We came at night to Harlan Court-house, an old shabby hamlet, but growing and improving, having a new court-house and other signs of the awakening of the people to the wealth here in timber and mines. Here in a beautiful valley three streams—Poor, Martin, and Clover forks—unite to form the Cumberland. The place has fourteen “stores” and three taverns, the latter a trial to the traveller. Harlan has been one of the counties most conspicuous for lawlessness. The trouble is not simply individual wickedness, but the want of courage of public opinion, coupled with a general disrespect for authority. Plenty of people lament the state of things, but want the courage to take a public stand. The day before we reached the Court-house the man who killed his wife and his brother had his examination. His friends were able to take the case before a friendly justice instead of the judge. The facts sworn to were that in a drunken dispute over cards he tried to kill his son-in-law, who escaped out of the window, and that his wife and brother opposed him, and he killed them with his pistol. Therefore their deaths were accidental, and he was discharged. Many people said privately that he ought to be hanged, but there was entire public apathy over the affair. If Harlan had three or four resolute men who would take a public stand that this lawlessness must cease, they could carry the community with them. But the difficulty of enforcing law and order in some of these mountain counties is to find proper judges, prosecuting officers, and sheriffs. The officers are as likely as not to be the worst men in the community, and if they are not, they are likely to use their authority for satisfying their private grudges and revenges. Consequently men take the “law” into their own hands. The most personally courageous become bullies and the terror of the community. The worst citizens are not those who have killed most men, in the opinion of the public. It ought to be said that in some of the mountain counties there has been very little lawlessness, and in some it has been repressed by the local authorities, and there is great improvement on the whole. I was sorry not to meet a well-known character in the mountains, who has killed twenty-one men. He is a very agreeable “square” man, and I believe “high-toned,” and it is the universal testimony that he never killed a man who did not deserve killing, and whose death was a benefit to the community. He is called, in the language of the country, a “severe” man. In a little company that assembled at the Harlan tavern were two elderly men, who appeared to be on friendly terms enough. Their sons had had a difficulty, and two boys out of each family had been killed not very long ago. The fathers were not involved in the vendetta. About the old Harlan court-house a great many men have been killed during court week in the past few years. The habit of carrying pistols and knives, and