Chapter VI · Descriptive Geography, Ethnology, and Statistics of Utah Territory. (continued 2)
Reading edition
I have thus attempted, with feeble hand, to divide the blame between both the great contending parties, and may fairly, I hope, expect to be unanimously rejected by both.
CORPORATION OF GREAT SALT LAKE CITY.The ordinance to incorporate Great Salt Lake City was approved by the General Assembly of the State of Deserét on the 19th of January, 1851, and the body municipal was constituted, like Fillmore, Ogden, and other cities in the Territory. The City Council consists of a mayor, four aldermen, and one common councilor per ward—formerly there were but nine; they are elected by votes, with the usual qualifications; are sworn or affianced to support the federal and territorial Constitution, and retain office for two years. They collect the taxes, which, however, must not exceed 1·50 per cent. per annum upon the assessed value of all taxable property, real and personal.[176] They appoint their recorder, treasurer, assessor, collector, marshal, and supervisor of streets, and have sole charge of the police. They establish and support schools and hospitals, regulate “hacking,” “tippling houses,” and gambling and billiard-tables; inspect lumber, hay, bread and provisions, and provide against fires—which here, contrary to the rule throughout England and the Eastern States, are rare and little to be feared; direct night-lighting and the storage of combustibles, and regulate streets, bridges, and fences. They have power to enforce their ordinances by fines and penalties. Appeals from the decisions of the mayor and aldermen are made to the Municipal Court, composed of the mayor as chief justice, and the aldermen as associate justices, and from the Municipal Court to the Probate Court of Great Salt Lake City.
In the young settlements of the Far West there is a regularINDUSTRY OF GREAT SALT LAKE CITY. self-enforced programme of manufacturing progress. The first step is to establish flouring or grist mills, and lumber or saw mills, to provide for food and shelter. After these sine quâ nons come the comforts of cotton-spinning, wool-carding, cloth-weaving, tailoring, and shoemaking. Lastly arise the luxuries of life, which penetrate slowly into this Territory on account of the delay and expense of transporting heavy machinery across the “wild desert plains.” The minor mechanical contrivances, the remarkable inventions of the Eastern States—results of a necessity which removes every limit to human ingenuity—such as sewing-machines, cataract washing-machines, stump-extracting machines, and others, which, but for want of hands, would never have been dreamed of, are not unknown at Great Salt Lake City.
The subjoined extract from the list of premiums of the Deserét Agricultural Society[177] will explain the industry at Great Salt Lake City in 1860—will prove that the infant colony has supplied all its actual wants, and will show what energy and perseverance can effect against time and all manner of obstructions. Besides the industries mentioned below, there are stores, cutlery shops, watch-makers and jewelers, painters and glaziers, brush-makers, cabinet-makers, and skillful turners—for the most part English. Iron and brass founderies are in contemplation, and a paper-mill is coming across the prairies. The cutlery is good, the swords, spears, and Congress knives, the pruning-hooks, saws, and locks are yearly improving, and the imitations of Colt’s revolvers can hardly be distinguished from the originals. The distilleries, of course, can not expect prizes. The whisky of Utah Territory, unlike the Monongahela or rye of Pennsylvania, and the Bourbon, or maize brandy of Kentucky, is distilled from wheat only; it is, in fact, the korn schnapps of the trans-Rhenine region. This “Valley Tan,” being generally pure, is better than the alcohol one part and water one part, colored with burnt sugar and flavored with green tea, which is sold under the name of Cognac. Ale and cakes are in higher flavor than the “villainous distillation:” there are two large and eight small breweries in which a palatable Lager-bier is made. The hop grows wild and luxuriant in every kanyon; and there is no reason why in time the John Barleycorn of the Saints should not rival that of the sinners in lands where no unfriendly legislation tries, or will, it is hoped, ever try,
“To rob a poor man of his beer.”
Hand-labor obtains $2 per diem, consequently much work is done at home. The fair sex still cards, spins, and weaves, as in Cornwall and Wales, and the plurality system supplies them with leisure for the exercise of the needle. Excellent blankets, the finest linens, and embroidered buckskin garments, varying in prices from $75 to $500—a splendid specimen was, at the time of my stay, being worked for that “Champion of oppressed nationalities,” M. Louis Kossuth—are the results.
PRICES AT GREAT SALT LAKE CITY.As in India, the mere necessaries of life at Great Salt Lake City are cheap: the foreign luxuries, and even comforts, are exorbitantly dear. A family may live almost for nothing upon vegetables grown in their own garden, milk from their own cows, wheaten bread, and butter which derives a peculiar sweetness from the bunch-grass. For some reason, which no one can explain, there is not, and there never has been, a market at Great Salt Lake City; consequently, even meat is expensive. Freight upon every article, from a bar of soap to a bar of iron, must be reckoned at 14 cents (7d.) per lb. coming from the East, and 25-30 cents from the West. Groceries and clothing are inordinately high-priced. Sugar, worth 6 cents in the United States, here fetches from 371⁄2 to 45 cents per lb. Tea is seldom drunk, and as coffee of 10 cents per lb. in the States here costs 40-50 cents, burnt beans or toasted corn, a caricature of chicory, is the usual succedaneum. Counterblasters will be pleased to hear that tobacco fetches $1 per lb., and cigars from 5 to 6 cents each—a London price. Servants’ wages vary from $30 to $40 per mensem—nearly £100 per annum; consequently, master has a strong inducement to marry the “missus’s” Abigail. Thus the expense of living in Utah Territory is higher than in the Eastern States, where again it exceeds that of England. In Great Salt Lake City $10,000 (= £2000) per annum would be equal to about £500 in London. Fortunately for the poor, the excessive purity of the air, as in the Arabian Desert, enables them to dispense with, and not to miss, many articles, such as stimulants, which are elsewhere considered necessaries. The subjoined “nerrick” of prices current at the General Tithing Office in Great Salt Lake City will best explain the state of things in 1860. A remarkable feature, it will be observed, is the price of wheat—$1 50 per bushel—more than double its current value in the Mississippian States.[178]
THE DEAD SEA.