

A CALL ON BKIGHAM YOUNG 211 



refined countenance. He reminded me more of a stout, 

 elderly and thoroughly respectable butler, than anything else. 

 In person and conversation he is less of a Yankee than T 9 - 

 of the gentlemen I have been introduced to. Of course he 

 is an arrant impostor, but nothing in speech, look or manner 

 differs from those of a quiet well-bred English gentleman. 

 I talked a good deal with him about the climate, history and 

 productions of his country, and found him communicative 

 and intelligent. He gave us iced water and ' God blessed 

 us ! ' when we left ! His missionaries are bringing in con- 

 verts from all quarters, especially Wales, Sweden and Prussia 

 — of course from the most profoundly ignorant classes, but 

 once arrived here, they get plenty of work, good food, 

 comforts and domestic happiness — for a plurality of wives, 

 which few care for and fewer can afford, is the only sin that 

 B.Y. allows, and for that he quotes the Testament. All the 

 school children are brought up to believe in him and in a lot 

 of Scripture history as useless and idle as that taught in our 

 schools, and the religious teaching is altogether contemptible. 

 The Gentile ladies hold no intercourse with their Mormonite 

 sisters ; nor is it likely they should. Educated U.S. ladies 

 would not care to associate with the ignorant class to which 

 the Mormonite ladies belong. In short as far as I can make 

 out, the system of polygamy is that of making young female 

 servants your wives. They are servants without pay who 

 cannot run away ! and a well-to-do man here with large 

 farms, cattle, vegetables and other produce of all sorts for 

 distant and near markets, has plenty for many wives to do, 

 if he will take the trouble to teach and then rule them. 



The following letters give some impressions of his tour : 

 To Professor Oliver 



August 8, 1877. 



I should have written to you ere this, as my work has 

 been always and altogether Herbarium work, over and above 

 travelling, since I landed in this country. . . . 



On the steamer between Providence and New York 

 we picked up Thurber, a big, stout, very intelligent man, 

 of a rather leucophlegmatic temperament and curly hair. 

 He is fond of grasses, and knows them ; is in bad health. 

 I liked what I saw of him very much indeed ; he reminded 



