The saints are fond of dancing, and in the winter season social parties for that purpose are numerous. Each ward has a commodious house, built by taxation, which is used for schools and public meetings. But for dancing their use is forbidden, and the people are obliged to pay Brigham $100 per night for a building called the "Social Hall." Yet this hall was built from the proceeds of tithing paid in by the very people who are thus obliged to pay for the rent of it!
Mr. Taussig, a simple and unpretending man, had succeeded in establishing a substantial tannery well stocked with leather. By some designing persons he was induced to refuse the payment of his taxes, on the ground that they were exorbitant, and the Territorial Collector sold the property, which was bought by one of Brigham's agents, and the poor man reduced to poverty.
In the fall of 1857, Brigham called a mass meeting in the Tabernacle, and after dilating upon the disadvantages the people were laboring under in being without a currency, established a bank, calling upon the faithful to bring in all their gold and silver, and receive the new paper currency in exchange. This was done. In a few months the bank was suspended, and depositors were paid in labor tithing, for the currency held by them, in exchange for their gold and silver.
One Mr. Tennant, a gentleman residing in Lancashire, England, embraced Mormonism. His property was estimated at over $70,000. He was soon marked as a victim. By appliances and representations brought to bear with much assiduity, he was induced to purchase of Brigham Young a house in Salt Lake, which he had never seen, and pay for the same the sum of $20,000; about four times its value. In addition to this, large sums of money were obtained from him by the Elders, under pretence of his becoming a share-holder and partner with Young in grist-mills, sugar machinery, iron-works, &c., solemnly assuring him in relation to its safe investment and future profits. Mr. Tennant died while crossing the Plains, leaving a wife, with a young child. On arriving in Salt Lake, Mrs. Tennant, instead of being comfortably installed in the house purchased by her husband, found herself placed in lodgings, the carriage, horses, and other property seized upon, and herself placed under the control of a guardian. This, together with the loss of her husband, so worked upon her mind, that she became insane. Afterward Brigham gave her in marriage to Daniel Spencer, as his fourth or fifth wife, and thus completed the wrongs for which the poor woman will call him to account in the day of judgment. She now lives upon a miserable pittance doled out from the tithing-office.