dly, and appeared in a towering passion. My
first impulse was to cry out "Drop it!" when, lo! as if I had, like
Katerfelto, the by-gone professor of legerdemain, cried "Presto," the
scene changed, and both man and woman, who were Americans of the lower
class, commenced bullying me in right earnest. I made my retreat with
some difficulty, as they seemed, both of them, inclined to serve me
roughly for my well-intentioned, though, perhaps, mistimed interference.
As I made my escape, however, I intimated, pretty loudly, that I should
at once apply to a magistrate on the subject, a threat, by-the-bye, that
was little regarded, and only increased the showers of abuse levelled
at me. As my appealing to a magistrate would be of little avail in the
case of a family jar, and would certainly have entailed inconvenience
and delay, I did not carry my threat into execution, wondering, at the
same time, at my temerity in interfering in a quarrel between man and
wife, which I now practically learnt, for the first time in my life, was
to incur the unmitigated anger of both, and to learn how true it is that

"Those who in quarrels interpose,
Must oft expect a bloody nose."

I visited the portion of the town appropriated by the Mormons as a
residence. Here, in the midst of their dwellings, they had erected a
temple for worship, which, on their emigrating west, their arch-leader,
Smith, prophesied would, by the interposition of heaven, be destroyed by
fire. The prophecy was verified as to the fact, but heaven had, it
appeared, little to do with it; for it was ascertained to be the work of
an incendiary of their sect, who was detected and brought to condign
punishment.

I was afterwards informed by an American gentleman, to whom I had a
letter of introduction, and who had been a great sufferer by these
impostors, that some time before the great body of Mormons migrated to
the interior, they started a bank. Having managed to put a vast number
of their notes in circulation, for which they received produce, they
closed the doors, and left the public to be losers by their nefarious
schemes. I had the misfortune myself, in my ignorance, to take from a
dishonest store-keeper a ten-dollar bill of this spurious currency, and
did not detect the imposture until I offered it to the captain of the
boat I had engaged a passage in to _La Belle Riviere_, as the Ohio is
called. I must mention, however, that I took it previously to the
interview with