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INTRODUCTORY.

Fifteen continuous and splendidly successful years of absolutely original and inimitable production have entirely convinced many millions of people in both Europe and America that BUFFALO BILL'S WILD WEST AND CONGRESS OF ROUGH RIDERS OF THE WORLD is the only genuine, legitimate, and possible enterprise and entertainment of its scope and kind; wherein the historian on horseback has Truth for his amanuensis; where nothing approaching misrepresentation or deception is ever, or for one moment, tolerated; and where the conclusive proof of perfect and spotless realism and international educational value and recreation is unanimously overwhelming, as voiced in the unqualified admiration and recommendation of the world's greatest generals, rulers, statesmen, scientists, and divines; spread broadcast upon the pages of the press in every language, and chronicled with enduring honor in current history, official record and governmental indorsement.

It is the grandest and most cosmopolitan Object Teacher ever projected by the exceptional experience and executive genius of man, scrupulously truthful in every respect, with every feature herein or elsewhere announced forthcoming, every historical and personal reference authentic, and every narrative, indorsement, and criticism correct in spirit, context and application, as regards incident, person, time and location. It presents with a colossal perfection and verisimilitude utterly impossible under any other management, living spectacles of heroic deeds of patriotic devotion and savage resistance; the pomp and circumstances of royal and republican martial array and wildly picturesque and fearsome panoply; the rush, the rally, the splendid force and action of embattled mounted hosts; artillery in skilled and stirring evolutions; the most superb horsemen of every continent in rivalries of daring, style, successes and accomplishments beyond description or comparison; the greatest surviving frontier experts of the rifle, pistol, bowie-knife, tomahawk, and lariat; the reckless feats and strange pastimes of the Border, the Sahara, the Pampas, the Prairies, and the Steppes- a vast, varied, veritable apocalypse of days and deeds, of men and methods, that can return no more; a marvelous, masterly, glorious and instructive incarnation of romantic fact, such as the world has read of but never elsewhere seen, and when it passes from the Wild West's grand arena shall never look upon again.

It is something of which intelligence, morality, and patriotism approve, because it is history not vaudeville: not cheap and ephemeral theatrical mimicry, confined within the limits of four walls, but the perpetuation and magnificent material re-introduction of a crowning epoch, of transcendent, electrifying Reality, whose natural stage dwarfs that of Ceasar's Coliseum and is illumined by the lamps of heaven.

It is an exceptional and remarkable fact, repeatedly demonstrated by experience under exacting circumstances, that when people find out what BUFFALO BILL'S WILD WEST really is, they not only patronize it, but return to it again and again, at each recurring visit finding fresh food for reflection, wonder and delight, and all the more appreciating its extraordinary magnitude and its exclusive merit and magnetism. The record of its reception and receipts in the greater cities of both Europe and America may be cited in its behalf as a test of both time and popularity, not only without percent or parallel, but entirely beyond the reach of any other kind of exhibition, and which will undoubtedly stand forever unrivaled. This experience includes two entire seasons in New York City, succeeded by one in London. Next a whole season in Paris, which was incidentally accepted as the greatest attraction of the World's Exposition, then being held in that city. Then another succeeding entire season in London, royally recognized and signalized by a command to appear before Queen Victoria, at Windsor Castle, although the Court was at that time in mourning. And, as a culminating triumph and national home endorsement, both afternoon and evening performances from the opening to the closing of the World's Fair in Chicago, whose patronage rivaled that of the stupendous exposition itself.

It was long ago remarked that at no time does a man feel so superior to fate and fortune, so confident of himself, and so much above his fellow creatures , as when he looks down upon the things of this world from the back of a good horse. Certain it is that in all ages from Troy to Texas the man on horseback has been the heroic central figure and the leader of nations and of armies. Collectively and historically it is in Buffalo Bill's Wild West that the man on horseback finds his apotheosis and in the leadership of Colonel W. F. Cody, an equestrian paragon, whose personality is more familiar to the general public on both sides of the Atlantic than that of any other horseman that ever lived. It is for others to testify to his services to his country and to the record and personal qualities for which he is distinguished. NATE SALSBURY, Vice-President and Manager