CHAPTER V 



SOME KENTUCKY MAGNATES 



ANOTHER set of chapters of my life were my visits to Frank- 

 fort, the capital of the state, where I had friends and kindred 

 and whereto I resorted during the sessions of the Legislature, 

 when in a small way the place was a brilliant centre of life, of 

 a life that has long since passed away. Thereto came for a 

 month or so in the winter some hundred people of local distinc- 

 tion, not a few of whom had made or were to make their marks 

 in a wider circle of affairs. I generally lodged with an old kins- 

 man, a Mr. Edmund Taylor, cashier of the State Bank, in those 

 days a station of considerable dignity. At that time it was a 

 law that the cashiers of such banks should severally dwell in 

 the buildings where their business was done. This was with the 

 idea, as I was told, that the domesticity of the work would en- 

 sure a greater measure of honesty in administration. These bank 

 houses were solid, spacious mansions, with the business offices 

 opening into the family quarters. In his way, the cashier who 

 effectively had charge of the business was a magnate and a con- 

 siderable figure in his little world. My kinsman was in years 

 an old man past seventy when I remember him clearly, excel- 

 lent in his business duties, but very merry, greatly addicted 

 to dancing. I have seen him keep it up until dawn of a winter 

 night. 



The amusements of the people who congregated in Frank- 

 fort were dining, dancing, and card-playing for both sexes, 

 getting drunk and sober for a large part of the young men, and 

 a most endless discussion of politics by all the assembled mul- 

 titude. It was a life of the ancient Stuart quality, quite unlike 

 anything I have found elsewhere. The essence of it was an ex- 

 traordinary sense of the value of the individual to himself and 



