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THE HOME OF HISTORY AND HEROISM.

In concluding this sketch of the pioneer, military and managerial career of Colonel W.F. Cody, and of the historic characters and salient features with which Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rought Riders of the World has made mankind familiar, it is worthy of note that their present and sixteenth annual tour will be signalized by a magnitude, interest, value and perfection even surpassing previous efforts and splendid success. As indicated by the published programme of performances, the result is such an historical, martial and equestrian triumph as but one man could organize and but one country produce.

It is at once a colossal Object School of living lessons and an entertainment radically and exceptionally differing from all other exhibitions, in that it is actually a part of the romantic past it perpetuates, and vitalized by the presence of some of the most noted makers of the frontier history they illustrate. There is no "make believe" about it; nothing that does not seems to say, "We will now give you an imitation of somebody doing something," and it does not in any degree rely for its success upon the display of sensational feats that have no other utility than mere spectacular exhibition. The men who participate in it are, in absolute verity, just what they are represented to be, and the things they do are such as they have been accustomed to in war and military life, or in the struggle for existence in their several vocatinos and conditions. Himself the acknowledged master horseman of his generation, Colonel Cody is critical judge of the individual, the collective and comparative merits of the cavalry, Indian, Cossack, Cowboy, Bedouin, Mexican, Cuban, Argentine and other riders he has secured. As an expert he knows just how to most brilliantly and effectively mass these hundreds of representative riders and their horses in grand review, cosmographic pageant and kaleidoscopic manoeuvers. Himself a famous participant in many fierce battles, pursuits, rescues, and even deadly single combats, he knows how to plan and direct the spectacles of dreadful war and carnage, and of savage ambush and foray, in comparison with which the conflicts in the Coliseum of the Caesars were but spiritless and insignificant affrays.

To those who have followed the march of civilization from the Alleghenies to the Pacific, this exposition is like an illustrated reproduction of events which transpired during the long and bloody struggle between the white man and the Indian, in the former's effort to extend his empire and the latter's heroic but hopeless defense of his hunting grounds. The singular and savage characters of the Leather Stocking tales become striking, electrifying realities. The admirers of Lewis and Clarke, the explorers; of Daniel Boone, the pioneer; of Kit Carson, the scout, and of Fremont, Crook, Custer, Sherman and Miles, the fighters, readily recognize in the exhibition how courage, indomitable grit, alertness, sagacity, accuracy of aim, acuteness of perception and physical endurance won for them the names so enviably identified with the history of the fierce and prolonged frontier struggles, wherein every piece of ground was disputed inch by inch.

And now, to all the other varied and exclusive feats, facts and features of an illustrious enterprise, stupendously and marvelously true to history, to life upon the deserts, steppes and plains, to nomadic, military and equestrian action and prowess, is added a reproduction of the daring deeds of the Rough Riders at San Juan, which, as a battle spectacle, is superlatively great---something that no American can witness without overpowering emotions of patriotic pride.

JOHN M. BURKE.

COPYRIGHTED BY
CODY & SALSBURY
NEW YORK, 1900.