GENTLEMEN OF LEISURE.
VI
A new figure has made its appearance in the Kentucky market-place, having set its face resolutely towards the immemorial Court-house and this periodic gathering together of freemen. Beyond comparison the most significant new figure that has made its way thither and cast its shadow on the people and the ground. Writ all over with problems that not the wisest can read. Stalking out of an awful past into what uncertain future! Clothed in hanging rags, it may be, or a garb that is a mosaic of strenuous patches. Ah! Pompey, or Cæsar, or Cicero, of the days of slavery, where be thy family carriage, thy master and mistress, now?
He comes into the county court, this old African, because he is a colored Kentuckian and must honor the stable customs of the country. He does little buying or selling; he is not a politician; he has no [124] debt to collect, and no legal business. Still, example is powerful and the negro imitative, so here he is at county court. It is one instance of the influence exerted over him by the institutions of the Kentuckian, so that he has a passion for fine stock, must build amphitheatres and hold fairs and attend races. Naturally, therefore, county court has become a great social day with his race. They stop work and come in from the country, or from the outskirts of the town, where they have congregated in little frame houses, and exhibit a quasi-activity in whatever of business and pleasure is going forward. In no other position of life does he exhibit his character and his condition more strikingly than here. Always comical, always tragical, light-hearted, sociable; his shackles stricken off, but wearing those of his own indolence, ignorance, and helplessness; the wandering Socrates of the streets, always dropping little shreds of observation on human affairs and bits of philosophy on human life; his memory working with last Sunday's sermon, and his hope with to-morrow's bread; citizen, with so much freedom and so little liberty—the negro forms one of the conspicuous features of a county court day at the present time.
A wonderful, wonderful day this is that does thus always keep pace with civilization in the State, drawing all elements to itself, and portraying them to the interpreting eye. So that to paint the scenes of the county court days in the past is almost to write the [125] history of the contemporary periods; and to do as much with one of the present hour is to depict the oldest influences that has survived and the newest that has been born in this local environment. To the future student of governmental and institutional history in this country, a study always interesting, always important, and always unique, will be county court day in Kentucky. [126]
[127]
[128]
[129]
KENTUCKY FAIRS
I
