The Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky, and Other Kentucky ArticlesAllen, James Lane
General
The Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky, and Other Kentucky Articles
Allen, James Lane
Kentucky -- Description and travel; Kentucky -- Social life and customs
If you attempt to deal with them in the business of the market-place, do
not trick or cheat them. Above all things they hate and despise intrigue
and deception. For one single act of dishonor a man will pay with
life-long aversion and contempt. The rage it puts them in to be charged
with lying themselves is the exact measure of the excitement with
which they regard the lie in others. This is one of their idols--an
idol of the market-place in the true meaning of the Baconian philosophy.
The new Kentuckian has not lost an old-time trait of character: so high
and delicate a sense of personal honor that to be told he lies is the
same as saying he has ceased to be a gentleman. Along with good faith
and fair dealing goes liberality. Not prodigality; they have changed all
that. The fresh system of things has produced no more decided result
than a different regard for material interests. You shall not again
charge the Kentuckians with lacking either "the telescopic appreciation
of distant gain," or the microscopic appreciation of present gain. The
influence of money is active, and the illusion of wealth become a
reality. Profits are now more likely to pass into accumulation and
structure. There is more discussion of costs and values. Small economies
are more dwelt upon in thought and conversation. Actually you shall find
the people higgling with the dealer over prices. And yet how significant
a fact is it in their life that the merchant does not, as a rule, give
exact change over the counter! At least the cent has not yet been put
under the microscope.
[Illustration: SWAPPING HORSES.]
Perhaps you will not accept it as an evidence of progress that so many
men will leave their business all over the country for an idle day once
a month in town--nay, oftener than once a month; for many who are at
county court in this place to-day will attend it in another county next
Monday. But do not be deceived by the lazy appearance of the streets.
There are fewer idlers than of old. You may think this quiet group of
men who have taken possession of a buggy or a curb-stone are out upon a
costly holiday. Draw near, and it is discovered that there is fresh,
eager, intelligent talk of the newest agricultural implements and of
scientific farming. In fact the day is to the assembled farmers the
seedtime of ideas, to be scattered in ready soil--an informal,
unconscious meeting of grangers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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