File:The blue-grass region of Kentucky - and other Kentucky articles (1892) (14758499986).jpg

Identifier: bluegrassregiono5460alle (find matches)
Title: The blue-grass region of Kentucky : and other Kentucky articles
Year: 1892 (1890s)
Authors: Allen, James Lane, 1849-1925
Subjects:
Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers
Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

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ithea-tre, the dresses, and the dinners, have gone the mis-cellaneous amusements of which the fair was ere-while the mongrel scene and centre. The idealfair of to-day frowns upon the side-show, and dis-cards every floating accessory. It would be self-sufficient. It would say to the thousands of peoplewho still attend it as the greatest of all their organ-ized pleasures, Find your excitement, your relaxa-tion, your happiness, in a shed for machinery, a floralhall, and the fine stock. But of these the great-est attraction is the last, and of all kinds of stockthe one most honored is the horse. Here, then, wecome upon a noteworthy fact: the Kentucky fair,which began as a cattle-show, seems likely to endwith being a horse-show. If anything is lacking to complete the contrastbetween the fair in the fulness of its developmentbefore the war and the fair of to-day, what bettercould be found to reflect this than the differentmorale of the crowd ? You are a stranger, and you have the impression
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MULES. KENTUCKY FAIRS 167 that an assemblage of ten, fifteen, twenty thousandKentuckians out on a holiday is pervaded by thespirit of a mob. You think that a few broken headsis one of its cherished traditions; that intoxicationand disorderliness are its dearest prerogatives. Butnowadays you look in vain for those heated, excitedmen with money lying between their fingers, whowere once the rebuke and the terror of the amphi-theatre. You look in vain for heated, excited menof any kind: there are none. There is no drinking,no bullying, no elbowing, or shouldering, or swearing.While still in their nurses arms you may some-times see the young Kentuckians shown in the ringat the horse-fair for premiums. From their earlyyears they are taken to the amphitheatre to enjoy itscolor, its fleetness, and its form. As little boys theyride for prizes. The horse is the subject of talk inthe hotels, on the street corners, in the saloons, atthe stables, on county court day, at the cross-roadsand blacksmi

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