the guard-tent, and, when
Baker appeared, shot him dead with a rifle, then took to the woods and
escaped.

I quote now from a history of this feud published in _Munsey's Magazine_
of November, 1903.--

"Captain John Bryan, of the 2d Kentucky, said to the widow of the
murdered Tom Baker, after they returned from the funeral:

"'Mrs. Baker, why don't you leave this miserable country and escape
from these terrible feuds? Move away, and teach your children to
forget.'

"'Captain Bryan,' said the widow, and she spoke evenly and quietly,
'I have twelve sons. It will be the chief aim of my life to bring
them up to avenge their father's death. Each day I shall show my
boys _the handkerchief stained with his blood_, and tell them who
murdered him.'"

Corsican vendetta or Kentucky feud--what are language and race against
age-long isolation and an environment that keeps humanity feral to the
core?

Shortly after Baker's death, four Griffins, of the White-Howard faction,
ambushed Big John Philpotts and his cousin, wounding the former severely
and the latter mortally. Big John fought them from behind a log and
killed all four.

On July 17, 1899, four of the Philpotts were attacked by four Morrises,
of the Howard side. Three men were killed, three mortally wounded, and
the other two were severely injured. No arrests were made.

Finally, in 1901, the two clans fought a pitched battle in front of the
court-house in Manchester. At its conclusion they formally signed a
truce.

This is a mere scenario of a feud in the wealthiest and best-schooled
county of eastern Kentucky. Two of the families involved were of
distinguished lineage, counting in their ranks a governor, three
generals, a member of Congress, and a prohibition candidate for the
Presidency.

In reviewing this feud, Governor Bradley stated:

"The whole fault in Clay County is a vitiated public sentiment and
a failure of the civil authorities to do their duty. The laws are
insufficient for the Governor to apply a remedy. Such feuds have
been in progress more or less for years, and no Governor of the
State has ever been able to quell them. They have terminated only
when their force was spent by one side or the other being killed or
moving out of the country."

"The laws are insufficient for the Governor to apply a remedy." One
naturally asks, "How so?" The answer is that the