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Leader (1850-1860), 27th June 1857, Edition 1 of 2, Page 619

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      Untitled Article

      sensible and unprejudiced account . Respecting the particular polygamy of the Mormons also , he puts forward some suggestive and just remarks : — Apart from the deeper and more social deterioration polygamy must effect , it will , wherever it exist 9 , be abused more ox less for mere purposes of sensuality ; nevertheless , where it is not regarded as illicit or opposed to Teligion , and is sanctioned by law and custom , the generality of men ( I think ) are scarcely more impelled by mere sensual feeling in taking a second' or a third wife tllan others in « first marriage . Of the Mormons , thus much I can . say from having mixed with , them : first , the . community at large—for about the few who maintain . large harems 1 say nothingbelieve the custom allowable and good . Secondly , as a matter of fact , they are not a sp ecially sensual people ; nor , from the nature of the country , as already described , could an indolent race avoid starving . Men in Utah cannot obtain divorces except fox one cause ; women may obtain it upon trifling grounds , such as disagreement "with other wives ; but family ruptures of this kind are by no means common : —

      The wretchedness of wives in ( Dtah has been greatly exaggerated . It is rtrue there can be no position more painful than that of a woman who has come to Salt Lake half ignorant of the ^ adstence of polygamy , and , perhaps , a Mormon only because her husband is so , when she finds him about to take another wife . Many actually do live in a continually vague fear of such an event , and , perhaps , by the favour of poverty after all escape it- ; those again -who have been divorced , no doubt , have little love " for this ' peeuliar institution ; ' though from more external reasons . But one must . look to the average , not to the exceptions . The Mormons are not generally licentious or addicted to drinking ; swearing is rare ; and theft is prohibited . by one of the most tremendous . acts of la * " ' r framed ; that is to say , when a man has stolen three or *~ " * % . statute-book declares that ' he may disappear , ' and jip one

      ^ - ; ham . M . chapters of formal .-tbne-ugh pleasant description , jMt . glps about ins personal experience in Utah , and thus sketches f | c » f a happy Mormon family :- — ¦ C Vas a handsome girl of seventeen ; ler Imsban& ' s cousin ., anil not ^ , she was a vast favourite with all their children whom she petted Ips she had been a playmate previously . " Give me a drink , tne , Liddy , " " Won ' t you mend my coat ( or my frock ) , Liddy V | Lue household . They » ev « r ^ sailed her " aunt , " as they did the S § L ^ , ~ - ~ ~ ^ vf ^ re taught to do , upon the principle of all the wives being sisters : not but what the rest were fond -enough of each other ' s children—almost as fond indeed , - as if -they had been realty aunts , and the children were quite as fond of them Tbe latter , indeed , when tfebey wanted a game at play , always congregated into ' Awnt Elizabeth ^ ( the eldest wife ' s ) 100 m , for she waB less particular about a « racket' thau the otiaeis , and her thraatemngs were Jong delayed in execution .

      We have next a glimpse t > f their economy . Each -wife in this household hail a separate bedroom ; two shared a -sitting-TOOm ; but they passed from one to another and took all their meals together ; the children wei-e sweetmannered ; but there was a blot upon the polish of the Mormons : Two or three things one may remark in all discussions with Mormons ; they speak of the subject of ' plurality ' before their wives without any restraint , argue the physical and mental inferiority of the female sex , and even touch on subjects too delicate , or too indelicate , to be heard without calling up a blush on the cheeks of any modest woman elsewhere . Sometimes the women would become very brusque -with their husbands , and half savage with myself , the innocent cause of the argument ; but & blush seldom rises in Utah : Mormons rather think it a roerrt to speak in very plain . language of « those things we know naturally , ' and run freedom from affectation into coarseness . Whether or not this springs necessarily from polygamy ( as 1 hardly suppose ) , it Is a Bign , and must be a cause , of -moral deterioration . This isperhaps , the most peculiar . account in Mormon manners —

      , The oae special point of romance here' ( and yon must look close for it ) , is the relation in whinh married men and girls . stand to each other : elsewhere , the attentions of tiie former to the , latter pass for nothing . ; here a girl iaows that her partner may at any moment be her lover i » nd her suitor , though his wife is dancing in the vis-avis and many a flirtation is tbuoyed up by the circumstance . . Men , too , of the brighter sort , love to use their position , and cany on canvas that would capsize a monogamist craft . Second and third wives take little heed of the fluting or the wooing ; but yon may now . and then see a woman glancing too eagerly round , and from her half-concealed jealousy and hatred , and fear predominating over the other two , you may guqsa , what ywau will be told , that the watcher ia an only wife .: other women , if they see lier , will come and tell her * h / e is no Mormon to look so after her husbanded laugh at her foolish expectation of keeping an * ntire husband to herself

      . . , Such scenes are exceptional , for polygamy as not the most prominent characteristic of Mormon society , without , therefore , commending the institutions of the Salt Lake , we are glad to have a report from a discreet and cand " d traveller ; and Whwe no doubt that some who read rtml be nsto-Sedto find nothing said about Mercian revels , the public baptism of Srobed ladies lily-white / or those other horrors and wonders wuulljr comprised in a full , true , and particular account of the Moamoas .

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      . A NEW NOVEL . Anne Shemood ; or , Tho Social Instilliom of Umlmd . 3 vols (^ ^ 2 —Those who read wniply for aniusomunt niny find what they seek m Ajme ShenvTot ! Those who cure for the opinions of an unknown writer willed them stated with mudMoxu emphasis and illustrated w th o « toaordin « iy holdnes * bu let Cone intent upon studying the , boohiI inatitirtiana . of Eniland be deceived by this title-page- A more artificial or repulsive picsmmmm ^ other sort of lcodIo . Wo suppose it u ma » lly °° » d , ? » \ TJ £ ¦ ° colonel

      obtain , first , the ! brta , o of ™ opataBt oM , anu ™» « " ^ ™ » " watfrA ^ j ^ 'SS s ^ idbw ^^^

      so far as to strike up a beggar ' s ballad in the street ; but the one , ultimately planted in a curate ' s cottage , ripens into the sweetest fruit pf earthly content and piety , while the other , engaged as teacher in a fashionable family is insulted by { he silent scorn of a white beauty with a perfect busfj , and , in the end , hears of that -white beauty ' s elopement with a young peer , and herself marries the deserted husband—but only to punish , . him . She has previously , however , married an . ancient colonel , in . his moral dotage , who dies on the wedding-day ,, and . is laid < out in his dress-boots and old-fashioned finery ; ultimately , her second husband also dies , and Anne sees ihe repentant young peer at 3 ier Ceet . He goes , however , where glory waits him , : a * Balaklavaj * and might have returned at last to marry irs own Anne had mot some Russian gurmer bowled him down . It is impossible to say more of Anne Sherwood than that it is an ingenious adaptation of extravagance .

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      NEW EDITIONS . We have the following -new editions on our table : —Mr . G . P . R . James ' s romantic novel , The Woodman , and Grattan ' s Curse of the " Black Lady , with other Tales , reprinted in the Parlour library ( Hodgson ); The Lion of Flanders , The Miser , and JVOss Pardoe ' s Home ., in the The Amusing Library ( Lambert and Co . ) . ; Bon GauMer ' s delightfulJSoctZ- of JBaUads , now issued , for the tffth time , with illustrations by Leech , Doyle , and Crowquill ; Gossip , by Mr- Heurr Morley , a scholarly and pleasant volume ( Chapman and Hall ) of Miscellanies from Household Words ; JZssags mid Sketches , by the late WilEam Pitt Scarglll ( Hardwicke ) ; and Mr . Hanxuty ' s Euxtoce Gonyers ( Chapman ' s two-shilling series ) . Messrs Chapman and Hall haveissued the first volume of ^ Lever ' s Tom Burke of * ' Ours" with illustrations by Hablot K . iro-mie , -well suited to the bold and brilliant dash of the -story . To Mr . Bonn ' s Classical Library has been added a new literal translation of The Metaphysics of Aristotle , " -with , notes , analyses , questions , and index , by the Rev . John H . M'Mahon , 3 VLA ., Gold Medalist in Logic and Ethics . The edition appears meritorious .

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      m —?¦—MADAME BISTORI .--CAMMA . Camma is a mixed production , written under the influence of two contending theories—a compromise between the Alfierian tragedy and the class of drama to wltiqh Adnenne JLecauvrear belongs . Signer Mgnieak 3 b : i . i . i was ^ evidently uncertain whether he ehonld adhere to or-discard the unities and proprieties ; whether he should imitate the grim but grand old moSe ! , or take advantage of the licence which modem stage . practice allows . The result is any thing but satisfactory ; and , in spite of the immense talent thrown into her part by Madame Ristohx , we may safely predict that Comma will gradually drop © ut of sight , i > it be not definitively condemned , so far as . England is concerned . When it was last played on Monday , the applause-was purely polite ; and intended , it may be , partly to cheer the actress , partly , perhaps , as complimentary to the author , if -we can suppose an English audience animated by good feeling so gratuitous . Both Madame Eistoki and Signor Monxaneixi left the impression of great power but not the power to interest which their reputations promise . Tie story of Camma is simply one of vengeance , and tends to the death of one man by poison treacherously given as satisfaction for the death of another . The heroine , who has lost her own husband by murder , marries the assassin in order ± o share the bridal cup made poisonous by her own hands with him ; and both perish , one despairing , the other in ecstatic joy . Here was a horrible and repulsive subject , that might reasonably be chosen , however , because xt could not fail to supply Madame Kibtoki with opportunities to develop the peculiarities of her genius . But it was the duty of the poet to excuse the horror and diminish the repulsivenees as much as possible . When we read his tragedyit seems that he has done bo . Great art is . expended in raising our sympathy with Sinato , the husband , our hatred against Sinoro , the murderer . But . Signor MoNTANEixi has forgotten that on the stage the testimony of the eye often contradicts the testimony of tlie ear , and impressions struggle ' victoriously with allegations . This is the general reason why playe , supposed beforehand to be sure of success on the stage , so often fail miBernbly ; and also why plays that appear , on inspection in the cabinet , to possess no dramatic qualities , meet occa-Bionallv with signal triumphs . The object of the drama is to produce a series of ( pictures or groups—animated and eloquent— by means of uliicli a $ tory is evolved Jf these are clearly conceived , and the chain is not much broken by soliloquy or bustle , the laws of ' construction '—the despair of young dramatic writers , that often remains a mystery even to the oldest—are complied wifcli . Signor MoNTANExaa . has not attended to these rules . He introduces interlocutors but not groups—at least in moat cases—Ttdese and JJiouara , GUdo and . Taleee and so iorali—who narrate incidents and describe the passions and adventures of absent people . Wbeu Camma comes upon the stage , there is certainly more life and motion . But no one can have failed to remark tuat , at anv rate her early outbursts of passion and feeling seemed tho product rather of Bomc ffalvawic proceaa than of any natural occurrence . JGven the select / portion of the audience familiar with the language were unprepared for tlicua . 1 hey wero not accounted for—so far as the strtgo was concerned . The fact is , Comma ough t to h « we bogun , in t / he good old Massinguk style , with a grand departure of Stoato -a IIbotou and Akx . b 0 Macijb parting—a murder on tho « tAgo amidst darkness Mnd terror . The despair of Camma would then huvo been , it we may so speak , opticaJJy understood « nd relished ; and tho audionoe might Imve sympathized SSth lSr in her project of vengeance . Signor Montaneiu was evidently led nstrny from alis simple idea by the absorbing reflection t » mt he hwl but one S ^ aSSTto provide for-that he was not ^ pected . to g . ve any Intereatuiff Kurt to one of the male actors of tho company . What is the result ? When Taten conies in to tell Camma that her husband )« s boon murdered , lie coffltnunicates In an » side to a rather troublesome follow culled OUdo tho fact that Dimtara has been left hy him—La sul oammin doi niirti tramortota ; and then very lengthily com . nupicates his sad intelligence . Madame JJ" ™*" hore liyr 6 rief , despair , and desire of -vengeance mi . gmflce . Uly , bu does nod oulfo cSJce the utrnnge inypwseion of an effect -without n anuse . . Wie docs nob cWutlv ako TalcJ * word / ox it , and tho image of dVW treacherous murderer

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      JtrHE 37 , 1857 . ] THE LEADER . 6 W

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), June 27, 1857, page 619, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2199/page/19/