If you read the newspapers over breakfast in the summer of 1856, you may have shaken your head over the disgraceful behavior of those Mormons. They were worse in Denmark, even, than they were in England!
ATLAS (London, England)
19 July 1856[DENMARK]
A serious split occurred the other day among the Mormonites at Copenhagen.
At one of their meetings it was proposed to abolish the practice of polygamy, which was opposed by some of the members on the ground that that was their only motive for joining the sect.
The row became so violent that the police were called in, who marched the noisiest off to prison.
The story grew over the next two months – or maybe the July story was merely a condensation of a longer, earlier printed story that was finally picked up by the Morning Chronicle and printed as current news months later:
MORNING CHRONICLE(London, England)
13 September 1856MORMONS IN DENMARK
A letter from Copenhagen of the 6th says: –
A body of Mormons have for some time past held weekly meetings in the Concert-room of the Scandinavian hotel in this city, for the purpose of explaining the doctrines of the sect, and answering any objections that may be made to them.
In the last sitting a Jew hawker, after listening to them with great attention, cried ‘I abjure Judaism, and I embrace the worship of the Latter Day Saints!’ He was at once accepted, and after the usual formalities received what is called ‘consecration.’ He was then invited to take his place on the platform amongst his new fellow believers; but no sooner had he done so than he got up and proposed the abolition of polygamy, which is authorised by the sect.
This proposition excited the indignation of the Mormons, and an angry discussion ensued between them and the new convert. The latter was warmly supported by several women of the lower classes, and the Mormons were backed by the men.
‘If we abolish polygamy,’ cried a jovial butcher, ‘we shall never make any more proselytes, for that is the bait at which people bite.’ ‘
If polygamy be abolished,’ shouted a shriveled tailor, ‘I will abandon Mormonism at once. I only adopted it in order to be able to marry as often as I liked.’
These declarations were received with shouts of derision from the spectators in the galleries.
At length the Mormons became exasperated, and rushing on the Jew, they beat him savagely, and even trampled him under foot. This led to a regular fight between the polygamists and their adversaries, and the windows, lamps, and chairs were smashed to provide missiles.
After a while a body of police came in, arrested the leaders in the row, and cleared the room. One of the Mormon priests on being arrested pompously summoned the police to release him, on the ground that he was ‘inviolable,’ but to his intense disgust he was locked up.
My ward meetings this Sunday won’t be nearly as exciting, I fear. Maybe I’ll move to Denmark.
A jovial butcher, a shriveled tailor?
Journalism is so boring, so factual (by comparison) nowadays.
That butcher doesn’t sound very jovial to me.
Weird coincidence. I just read a version of this same article in the New York Times (of 1856) yesterday.
If I were researching Mormonism in Denmark, I’d be trying to figure out if this really happened, and who was involved.
My Danish ancestor joined the church in Mississippi, of all places. So keep me out of it.
No, of course it didn’t happen, Kent. This is folklore at its finest, with nothing to suggest that the writer had ever been within a country mile of an LDS meeting.
But even a shriveled tailor is entitled to some happiness!
Well, my Danish GGrandmother came to Utah in the 1870s and had herself sealed to someone other than her husband. We think it may have been the missionary who converted her, but when last I checked, no one in the family was sure. Time to reopen my family history research again, I guess.
But clearly the Danes marched to a different drummer…
…the shriveled tailor with his three shriveled wives…
(Sorry, couldn’t help myself.)
One of the reasons this is suspect is that, as anyone who grew up reading Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books can tell you, it’s written in the style and language of European children’s tales.