The blue-grass region of Kentucky : and other Kentucky articles . On a county court clay wellnigha whole town would be tickled. In some parts ofthe State tables were placed out on the sidewalks,and around these the men sat drinking mint-julepsand playing draw poker and old sledge. Meantime the clay was not wholly given over toplaying and fighting and drinking. More and moreit was becoming the great public day of the month,and mirroring the life and spirit of the times—onoccasion a clay of fearful, momentous gravity, as in COUNTY COURT DAY IN KENTUCKY IOI the midst of war, financial distress, h
The blue-grass region of Kentucky : and other Kentucky articles . On a county court clay wellnigha whole town would be tickled. In some parts ofthe State tables were placed out on the sidewalks,and around these the men sat drinking mint-julepsand playing draw poker and old sledge. Meantime the clay was not wholly given over toplaying and fighting and drinking. More and moreit was becoming the great public day of the month,and mirroring the life and spirit of the times—onoccasion a clay of fearful, momentous gravity, as in COUNTY COURT DAY IN KENTUCKY IOI the midst of war, financial distress, high party feel-ing; more and more the people gathered togetherfor discussion and the origination of measures deter-mining the events of their history. Gradually newfeatures incrusted it. The politician, observing thecrowd, availed himself of it to announce his owncandidacy or to wage a friendly campaign, sure,whether popular or unpopular, of a courteous hear-ing; for this is a virtue of the Kentuckian, to bepolite to a public speaker, however little liked his. THE TICKLER. 102 COUNTY COURT DAY IN KENTUCKY cause. In the spring, there being no fairs, it wasthe occasion for exhibiting the fine stock of thecountry, which was led out to some suburban past-ure, where the owners made speeches over it. Inthe winter, at the close of the old or the be^inninc-;of the new year, negro slaves were regularly hiredout on this day for the ensuing twelvemonth, andsometimes put upon the block before the Court-house door and sold for life. But it was not until near the half of the secondquarter of the century that an auctioneer originatedstock sales on the open square, and thus gave to theday the characteristic it has since retained of beingthe great market-day of the month. Thenceforthits influence was to be more widely felt, to be ex-tended into other counties and even States; thence-forth it was to become more distinctively a localinstitution without counterpart. To describe minutely the scen
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublishernewyo, bookyear1892
