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Show PRACTICAL POLYGAMY. 151 been so completely perverted, that they willingly embrace opportunities of becoming mistresses of Gentiles. Whether these are of a class who, in all honesty, once accepted the com mon infatuation, and have had their eyes open to see their real condition as others see it, and are willing to accept any degradation, rather than remain where they were ; or whether they are women fallen as other women have, I am unable to say. In either case there is no doubt of the state of society among the Mormons leading to their ruin. When the California and Nevada volunteers returned home, at the close of the war, numbers of Mormon women accompanied the soldiers. Some of them were married by Judges of the United States Courts, and both husbands and wives acted in good faith, and may make honorable mem bers of society ; others were married by adjutants of regi ments, and the ceremony, altogether illegal, only intended as a farce ; while others went off together without desiring to-be considered husband and wife, bold and shameless in their adultery. Polygamy has probably reached its critical stage among the Mormons of Utah. The multiplication of wives is not going on as before. The Act of Congress making it crim inal has, probably, to some extent, prevented an increase of the evil, while it has not remedied it. That it has changed the opinrons of the people as to their right to be polygamists as long as it is sanctioned by the church, I do not believe, though they may not consider it as expedient to be. It has probably aroused a little healthful fear. General Babcock in his report of an inspection tour through Utah, last sum mer, mentions that he learned from Judge Titus, the Chief Justice of the territory, that since the passage of the Act of Congress prohibiting polygamy, some of the Mormons have already put away their unlawful wives, and others declined to become polygamists. Such cases, however, I am inclin ed to think are very uncommon. Whether from a declin ing popularity, and threatening failure of this darling doctrine of the leaders, or not, I am unable to say, but polygamy is more strongly advocated now than ever before, and though |