XX 
A VANISHING ROMANCE 
TO the outside world the most interesting char- 
acter in the mountains is the moonshiner, 
who appears to the imagination as the Robin Hood 
of the Southern greenwood, sallying forth from his 
illicit "still," hidden in some cavern in the moun- 
tains, to pursue the relentless vendetta and contrib- 
ute "spirits" to a grateful community. 
Who is this romantic figure? When and how did 
he come upon the scene? Unfortunately for romance, 
he is not a survival of some ancient age and custom, 
but on the contrary, a product of conditions result- 
ing from the Civil War. ' * Before the war ' ' the moun- 
taineer converted his grain into whiskey just as the 
New Englander converted his apples into cider. 
The act of distilling in itself was not a crime, and 
became so only because it was an evasion of the reve- 
nue laws. In these late years the wave of prohibi- 
tion passing over the South has further complicated 
the act and made it reprehensible in the eyes of most 
people. But we have only to contemplate the im- 
mense quantity of distilling in Kentucky, Illinois, 
and other great places of production to see that it is 
not a question of morals but simply of money. In 
the mountains, where it is stigmatized not as illegal 
