The Houma courier. (Houma, La.) 1878-1939, 1900-06-09
THE K%ENTUCKIAN.
Even the Gentlemen OF the BIue-
Grass Region Are Careless
OF NINA Life.

John Gilmer Speed, a granddaughter
of the poet Keats, and himself a Ken
tuckian by birth and breeding, con
tributes a timely study OF "The Ken
tuckian."
when I take up my morning paper
and read in great headlines: Duel to
the Death or some other lurid an
nouncement to like effect, I shudder
and say to myself: Kentucky again
Pretty nearly always-aImost seven
times in ten-my f~orebodings are ac-
curate. Then / read of a Congressman
killing a constituent, a colonel killing
a lieutenant, an ~ex-minister to a for
eign court killing an internal-revenue
collector, and so on through the whole
horrible 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 1 am discussing.
The mountaineers of Kentucky are, to
a great extent, the descendants of the
~convicts who wer sold into slavery in
colonial Virginia, and escaping from
the plantations, fed into the noun.
tains, where they have continued from
generation to generation a wild and
semi-savage people, at once ignorant
and defiant of law. Before railroads.
penetrated these mountain Businesses
to-bring out the iron and coal and tim
Der, we did not often hear of these
feuds. When we did we were not dis
turbed by them. We'paid no heed to
these people and their quarreIs, but,
unwisely 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.
extravaganza of statement is re-
sponsible for making each of
these encounters between mountaineer
outlaws appear to be an affair between
Kentucky gentlemen. 1t is not &C.
c~urate, but insOmuch as Kentucky
gentlemen do not behave with self re-
.Htraint, the result to their reputation
is in that degree not undeserved.
Even the gentlemen of the blue
grass region r careless of life, and
there is no city, and few villages, i'm
which there does not walk free some
with human bloodupon his hands.
l will not say that such men enjoy the
confidence and respect of the
community in the same measure
that those do who have been blameIess
their life, But acquittal by a jury
toes, in the opinion of many. reinstate
, mar completely, moi only in his po-
itical rights, but in his social priv
Only just now we have had as
candidate for governor one who had
lilled his man. 1t is quite true that
very many of his own party revoIted at
idea of having for the chiefexecu-
i've of the commonwealth a man who
lad taken the faw- nrtU ms WI hands
20 the extent of killing a fellow-man.
The fact, however, did not appear to
make him an entire impossibility, as it
10 doubt would have done in almost
my other state in the union. [ need
lot go on giving proof of the humiIiat-
ng fact that in Kentucky, even among
hose who hold political and social po-
ition, there is a singular disregard of
he ~sacredness of human life. It is a
esult of their peculiar evolution, and
he penalty must be paid until that
volution goes a step or so forward,
nd makes of the Kentuckian some
hing different from what he is to-
.ay."-Century.