RIGHT OUT FROM UTAH.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3392, 7 December 1911, Page 5

RIGHT OUT FROM UTAH.

MORMON WHO WON’T SHARE HUSBAND. MRS. IVOR LAWSON LIKES SYDNEY.

Mrs. Ivor Lawson, the handsome wife of the popular cyclist, who reached Australia a week ago from America, feels as if she was going to like tho land of the Warn tail, the Kangaroo, and the big “White” city. She’s just in love with the harbor and Sydney s beautiful surroundings, and she has already made a wager with her husband that' at the end of the present visit slie’ll know more ■ about the country and of what’s ot interest in it than he —in suite of his three or four previous visits. . “I’m just going round to look into things,” she declared to a “Sun” representative, “and 1. want- to see every interesting spot on the continent.” And she looks as if slic’d do it! Mrs. Lawson is a regular American, ‘‘tall and divinely fair,” as tho poet has it, witli big. expressive bluo eyes, a pink, fresh-looking complexion, and the carriage of a true daughter of liberty. She comes of Mormon stock, and claims Salt Lake City, Utah, as her birthplace. It is there that she and Air. Lawson have their pretty home, and there that her mother lives. It is upon the maternal side that she claims her American right, for, as a matter of fact, her father is an Englishman. . , , , , Brought up in her mother s church, Mrs. Lawson has something to say on the vexed question of polygamy, which, she declares, is banned, and rightly so, by the Church. '“Why, it’s jnst as much of a crime there as it is here,” sho says emphatically, “and carries with it dismissal from the clmrcli. Of course, such things are done there as in any other place, but they are not countenanced any more than they are here. Mind, there are a great many men in Utah who have had more than one wife, but they don’t live with them any more, only with the first wife; but they look after the others, and also the children. My old grandmother, however, is quite tho old-fashioned type, and believes firmly in the old system. Sho and I often have big arguments over tilings, and she gets real mad when I say, “Why, you are down upon a man who has a wife and an affinity—and yet you see no harm in one living with half a dozen women just because these ,fow words have beeen said over them.” “I can’t imagine any woman in her senses wanting to share her husband. I couldn’t stand it, and I don’t see how anyone else could. Still, of course, they had it in the old days—hut it wouldn’t have suited me. I think what’s nice about Australia is you haven’t had any of those troubles like ours, and no black problem. Why, with us it just looks as if tho colored person was going to take charge. Even in Salt Lake, just a village of about 110,000 souls, you'll find about 5000 colored folk, anti the way the Japs are pouring in—well, a white man can hardly get a position; they work so hard 'and so cheap. There ’s just no knowing how it’s all going to end.” In reply to a question as to whethci she was fond of any particular sports, Mrs Lawson admitted a fondness for them all, and in spite of the voyage to Australia being her first big eea trip she enjoyed the Ship games hugely. As far as a first impression goes, she feels like being friendly with the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, who appear to hea* to bo singularly free from prejudice, and willing to hold out the glad hand’ to the stranger within their gates. , Mr Lawson, it scorns, is an. enthusiast as far as Australia is concerned, and 1 it is no secret that should he take to the place and the people he may eventually settlo down, here. As Ids wife points out, the life of a professional cyclist is brief, and she would therefore like to see him engage in some business or other. Naturally the idea of living so far away from her people is not altogether a welcome ono, hut she is quite prepared to make the break if the present trip prove successful and her lord and master still desires to throw in his lot with us. .

“And, after all,” she concludes with philosophy “as long as a man and his wife, who are perfectly happy, are together, it doesn’t much matter where they are, does it? You can always find nice people, and I think your popularity in a new place rests pretty much with yourself. I guess I’ll be all right.’’