And salted down the 'tips.'"
Evil days came to Ben's master, and Ben was sold—becoming the joint chattel of the young swells of the poker-room. But the joint chattel proved to be too versatile for his vocation, and one of the stockholders denounced him as "a damned kinky-headed corporation," and kicked him downstairs. As Governor Desha, in a recent message to the Legislature, had effectively arraigned those "dangerous corporations which embodied the interests of powerful men," the prompt action of the stockholder at the old tavern brought great relief to the public mind. It showed that corporations could be reached—that, contrary to the general impression, they had "bodies that could be kicked and souls that could be damned."
The advent of the abolition "emissary," the emancipated negro, and the "burnt cork" minstrel was practically contemporaneous in Kentucky. In the gentle mid-century days a company of strolling minstrels had announced an entertainment at the old county seat of Mason—the town where Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe (a frequent guest of Mrs. Marshall Key) first witnessed a "sale" of negro slaves. On the evening announced for the entertainment, the Courthouse was packed from floor to dome. Among the conspicuous figures toward the front was Colonel Robert B., a fine old Kentuckian of antique Norman type—tall, ruddy, high-featured, light haired; hearty, convivial, and profane—a boon companion and bon vivant. He sat expectantly but at ease, a bandaged arm resting upon the seat in front. He was cordially greeted by kinsmen and friends in every part of the house. The curtain rose and the minstrels filed upon the stage, looking for all the world like a lot of "free nigger" swells. Their very appearance was an offense, and provoked at once a collision with the young Mohawks of the town. The violoncello was shivered into splinters, and the flutes, fiddles, and castanets went singing through the air. No trace of harmony was left. There was a universal dash for windows and doors; none stood upon the order of his going. All went at once—all except "Colonel Bob," who sat unmoved, fixed to his seat as if fascinated by the moving scene in front. The spectators were amazed. "Hell's fire, Bob!" exclaimed an anxious friend, "don't you know there is a fight going on down there?" The Colonel looked incredulous. "I wish I may be damned," he said, "if I didn't think it was part of the play!" There was universal condemnation of these minstrel folk by persons who did not see the show; but the Colonel, who was a "stayer," insisted that "the niggers made a good fight."
Unquestionably there is a certain lack of modernity, or at least of civilized amenity, in such a manifestation as this: but there was a spontaneous and elemental vivacity in their unpremeditated assault upon the counterfeit African bucks which betrayed the rude fantastic humor of their Norman blood, and imparted a pleasant tang to the crude flavor of early plantation life. Mr. Barrett Wendell finds in the still earlier life of the West conditions described as existing in the times of the Plantagenet kings; and Mr. Owen Wister seems inclined to adopt his startling views. Apparently, then, we must count with inherited conditions and characteristics even in the politics of the times. The modern world is probably not ideally moral, but it is sensitively fastidious and scrupulously observant of "good form." It would wreck a railway, perhaps, or deplete a bloated insurance exchequer, but it would not launch an ungentlemanly imprecation or utter a trivial or unproductive oath. It even discountenances the oath in court— a solemn asseveration or attestation before a judge. It utterly discredits—socially and otherwise—the blas-phe-mous ejaculation or the vulgar "cuss-word," or the light conversational "swear" familiar in the dialect of the "back shop," the groggery, and the street. The variety of oath known as a "swear," considered psychologically, is not a very serious offense. In a philosophical aspect, indeed, it is in some sense a temperamental necessity, dependent on physiological conditions, and is essentially the result of a defensive or protective instinct. Where not merely idle, wanton, and unmeaning, it is a psychological regulator nervorum. It is the unpremeditated product of a prompt cerebral reaction. It gives the centers of speech a chance to rally when thrown into disorder by a sudden attack. There is no time for the picking and arranging of words, and, except in persons of lymphatic temperament, no capacity for the leisurely elaborations of speech. One is confronted, not with a problem, or theory or condition, but with an emergency that must be decisively met. Silence perhaps is golden, but there is a certain steel-like quality in trenchant speech. Profane, "rapid-fire" ejaculation is not only a deeply implanted instinct, but by frequent indulgence becomes an invincible habit—a habit so odious and offensive as to make even a Chesterfield swear. As a racial instinct it survives transplantation to any clime, and religious training of every sort. Even the disciplinary methods of Calvinism fail to eradicate it. But an "inherited drill" may at times soften, or modify, or mask the mode of manifestation, as is cleverly illustrated in the familiar lines—
"The Blue Light Elder knows 'em well—
Says he—'There's Banks, we'll give him—well!
That's Stonewall Jackson's way.'"
A Kentuckian casually encountering a distinguished New Englander at the buffet of an exclusive Eastern club, exclaimed: "Does a Puritan drink?" "I would not give a damn," was the decisive answer, "for a Puritan that could not drink, pray, and fight." It is probably no secret that in our amphibious Scandinavian, General William Nelson, the swearing instinct was abnormally developed. He did not swear "like a sailor," to be sure; nor "like a trooper" of the olden time; since neither soldier nor sailor of the ordinary type was ever gifted with his extraordinary abundance and facility of profane expression. It is but just to say, however, that at times he struggled manfully against the habitual inclination. "Christ give me patience!" he cried when his favorite aide, Colonel Samuel Owens (a joker of the Norman type), inadvertently "sat down" upon his military hat. The utterance was a sincere and reverent appeal for Divine help. He instinctively shrank from the coming torrent of profane ejaculation, and with a prayerful effort was bracing himself against the flood.
PRESIDENT JEFFERSON DAVIS.