History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

STATISTICS. 577
about twenty-six per cent occurred among infants, 14 the
most prominent diseases among adults being consumption
and enteritis. It is worthy of note that up to
this date there occurred in the territory but one case of
suicide among the Mormons. 15 There was little pauperism
in their midst, and there was little crime, or
such crime as was punished by imprisonment. 16
The saints were now a fairly prosperous community.
The value of their real and personal property
was reported in 1860 at $5,596,118, of improved farm
lands at $1,333,355, of farming implements $242,889,
of live-stock $1,516,707, and of manufactures $900,153.
To these figures about 50 per cent must be added in
order to obtain the actual value. Among the list of
premiums bestowed in this year by the Deseret Agricultural
and Manufacturing Society, 17 we find prizes
and diplomas awarded for agricultural and gardening
implements of all kinds, for steam-engines and fireengines,
for leathern manufactures of every description
from heavy harness to ladies' kid boots of many
being then greater on account of the hardships and exposure incidental to
new settlements. The following extracts from the sanitary report of Assistant-surgeon
Robert Bartholow of Utah terr., dated Sept. 1858, and published
in Sen. Doc, 36th Cong. 1st Sess., xiii. 301-2, may serve as a specimen of
the prejudice of U. S. officials on matters relating to the territory, and help to
account for their blunders: 'The Mormon, of all the animals now walking
this globe, is the most curious in every relation. '
' Isolated in the narrow
valleys of Utah, and practising the rites of a religion grossly material, of
which polygamy is the main element and cohesive force, the Mormons have
arrived at a physical and mental condition, in a few years of growth, such as
densely populated communities in the older parts of the world, hereditary
victims of all the vices of civilization, have been ages in reaching. If Mormonism
received no addition from outside sources, these influences continuing,
it is not difficult to see that it would eventually die out.'
14 From cholera infantum 4, croup 23, infantile 57, measles 1, scarlatina 2,
teething 11. Id. 43.
15 After the railroad connected the territory with the Altantic and Pacific
states, suicides became not infrequent.
16 In Compend. Ninth Census, 533, the table of pauperism and crime shows
only one person receiving support as a pauper, and eight criminals. At the
time of Burton's visit, in 1S60, there were only six prisoners in the penitentiary
at S. L. City, of whom two were Indians. City of the Saints, 329. In
the Deseret News of June 18, 1856, it is stated, however, that there were
many beggars among the women and children.
17 Incorporated by act approved Jan. 17, 1856, 'with a view of promoting
the arts of domestic industry, and to encourage the production of articles
from the native elements in this territory.' A copy of it will be found in Utah
ActsLegisl. (ed. 1S66), 111.
Hist. Utah. 37