15

FROM THE PRAIRIE.

Buffalo Bill, Texas Jack and Ned Buntline at the Academy of Music.

Had one of our "oldest inhabitants" happened near the Academy of Music last night when the multitude of excited boys and men were pouring out of its doors, he doubtless would have imagined himself back among those days when Indians prowled around the outskirts of the then village and amuse themselves occasionally by burning houses, stealing chickens, and scalping women and children. The clear night air rang with war whoops and exultant cries of "Buffalo Bill!" "Texas Jack!" and "Cale Durg to the rescue!" etc., etc. Mild mannered citizens were scared off the sidewalks as the animated stream of theatre goers passed up the street, by such exclaimations as the "lasso him!" "tie him to the stake!" "tomahawk him!" etc.

An overflow of dime novel spirits seemed to pervade the town, and ebulations of far West heroics were as free as the air. For all this the Meech Brothers are to blame. They it was who induced Colonel Judson (Ned Buntline) to come here with his troupe of prairie heroes. They it was who were shrewd enough to know that Buffalo Bill, Texas Jack, and Ned Buntline would gather into their theatre such as an audience as edwin Booth, Lester Wallack and Joe Jefferson combined would fall to draw, and they it is who will reap the reward of their sagacity.

To say that " the theatre was packed last night" would be a literal truth. We have never seen it so full. Men seemed to be arranged in close layers from the orchestra railing clear away up to the remotest corners of the gallery, and there was also an air of respectability perceiyable in the crowd unusual in such large and miscellaneous assemblages.

The laughable farce, "A Kiss in the Dark," opened the evening's entertainment, but its fun was thrown away on the audience. Interest was alive only for the three notable heroes and the Indians- real Indians. About nine o'clock the curtain arose on the "Scouts of the Prairie," and almost immediately Col. Judson (Ned Buntline), Hon. Wm. F. Cody (the original Buffalo Bill), and J. B. Omohundro (the original Texas Jack), made their appearance upon the stage. All were most rapturously received, and the wildest enthusiasm prayailed in the galeries during the evening. We did not see much of the play, but saw enough of it to know that it is what the boys call "red hot." There is an Indian death dance in it by real Sioux and Pawnee Indians, some lassoing, lots of shooting, a savage bowie knife combat, a little scalping, besides miscellaneous attractions, The cast is as follows:

Buffalo Bill- By the original hero, Hon. W. F. Cody