Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1890 — LIFE IN KAINTUCK. [ARTICLE]

LIFE IN KAINTUCK.

An Artist Runs Against Some Interesting People. The longer I stay in this country the better I like it, says a Clear Creek Springs, (Ky.) letter to the Washington CapitaL Sunday I was out on the Cumber lain taking pictures and I turned my Kodak on a mountaineer in a boat. “Here, mister,” he called out, don’t turn your old Gatlin’ gun on me er I’ll throw a chunk of lead at you.” Not live minutes before that I’d been talking with a gentleman wbo has killed four or five men in his efforts to maintain a livelihood on the mountains, and I turned my Gatling gun oat to grass. Speaking of the men who did the killing their invariable answer when called on for a reason is simply, “I had to do it” That means that so met body had to die. 1 was talking the other day about a fine cow he had on his farm. “She’s the milkinest critter I ever seed milked,” he said, and. I accepted the superlative expression. I met a country school-teacher recently and he was telling me about Jiimself. “I taken a first-class certificate and thar an’t no school in this county I can’t teach,” he remarked proudly. In an examining court some time ago a young man was before the judge for stealing an ox, and a colored man, charged with assault, was next on the docket. When the first case was disposed of the judge tilted back in his chair and, waving his hand triumphantly, said to the jailer: “Remove the gentleman charged with stealing a steer and fetch in that nigger.” I had a seat within the bar at the time on fk hickory-bottomed chair, and I rather think his honor wanted to impress me. Whether he did or not, he did just the same. I have just heard an old story on the famous orator and wit, Tom Marshall, which I think will bear repeating, although it may be a chestnut During one of Tom’s campaigns he was opposed by a man whose father was a « cooper, and the man was making all of the capital out of it possible to offset the aristocratic Marshall. They spoke from the same platform one day—the cooper’s son making the first speech, and harping as usual on the same old subject When he had finished Tom got up. “Ladies and gentlemen, fellow-citizens.” he said, “my opponent’s father was, as he says, a cooper, and he was a good cooper, fori knew him; but ladies and gentlemen,” he continued, pointing to his opponent, “he put a mighty poor head in that keg there.” As might have been expected the cooper’s son was bunged up completely.