Show KENTUCKY TRAITS Lawless Mountaineers and the States Dad Bud Name John Gilmer r Speed a grandnephew nt phe of the poet Keats Keat and bi himself tf a Ken Kentuckian tU by birth and sad breeding contrib contributes utes utIS to the April Century a study of The Kentuckian Kt When ben I take up my morning paper and read in great head lines Duel DueI i 1 ithe IS t the Death rr cr some other lurid an announcement anI I to like effect T I shudder and anti say NY to myself lf Kentucky again aam in ini i i Pretty nearly n arly always almo almost t seea sevea I times in ten my forebodings are ac ai accurate i curate Then I read react of a II n ni i I killing kUUng a constituent a a colonel killing killingi i a lieutenant an to a for foi forI I court killing an Internal revenue collector and so on through h the th whole horrible list I must ear sav however 1 I that in m most instances In these on vat quarrels which lead to murder mu r a ar I among the mountaineers who are art in m mno inI inno no sense the kind of Kentuckian I whose e characteristics tics I am sin discussing nl I The Th mountaineers of or Kentucky are arf t ta tl ti a 5 great extent the descendants of the trie convicts conict who were sold into slavery nv ut colonial Virginia and escaping from front fromI I j the plantations fled into the moun mann mountains where they have han continued from front t generation to generation a wild and people at once ignorant and defiant of ot law Before railroads i penetrated these the mountain fastnesses f i to bring out the iron and coal and timber Umber we did not often hear of these feuds When hen we did we were not dis disturbed disturbed disturbed by them We paid no heed t to these people and their quarrels but unwisely perhaps left them tiem t em to their own devices upon the theory that the themore themore more they killed of one another the better bettex off the world would be News New Ne Newspaper paper extravagance e of R is r now for making each of or theSe thee encounters encounter between bt tween mountaineer out our outlaws ur laws appear to be an art affair ll j I Kentucky gentlemen It is not actu cu cuI I rate but insomuch as Kentucky Ken tucky gen een en 1 tiemen do not behave with self restraint tn the result to their reputation I I is Ie in that degree not undeserved unde i I Even the gentl gentlemen of the bluegrass blU graM region are careless of life hf and there i is isDO isDo i iDO DO city and few villages in which there does not walk free some man with human blood upon up n his hands I will not say MY that such men enjoy the entire confidence and respect of the whole community in the same measure that those do who have been blameless in their Life But acquittal by a jury does doe in the opinion of many reinstate a man completely not only in his hia political rights but in hi his social Only just now we have had as asa asa a candidate for governor one who had hud I killed his bis man It is 18 quite true that Q very many of his own party revolted at the idea of ot having for or the chief ex tX executive executive of ot the commonwealth aith a man tat who had bad taken the law into his hi ou ow u n hands to the extent of oJ killing kUHn g a fellow tf man risen The fact tact however did not ap appear appear appear pear to make malts him bim an U entire impossibility tty fly as it no doubt would have hae done in tn almost any other state in the Union I 1 need not go on giving proof of the th humiliating fact tact that in Kentucky evert ed among those who hold olti al aland and social position there is a singular disregard of the of human life It 11 is a result of their peculiar e evo evolution o lutton lution and the penalty must meet m be paid until that evolution goes goe a step tep or so forward and makes of the Kentuckian something different from what he Q i ia today |