ARTEMUS WARD'S MORMON LECTURE.-C. F. BROWN.

I don't expect to do great things here-but I have thought that if I could make money enough to buy me a passage to New Zealand I should feel that I had not lived in vain.

I don't want to live in vain.-I'd rather live in Chicagoor here. But I wish when the Egyptians built this hall they had given it a little more ventilation.

I really don't care for money. I only travel round to see the world and to exhibit my clothes. These clothes I have on were a great success in Utah.

How often do large fortunes ruin young men! I should like to be ruined, but I can get on very well as I am.

I am not an artist, yet I have a passion for pictures. I have had a great many pictures-photographs-taken of myself. Some of them are very pretty-rather sweet to look at for a short time-and as I said before, I like them.

I could draw on wood at a very tender age. When a mere child I once drew a small cart-load of raw turnips over a wooden bridge. The people of the village noticed me. I drew their attention. They said I had a future before me. Up to that time I had an idea it was behind me.

Time passed on. It always does, by the way. You may possibly have noticed that time passes on. It is a kind of way time has.

I became a man. I haven't distinguished myself at all as an artist—but I have always been more or less mixed up with art. I have an uncle who takes photographs-and I have a servant who-takes anything he can get his hands on.

When I was in Rome-Rome in New York State I mean -a distinguished sculpist wanted to sculp me. But I said, "No." I saw through the designing man.

Fond remembrance often makes me ask, "Where are the boys of my youth?" I assure you this is not a conundrum. Some are amongst you here-some in America-some are in jail.

*This reading is an abridgment of the great showman's lecture on the Mormons, as delivered at Egyptian Hall, London, in connection with his so-called Panorama. Owing to the absence of suitable pictures on our part the lecturer's references thereto are mostly omitted.

Hence arises a most touching question, "Where are the girls of my youth ?" Some are married-some would like to be.

O my Maria! Alas! she married another. They frequently do. I hope she is happy--because I am. Some people are not happy. I have noticed that.

A gentleman friend of mine came to me one day with tears in his eyes. I said, "Why these weeps ?" He said he had a mortgage on his farm--and wanted to borrow $200. I lent him the money-and he went away. Some time after he returned with more tears. He said he must leave me forever. I ventured to remind him of the $200 he borrowed. He was much cut up. I thought I would not be hard upon him-so I told him I would throw off one hundred dollars. He brightened-shook my hand—and said, "Old friend, I won't allow you to outdo me in liberality,I'll throw off the other hundred."

This story hasn't anything to do with my lecture, I know -but one of the principal features of my lecture is that it contains so many things that don't have anything to do with it.

I like music. I can't sing. As a singist I am not a success. I am saddest when I sing. So are those who hear me. They are sadder even than I am.

The other night some silver-voiced young men came under my window and sang-" Come where my love lies dreaming." I didn't go. I didn't think it would be correct.

I met a man in Oregon who hadn't any teeth-not a tooth in his head; yet that man could play on the bass drum better than any man I ever met. He kept a hotel. They have queer hotels in Oregon. I remember one where they gave me a bag of oats for a pillow—I had nightmares, of course. In the morning the landlord said, "How do you feel, old hoss, hay?" I told him I felt my oats.

I went to Great Salt Lake City by way of California.
I went to California on the steamer "Ariel."

When I reached the "Ariel," at pier No. 4, New York, I found the passengers in a state of great confusion about their things, which were being thrown around by the ship's porters in a manner at once damaging and idiotic. So great

was the excitement, my fragile form was smashed this way, and jammed that way, till finally I was shoved into a stateroom which was occupied by two middle-aged females, who said, “Base man, leave us, oh, leave us!" I left them-Oh, I left them!

I here introduce a great work of art. It is an oil painting -done in petroleum. It is by the Old Masters. It was the last thing they did before dying. They did this, and then they expired.

come here every

Some of the greatest artists in morning before daylight with lanterns to look at it. They say they never saw anything like it before-and they hope they never shall again.

When I first showed this picture in New York, the audience were so enthusiastic in their admiration of it that they called for the artist-and when he appeared they threw brickbats at him.

The Overland Mail Coach, is a den on wheels in which we were crammed for ten days-and ten nights. Those of you who have been in the penitentiary-and stayed there any length of time-as visitors-can realize how I felt.

The actors of the Mormon theatre are all amateurs, who charge nothing for their services.

You must know that very little money is taken at the doors of their theatres. The Mormons mostly pay in grain and all sorts of articles.

The night I gave my little lecture there, among my receipts were corn, flour, pork, cheese, chickens-on foot and in the shell. One family went in on a live pig.

it was in Utah that I I wish you could have Perhaps you may have languages-Maine, New

I dislike to speak about it--but made the great speech of my life. heard it. I have a fine education. noticed it. I speak four different York, California, and Pennsylvania. My parents sold a cow, and sent me to college when I was quite young. I wish you could have heard that speech, however. If Cicero-he's dead now-he has gone from us-but if old Ciss could have heard that effort, it would have given him the rinderpest. I'll tell you how it was. There were stationed in Utah two regiments of U. S. troops-the 21st from California, and the

37th from Nevada. The 20-onesters asked me to present a stand of colors to the 37-sters, and I did it in a speech so abounding in eloquence of a bold and brilliant character, that I worked the enthusiasm of those soldiers up to such a pitch, that they came very near shooting me on the spot. Brigham Young had two hundred wives. Just think of that! Oblige me, ladies and gentlemen, by thinking of that. That is, he had eighty actual wives, and was spiritually mar. ried to one hundred and twenty more.

So we may say he had two hundred wives. He loved not wisely, but two hundred well. He was dreadfully married, He was the most married man I ever saw in my life.

I saw his mother-in-law while I was there. I can't exactly tell you how many there is of her, but it's a good deal. It strikes me that one mother-in-law is about enough to have in a family-unless you're very fond of excitement.

By the way, Shakespeare indorses polygamy. He speaks of the Merry Wives of Windsor. How many wives did Mr. Windsor have?-But we will let this pass.

Brother Kimball is a gay and festive saint of some seventy summers, or some'er's thereabout. He has one thousand head of cattle and a hundred head of wives.

Mr. Kimball had a son-a lovely young man-who was married to ten interesting wives. But one day, while he was absent from home, these ten wives went out walking with a handsome young man, which so enraged Mr. Kimball's son-which made Mr. Kimball's son so jealous--that he shot himself with a horse pistol.

The doctor who attended him--a very scientific maninformed me that the bullet entered the inner parallelogram of his diaphragmatic thorax, superinducing membranous hemorrhage in the outer cuticle of his basiliconthamaturgist. It killed him. I should have thought it would.

I hope his sad end will be a warning to all young wives who go out walking with handsome young men. Mr. Kimball's son is now no more. He sleeps beneath the cypress, the myrtle, and the willow. He died by request.

I regret to say that efforts were made to make a Mormon of me while I was in Utah.

It was leap-year when I was there, and seventeen young

widows, the wives of a deceased Mormon, offered me their hearts and hands. I called on them one day, and taking their soft white hands in mine, which made eighteen hands aitogether, I found them in tears.

And I said, "Why is this thus? What is the reason of this thusness?"

They hove a sigh-seventeen sighs of different size. They said:

"Oh, soon thou wilt be gonested away!"

I told them that when I got ready to leave a place I wentested.

They said, "Doth not like us?"

I said, "I doth--I doth !"

I also said, "I hope your intentions are honorable, as I am a lone child, my parents being far, far away."

They then said, " Wilt not marry us?"

I said, "Oh, no; it cannot was."

Again they asked me to marry them, and again I declined. When they cried-

“Oh, cruel man! This is too much, oh, too much!"

I told them that it was on account of the muchness that I declined.

While crossing the desert I was surrounded by a band of Ute Indians. They were splendidly mounted, they were dressed in beaver-skins, and they were armed with rifles, knives, and pistols.

What could I do? What could a poor old orphan do? I'm a brave man. The day before the battle of Bull's Run I stood in the highway while the bullets-those dreadful messengers of death-were passing all around me thicklyin wagons--on their way to the battle-field. But there were too many of these Injuns-there were forty of them, and only one of me; and so I said:

"Great Chief, I surrender." His name was Wocky-bocky. He dismounted and approached me. I saw his tomahawk glisten in the morning sunlight. Fire was in his eye. Wocky-bocky came very close to me and seized me by the hair of my head. He mingled his swarthy fingers with my golden tresses, and he rubbed his dreadful Thomashawk across my lily-white face. He said—

GGGGG*