18833 Two Hundred Miles of Kentucky 



biscuit." Their bread they "used to raise" by the 

 elaborate process known as "sah rising," but they 

 had "mostly got out of the habit" and so baked 

 "quick" breads raised by soda and sour milk 

 and shortened with lard, an American practice too 

 common among our pioneers. When coffee was to 

 be had, they provided "long sweetening"; namely, 

 sorghum molasses. 



These people are still essentially English peasants 

 shut away for centuries from the main currents of 

 American affairs. At the time of our visit feuds 

 similar to the Italian Vendetta were prevalent in 

 southeastern Kentucky, and "Redmond, the Out- "Redmond, 

 law," a daring "moonshiner," was the popular Jj^ „ 

 hero. "Moonshine" is whisky distilled by night in 

 caves or "lonesome coves"; the high excise tax 

 levied by the government on alcohol openly manu- 

 factured made "moonshining" profitable, and ex- 

 tirpation of the industry cost much money and 

 some lives. For the mountaineers could never un- 

 derstand why "they couldn't be let to make a little 

 good whisky out of their own corn." 



The physical and mental apathy so character- 

 istic of that folk we now know to be largely due 

 to the diffusion of the hookworm — Uncinaria. 

 Indeed, the sad plight of many of the factory chil- 

 dren of the South is caused by Uncinaria rather than 

 by overwork, though both are abominable. Re- 

 cently the researches of Dr. Charles W. Stiles and SuUis 

 his associates have made the nature of this pest a ''^"^'c^" 

 matter of general information, and have brought to 

 light a simple remedy for apathy and anemia, the 

 special ills of the "poor whites" — that is, the use of 

 aromatic oils, of which thymol is the most efficacious. 



I 247 : 



