230 NEW TRACKS IN NORTH AMERICA. 
first, because I consider that even Mormon polygamy has tf 
elements of social corruption and decay inherent; second i 
because if rapid emigration and colonisation be the grdj 
desideratum, we can obtain these ends far better by ot | 
means than that of Mormonism—an institution which 
himself admits must give way again and again to tf 
advancing tide of Christian Saxondom ; and thirdly, becausq} 
have yet to learn what kind of colony that will become whit 
was founded originally upon Mormon principles. 
In crossing the western desert on the Salt Lake rout 
you are never removed more than thirty miles from telegraph 
communication with the civilized world. The system adopte 
on this line, as well as throughout the United States general 
is a most admirable one. Every message is ticked 01 
' simultaneously in every office all along the line; it is repré 
duced perhaps a hundred times at the same moment, am 
usually the office clerk takes no notice of it unless it | 
intended for his own station ; then he listens to the ticking | 
the instrument, and writes off the message from the soun 
All along the route there is a station every fifty miles, and } 4 
the impeachment trial of President Johnson was just con 2 
mencing while we were on the road, our first inquiry 4 
reaching one of these stations was whether there had bet 
any fresh news from Washington. Sometimes the clerk 
o- 
and not unfrequently a long abstract of speeches deli 
the Senate on the same day were traversing the wires ' 
we were waiting at the station, and the clerk was 
* 
ot the least trouble, to give them to us word for wi 
