The domestic habits of the people vary greatly according to their
nativity. Of the forty-five thousand inhabitants of the Territory, at
least one-half are immigrants from England and Wales,--the scum of the
manufacturing towns and mining districts, so superstitious as to have
been capable of imbibing the Mormon faith,--though between what is
preached in Great Britain and what is practised in America there exists
a wide difference,--and so destitute in circumstances as to have been
incapable of deteriorating their fortunes by emigration. Possibly
one-fifth are Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians. This allows a remainder of
three-tenths for the native American element. An Irishman or a German is
rarely found. Of the Americans, by far the greater proportion were born
in the Northeastern States; and the three principal characters in the
history of the Church--Smith, Young, and Kimball--all originated in
Vermont, but were reared in Western New York, a region which has been
the hot-bed of American _isms_ from the discovery of the Golden Bible to
the outbreak of the Rochester rappings. This American element maintains,
in all affairs of the Church, its natural political ascendency.
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