observe the domestic life of these strange people.

"Look around you,'said Young to me, 'if you want to know what kind of people we are. Nineteen years ago this valley was a desert, growing nothing but the wild sage and the dwarfed sunflowers; we who came into it brought nothing with us but a few oxen and wagons and a bag of seeds and roots; the people who came after us, many of them weavers and artisans brought nothing, not a cent, not even skill and usage of the soil; and when you look from this balcony you can see what we have made of it.'

"These people are gathered from all quarters of the world, for when Young wants a 'missionary,' he picks his man whether he finds him in the street, workshop, or field, and dispatches him at once with an empty purse into the Gentile world to preach the Mormon gospel; the saints boast that when they go out to convert the Gentiles they carry with them no purse, no scrip; that they go forth naked and alone, to do the Lord's work in the Lord's way; trusting in no arm of flesh, in no power of gold, taking no thought of what they shall eat and where they shall lie down; but put their lives and fortune wholly in the hands of God. Thus these enthusiastic missionaries have started out for Liverpool, Damascus, Delhi, and Pekin, and reach those localities, too, by resorting to all sorts of labor on the way. At Utah to the craftsman they promise mills; to the peasant, farms. The heaven of which they tell is not placed wholly beyond the grave; earth itself is, in their opinion, a part of heaven; and as the earth and all that is in it are the Lord's, they announce that these riches of the earth are the true inheritance of his saints."

On their arrival the new converts are in reality taken care of. "A bishop's main function is to see that no man in his ward or in his county, is in want of food and raiment; in the Lord's name he takes from the prosperous what is necessary for the needy, for the whole earth is the Lord's.' There is also a tithing office which extracts from the rich a reasonable share of their revenue, whether of money or produce, and at this place the poor may obtain succor; the wants of the poor take precedence of the wants of the church. A special fund is raised for the relief of necessitous saints, and Young himself, the servant of all, discharges in person the troublesome duties of this trust."

Labor is provided for all; Mr. Dixon visited a meeting of the bishops called for the purpose of attending to the welfare of a fresh lot of Mormons from the Gentile world. The old men," he says, "gathered in a ring.

and Edward Hunter, their presiding bishop, questioned each and all as to the work going on in his ward, the building, painting, draining, gardening; also as to what this man needed and that man needed in the way of help. An emigrant train had just come in, and the bishops had to put six hundred persons in the way of growing their cabbages and building their homes. One bishop said he could take five bricklayers, another two carpenters, a third a tinman, a fourth seven or eight farm servants, and so on through the whole bench. In a few minutes, I saw that two hundred of these poor emigrants had been placed in the way of earning their daily bread. 'This,' said Young with a sly little smile, 'is one of the labors of our bishops.' I confess," says Dixon, "I could not see much harm in it.

"The saints, as a rule, are not poor, in the sense in which the Irish are poor; not needy as a race, a body, and a church; indeed for a new society starting with nothing, and having its fortunes to make by labor, they are rich. Utah is sprinkled with farms and gardens; the hill-sides are pictured with flocks and herds and the capital city, the New Jerusalem, is finely laid out and nobly built. Every man labors with his hand and brain; the people are frugal; their fields cost them nothing; and the wealth created by their industry is great. To multiply flocks and herds, to lay up corn and wheat, is with them to obey the commands of God."

Women, as well as men do something. "Young's house," says Dixon, "is called the Bee-hive; in it no drone ever finds a place; for the prophet's wives are bound to support themselves by needle-craft, teaching, spinning, dyeing yarn, and preserving fruit. On men fall the heavier toils of the field, the ditch, and the hill-side, where they break the ground, dam up the river, fell the maple and the dwarf oak, pasture the cattle, and catch the wild horse. But the sexes take each their share of the common task, rearing houses, planting gardens, starting workshops, digging mines; each with a strain of energy and passion never found on the eastern slopes of this Wasatch Chain.

"The ministry is unprofessional and unpaid. Prophets, presidents, bishops, elders, all pursue their vocations in the city and on the soil." With all their industry, however, they take time for amusement and recrea tion. "The earth, according to the Mormon idea, is a paradise made for their enjoyment. Young may be described as a minister of mirth; having built a great theatre in which his daughters play comedies and interludes; having built a social hall in which the young of both sexes dance and sing; and having set the example of balls and music parties both in the open air and under private roofs. Concerts and operas are constantly being given. Water-parties, picnics, all the contrivances for innocent amusement, have his hearty sanction. Care is bestowed on the ripening of grapes, on the culture of peaches, on the cooking of food; so that an epicure may chance