Collapsed mining speculations made Colorado men foul-tempered and foul-mouthed

Evidence

Formerly, even the most profane men intermitted their profanity in the presence of women, but they “have changed all that.” Every one I saw up there seemed in a bad temper. I suspect that all their “smart tricks” in mining shares had gone wrong. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 208

Categorization

• CANDY: The observation that profanity in front of ladies was once universally suspended, and that frontier mining towns simply ‘changed all that,’ is a tidy, quotable bit of social history.
• SEED: An essay on how economic busts show up first in manners — the loss of courtesy as an early indicator of financial panic in a community.