| 431 the county attorney wanted to dodge the issue; and not being able to employ counsel, we were forced to abandon the undertaking. We started back expecting to stay there and take the consequences whatever they might be; but on our way we met Bro. Billingsly, who informed us that to insure the safety of his family, he had agreed not to keep us for the present; and so as other brethren had already been alarmed into counseling us to go, we had no alternative. We went on to Bro. Billingsly's, got our effects, and through the kindness of brethren and friends we were enabled to reach this place in safety. Leaving there was very much against our feelings, and I can not help but regret it still. I feel somehow that He whom we serve would have cared for us. I bear the brethren witness, however, that it was not for any want of love for us that, they moved as they did; for we have had too many evidences of their respect for us, and love for the truth, to ever doubt them.
A peculiar circumstance occurred in connection with this trouble which we here relate, leaving the reader to form his own conclusion. The afternoon of the close of the debate when going to Squire Hunt's, the two elders, with two other companions, when a few hundred yards from the place of meeting passed right through the midst of the mob, which afterwards surrounded Elder Billingsly supposing that, though they were not molested, they were seen. Subsequently they were surprised to learn that members of the mob confessed that they were awaiting to do them violence, and expressed wonder as to how they got away unseen. Whether by supernatural power the enemy was not permitted to see them, these elders do not say, but they have ever been thankful for safe deliverance.
The following report of the Utah Commission gives a succinct statement of conditions obtaining in the Territory:
SALT LAKE CITY, August 24.
To H. M. TELLER, secretary:
Sir: I have the honor to inform you that the report on the registration vote in the last election for members of the Legislative Assembly and other offices was held on the 6th day of the present month, in this Territory, and that the full proceedings of this Commission in connection therewith will from necessity be delayed for a time. However, we think it will be proper to say now, in advance of our regular report, that the law known as the "Edmunds Act," so far as we have been responsible for its execution, has been carefully, but very rigidly, enforced this year, as it was last. No person living in polygamy has been permitted to vote at any election, and to be voted for for any office; and while only three convictions in prosecutions
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