| 84 gets tired of her nineteenth part of a husband past seventy, and sues him for divorce and alimony, that same nineteenth part of a husband goes into the court and swears as follows:
"And the defendant further answering alleges, that at the town of Kirtland, in the state of Ohio, on the tenth day of January, A. D. 1834, this defendant being then an unmarried man, was duly and lawfully married to Mary Ann Angell, by a minister of the gospel, who was then and there by the laws of said State, authorized to solemnize marriages. And that the said marriage was then and there fully consummated, and that the said Mary Ann Angell, who is still living, then and there became, and ever since has been and still is, the lawful wife of this defendant, all of which said facts the said complainant on the said sixth day of April, 1868, and for a long time prior thereto had fall knowledge and information."
Brigham Young further testifies that when he took this Mrs. Ann Eliza Dee to be his nineteenth polygamous wife, she was the lawful wife of James L. Dee, "never, as this defendant [B. Young] is now advised and believes, having been divorced from the said James L. Dee."
The unfairness and falsity of this statement of President Young is made apparent by the facts of the case being of record, as follows: Petition for divorce was filed by Ann Eliza Dee, formerly Ann Eliza Webb, in the probate court of Great Salt Lake County, Utah, December 9, 1865, and a decree of divorce was rendered and recorded December 23, 1865; and of these facts President Young must have been cognizant.
All this goes to show that Brigham Young, like any common criminal, when his criminality is about to be discovered, proves to be a coward as well as a criminal, and at once sacrifices a woman, a wife, and a home.
If the consequence of this unmanly, unworthy defense of Brigham Young against the suit of Ann Eliza, were to affect only these two persons, there would be little for other parties to complain of; but when it is considered that there are seventeen other women supposed to be of Brigham Young's own family, whose standing as wives are affected immediately by this answer, that Mary Ann Angell is his only legal wife, and some of whom may be affected by a similar condition of facts as that alleged in the case of Ann Eliza; and when it is further considered that there are some hundreds of women in Utah, whose standing as wives to their respective husbands, is also indirectly affected by these answers, it will be seen that many specially affected have just right to complain. Besides this there is not a follower of President Young who believes in the tenet of polygamy, who is not affected by these answers, and who has not a just cause of complaint.
Brigham Young has been the apostle and shining practical light of the doctrine of polygamy for twenty-two years. He has claimed immunity from accusation for crime upon the ground that the practice, of the doctrine was legal; and that there was neither dishonor nor illegality in the position occupied by polygamous wives. It has not only been the
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