REALITIES OF POLYGAMIC LIFE—ORSON PRATT: THE STORY OF HIS YOUNG ENGLISH WIFE.  
The position of the plural wives—second, third, fourth, or twentieth, it matters not—is but a mockery, after all; and in many respects they are more to be pitied than the first wives. The first wives have known, if only for a little while, a husband’s love and care; but that has never been felt by the second wives. They are, in fact, in many respects little better than slaves; and if they are sensitive girls, their position must be extremely painful, for they must realize at all times that they are receiving the attentions of another woman’s husband; and in many instances they are even afraid to be seen speaking to their husband for fear of bringing down the wrath of the first wife upon their heads. Others, who are not so sensitive, assert their own rights and are defiant.
I am well acquainted with a pretty young Welsh girl who was a second wife. Her husband had converted her to Mormonism while he was on a mission to Europe, and when they reached Salt Lake he married her. I saw her first two years after her marriage, when one day she came to me in the greatest distress. She asked me if I would give her some employment, and, greatly surprised at the request, I asked her how she came to need anything to do, as I knew her husband could well afford to support her.
“I have left my husband,” she answered, “for I could stand no longer the ill-treatment that I received. I endured it until, as you see, my health is failing and I am broken-hearted. The creature I married has no manhood in him. He has allowed me to be treated like a slave, and has himself half-starved me, and has acted towards me with the greatest inhumanity. When I married him,” she said, “I was willing to make myself useful in the family, and I did so. But one thing after another was given me to do, until I became a regular[324] drudge; they would not have dared to treat a hired girl in the way they treated me. I was put into a miserable little back room, and was never allowed to see any of my friends; I had to work early and late. When at last my position would not admit of my working quite so much, they punished me with all sorts of petty unkindnesses, and nearly starved me, giving me only a little flour or a few potatoes every day.
“At last,” she continued, “I went to Brother Brigham to know what I should do. He sent for my husband and talked to him a long time, and he promised to do better if I would go back with him. Brother Brigham counselled me to do so, and try him again; and I went. Soon after that, my babe was born, and then they treated me with worse unkindness.”
“Who do you mean by they?” I asked.
“I mean my husband and his wife,” she replied. “They did not seem to look upon me as a wife at all, and even in the coldest mornings, and immediately after my child was born, they used to make me get up first and light fires and prepare breakfast and begin work generally, and I was only too glad if I escaped with a little fault-finding. I stood it as long as I could, because Brother Brigham had counselled me to do so; but now I have left them again, and do not mean to return.” This was the story of one poor girl’s troubles.
Now the man, Elder Jos. Bull, who did this is a good Mormon, in good standing in the Church to-day. He is employed by the authorities, and his poor young wife is now working for the Gentiles—a much happier woman, if her face speaks truly, since her separation, although she has to support herself and child. She, like hundreds of other young girls, came to Utah without friend or relative, and this is how a good brother “took care” of her.
But I must be permitted to relate a still more painful story—the story of a poor innocent girl allured from her happy home in England by one of the most distinguished of the Mormon Apostles; brought over by him to Utah as his wife, and there suffered to die in misery and neglect.
The Apostle Orson Pratt, who is called among the Saints “The Champion of Polygamy”—a man who has devoted his life to Mormonism, and whose writings have done more than the labours of all the other Apostles to win converts to Polygamy; a man who on more than one occasion has boldly stood up against many of the absurdities and blasphemies of Brigham[325] Young; a man upon whom, on account of his independence, Brigham has frowned, and who has consequently never attained to the wealth of his more obsequious brethren; a man who in all the ordinary affairs of life would command the respect of every one around him. This was the man who perpetrated the atrocious villainy which I am about to relate; and much against my own personal inclinations I feel compelled to tell the story, as it shows how shockingly this debasing system can pervert an otherwise upright mind.
Orson Pratt married the young girl of whom I speak in Liverpool, by special dispensation from Brigham Young; and her parents—themselves devout Mormons—thought that their daughter was highly honoured in becoming the wife of an Apostle. She was very pretty and attractive, and for a time he paid great attention to her, and brought her over to Utah as his bride. Arrived there, he utterly neglected her, and she experienced all the horrors of polygamic life.
The Apostle was living in Salt Lake City. He had left his young wife and her children in Tooele—a place about forty miles distant. There they lived in a wretched little log-cabin, the young mother supporting her little ones as best she could. When her last child was born, she was suffering all the miseries of poverty, dependent entirely upon the charity of her neighbours. At the time when most she needed the gentle sympathy of her husband’s love, that husband never came to see her.
One morning there was literally nothing in the house for herself and her children, who, knowing nothing of their mother’s sufferings, cried to her for bread.
The poor mother quieted them with a promise that they should soon have something to eat, and then she went and begged a few potatoes from a neighbour; and upon these they subsisted for three days. She then took her children with her, for they were too young to be left alone—her babe was only three weeks old—and she went round to see if she could get work of any kind to do. In this she was not successful; and at length, worn out by continual anxiety and privation, and heart-broken by the neglect which she had experienced, she sank beneath a fever which promised very soon to prove fatal.
For some time the neighbours nursed her; but they, of course, had their own families to attend to, and could not give her quite all their time, and thus occasionally she was left alone. One evening, when such was the case, she got up in a[326] state of delirium, and barefooted, and almost destitute of clothing, took her children, and wandered forth with them into the snow. The good people of Tooele went out over the prairie, anxious to find and bring back the poor maniac, but for a long time their search was in vain. At last, not knowing whither she went, she wandered to the house of Brother Eli B. Kelsey—a “vile apostate” as Brigham Young would call him; but known to every one else, Saint, Apostate, or Gentile, as one of the best and kindest-hearted men that ever lived. In Brother Kelsey’s house she and her little ones were kindly received by him and his good wife, and their wants attended to. They were clothed and fed, and were then carried back to the log-cabin which they called their home.
Next day the Mormon Bishop of Tooele assembled the people, and money was collected and sent to Salt Lake City, to Orson Pratt, begging him to come immediately, if he wished to see his wife alive. But the Apostle did not come. At that time he was actually engaged in taking another bride, and he wanted to hear nothing of his dying wife.
Then the good Bishop sent a young man, who rode all night, to compel him immediately to take the coach for Tooele—the young man paying his fare, so that he might have no excuse. Then, at last, he came.
Arrived at the little town where his poor wife lay dying, Orson conducted himself like the philosopher he professes to be. Before him stood the hovel, within which were his deserted little ones—wailing, as if sensible of the great loss of a mother’s care which they would soon have to sustain—and there, on her dying bed, was that poor wife and mother, tossing in wild delirium. But he, the cause of all that woe, passed by that wretched hovel and its death-scene to the comfortable home of a well-to-do brother, at whose house he first obtained his supper, and then, calmly returning, entered the place where his wife was lying, and for a moment surveyed the scene. Then he quietly remarked to one of the sisters present: “She has a good deal of fever.”
Another sister, who stood by, impulsively exclaimed, “Good God! Brother Pratt, this is more than fever; she is dying.”
“Oh dear no, sister,” he calmly replied; “she will recover.”
It was evident, however, to all but Orson that his wife was dying, and that no earthly power could save her.
 
DESPAIR.
 
To face p. 326.
 
The next day she was still raving, and it was told me that in her wild frenzy she even attempted to strangle her babe.[327] Orson essayed to hold her, but she caught his gold chain and snapped it in two. His touch and the sight of the chain recalled her for a moment to her senses, and she said reproachfully, “You are puffed up with pride, Orson, with your gold chain and rings, while you leave me and my babes to starve. Poor little lambs! where are they?”
For a moment the yearning of ............