Blue-grass blade. [volume] (Lexington, Ky.) 188?-19??, 1890-11-15
of whisky should be rocked in a

OF WHISKY snOuId ne rocked IN O
cradle.
For this purpose Mr.. johnson
put up large building on Vine
street that was managed some.
thing like one of the "baby
farms that they have in Europe.
Each barrel had it's own little
cradle and they put it in its little
bed, and niger stood by with
a rope attachment that worked
whole rows of cradles at once and
rocked them all the time for sew.
en- days, that anybody was'in sight
at least, and as now claimed to
perfect the plan, without cessation,
al night; the charm all being dis.
PEELED if the cradles are once
stopped. Mr.. johnson had i'm.
plicit confidence that that niger
would not one second allow one
OF those cradles to stop rocking
any time through the night when
Mr.. johnson was at home asleep.
l could never exactly catch on
to the idea by which the cradle
was to make the whisky get older,
except the general impression that
nearly all old people had once
been rocked in cradles; and I sup
pose that in 70 king the whisky
there was a sort of lullaby in
fluence, sorta of "Rock-a-by baby
on.the -tree-top," "Rock me to :
sIeep.mother" influence over the
whisky,that would get the fighting
quality out Of it.
Soon after Mr.. johnson got
through working his whisky, q
saIoon-keeper on Vine street, who
was at the time with Mr.. johnson
in the City Council, painted as a
sign on the side of his saloon the
words "Fourteen gear old whisky,"
l don't know that it was the cradle
whisky of Mr.. Johnsons, but if,
it was, that niger that was left to,
rock that whisky must have gone
to sleep and quit rocking and left
some fight in it, for one of the
customers of the saloon got his
brains knocked out with an axe
handle at that saloon.
But l have no doubt that, as Mr.. |
johnson says, he is in heart a great /
friend to the Temperance cause,
and that his whisky cradle may
have been intended to co operate
with Mother Stewart" of Ohio,
the dear, good old woman who
about that time was starting the
temperance crusades in Ohio, from
which Prohibition has come.
The last party who has declined
to pay me is Mr.. j. +. Slade.
Mr.. Slade is one of the pillars
of the Short Street Baptist Church.
whose pastor, Rev. Felix, is a
stakeholder of The Blade, who paid
his stock before 1 was ready to re-
ceive it; who breaches Prohibition
in his pulpit, and has most gener-
ously and Christianity endorsed and
encouraged me in words on the :
and in what, have been
told, were probably references to {
me in his pulpit.
Mr.. Slade has made his for.
tune as school teacher and
as an engineer. In the few words
of the inelegant note he wrote me
he spelled the word cancel, ,
C a-n-c-i-l, with a plain dot on the
]. paid him once a large bill for
a large job of surveying. While I
the guest of my house on that occa- {
sion he so aroused my indignation |
that under Observation-Disclosures l
would have expressed my contempt
for him at the time in stronger {
terms than l did He described
to me exultingly, in the presence of Q
my wife who had a young child in
her arms, how as school teacher he
had whipped George Payne most
brutally, telling with dramatic eff:
feet how he made the blood run
from his body. ] never was
whipped by a school teacher in my
life, and have contempt for all
teachers who whip their students, .
and have lately expressed my un-
contempt for the way
great big double-fsted school
teacher whipped the small and del ,
icate son Of Mr.. John Il. Shelby,
when the boy. that l knew to be
a splendid child, was acting the
little hero to shield classmate.
l was so disguised with Mr..
Slade after his story of whipping
young Payne that l avoided speak
ing to him for ten years afterward.
I told him at the time that his
treatment of the hoy, from his own
account, was enough to ruin any
boy. Payne, in a drunken fit,
killed a man and then suicided.
l suppose he whipped Payne be-
cause the boy did not spell to suit
him.
l have never had the large job
of surveying that MIR. Slade did for
me tested. Atterward he was em-
ployed by turnpike company, in
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