The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-04-12
KENTUCKIANs OF TWO SORTS.

| And Both Are Careless of Human Life.
John Gilmer Speed, a grand nephew
of the poet Keats and himself Ken
tuckian by birth and breeding, con-
tributes to the April Century a study
of THE Kentuckian."
When / take I'D my morning paper
and read in great head lines, Duel to
the Death or some other lurid an
nouncement to like effect. I shudder
and say to myself, kentucky again"
Pretty nearly always-almost seven
in 1O-my forebodings are accurate
Then I read of a congressman killing
Aconstituent, colonel killing a lieu
tenant, an ex-nlinister to a foreign
court killing an internal revenue col
lector and so on through the whole
horrisble list I must say, however,
that in most instances these private
quarrels which lead to murder are
among the mountaineers. who are in
no sense the kind of Kentuckians
whose characteristics I am discussing.
ing. The mountaineers of Kentucky
to a great extent, the descendants of
the convicts who We're sold into slav-
cry in colonial Virginia, and escaping
from the plantations, fled into the
mountains, where they have continued
from generation to generation a wild
and seni-savage people; at once ignor-
ant and defiant of law. Before rail-
roads penetrated these mountains fast
nesses to bring out the iron and coal
and timber, we did not often hear of
these feuds When we did we were
not disturbed by them. We paid no
heed to these people and their quarrels,
but, unwiseiy perhaps, left them to
their own devices, upon the theory that
the more they killed Of one another the
better off the world would be- News
paper extravaganza of statement is re-
sponsible now for making each Of these
encounters between mountaineer out
laws appear to be an affair between
Kentucky gentlemen, 1t is not accu-
rate, but inasmuch as Kentucky gem
tlemen do not behave with selfrestra-
int, the result to their reputation is in
that degree not deserved.
Even the gentlemen, of the blue
grass region are careless of life, and
there is no city, and few villages, in
which there does not walk free some
man with human blood upon his
hands. ] will not say that such men
enjoy the entire confidence and re-
spect of the whole community In the
same measure that those do who have
been blameless in their life. But ac-
quittal by jury does, in the opinion
of many, reinstate a man completely,
not only in his political rights, but in
his social privileges. Only just now we
have had as candidate for governor
one who had killed his man. 1t is
quite true that very many of his own
party reyolted at the idea of having
for the chief executive of the common !
wealth @ man who had taken the law
into his own hands to the extent of !,
killing fellow-man. The fact, how
ever, did not appear to make him an |
entire impQssibilitY, as it no doubt /
would have done in almost any other |
state in the Union, | need not go on
giving proof of the humiliaiting fact
that in Kentucky, even among those
who hold political and social position,
there is a singular disregard of the
sacredness of human life. 1t is a re-
suit of their peculiar evolution, and
The penelty must be paid until that
evolution goes step or so forward,
and makes of the Kentuckian some
hing different from what he is to-day.