272
Brute Worshipers.
The nineteenth century is full of contradictions. The highest and the lowest, the best and the worst, elements of civilization are brought face to face. While we know a great deal more and enjoy a great deal more than our ancestors ever dreamed of, the nature of man is about the same it has always been--full of good and full of evil; full of strength and full of weakness.
The reception of John L. Sullivan in England is one of the contradictions of the spirit of our age. It reads like the other times when gladiators fought each other or fought wild beasts in the Roman arena. In fact, it shows that man, civilized as he is, has still many of the elements of the wild beast in him--rejoicing in strife and mere physical combat.
The only two American visitors whom the English people have seemed to appreciate much of late years have been John L. Sullivan and Buffalo Bill. They have recieved an attention from the highest classes there that one would think in this age of reason would only be given to men who excelled greatly in qualities of mind of heart. While the two are not alive, they are alive in having no claims to respect more than ordinary mean have.
Buffalo Bill is only an average man doing little credit or discredit to his country, but that such a man as Sullivan should be treated with distinguished marks of respect is strange indeed. His only reputation places him on a level with the brutes. He is not as large as an elephant nor as strong as an ox nore as active as a tiger, nore as active as a frog for that matter, and when it comes to striking a hard blow, the hind leg of a mule can double discount the power of his arm.
Why is it then that he should be treated with any more consideration than an ox or a mule? We ask the question for information; we cannot answer it. We see no respect than a brute. A brute is expected to be a brute, but when a man cultivates only his brute qualities, we cannot see how his highest success can place him above the models he imitates.
273
Exquisite Retribution.
When an actor, and particularly when an actress, begins to fade so that the English public can no longer be cajoled out of its shillings to witness his or her performance, with a tremendous flourish it is announced that at the earnest sollicitation of friends on this side Mr. So-and-So or Miss Here-and-There has finall consented to come to America and give a limited number of perfomances. Then it is told how many carloads of scenery and (if a lady) how many shiploads of costumes will be brought ont; the "enormous expense" is emphasized, and the shrewed maager never neglects to keep it before the easily gulled American people that design is to present, on American soil, all the splendor which the coming performer has paralyzed foreign courts with. At last there is the cable announcing the departure of the blazing star; seven days later some steam tugs are chartered in New York harbor; some cheap bouquets are purchased; a cheap brass band is engages; some cheap people board the tugs, go down the bay, meet the incoming ship, bring her to with a bonquet fired across her bow, transfer the "meteor" to the rug, and carry it in triumph to some crack hotel. Next morning, it is wired to the remotest telegraph station on our continent that the paragon has arrived. If it is a lady, her personal appearance is minutely described. Her clothing; the glimpses caught of her ship-load of trunks; the number of times she gave up her dinner to the insatiable sea on the passage, etc., etc., until expectation not only stands on tip-toe but gets up in a chair to do it. At last the grand opening night comes, and the crowded, suffocated audience that have paid four prices for admission, have the pleasure of looking at some English cads walking through ancient roles, in costumes which had been doing faithful service all over England and the Continent for years. They do not like to say they have been sold, so they look at each other and say: "Is it not lovely?" This is wired ot the country and published in the city next morning; another batch of suckers is caught for the next night; this goes on for several days, and then the suckers from the country "catch on" and go down to the city to see the glory, and so the thing runs for from forty to one hundred nights. Then the outside cities are given notice that after an unparalleled season in New York the phenomenal, first magnitude star will make a brief tour through the country, and so the continent is finally milked from shore to shore. This has been going on for forty years and more. Those who have had genius, who have possessed real excellence, may be counted on the fingersof one hand; those who have been utoor frauds, alas! who can count them? Hence it was with especial delight that we ehard that Buffalo Bill was going to return the curtesy, and with exquisite delight we read that he robbed the English public out of 350,000 [pounds]. But we were not quite happy because CODY'S show is an honest one. His Indians and cowboys are the genuine article; his squaws are just as mercenary 2nd degraded as are those of the plains; his shooting is a marvel in any country. But when we read that "an enormous crowd" gathered at St. James Hall to see the big, repulsive Boston champion; that JEM SMITH introduced him, and that big Jack's "smartness greatly pleased the Enlgish critic," then we said to ourself that the score which we had been owing England for lo, thse many years, was being paid, and we exult accordingly. Why should we not exult? SULLIVAN is as good an artist as LANGTRY; he may not strip quite as well to the critical eye ; his back may not be quite as elegant as "the Lily's" or his complextion quite as fair or his neck quite so gracefully poised ; but his feet are not any longer than "the Lily's" and he has better use of his arms. In a real exhibition his would be decidedly the more "striking" and we would wager that he would make double "the hits" in an evening that "the Lily" would. We never liked the big, dirty loafer, but now we warm to him and trust that he will rob the British public with the same careless unconcern that the mercenary men and women of England have manifested in robbing America for years past. The blind goddess that sits up above is awfully slow, but it is a joy to think that she always "gets in her work" at the last
274
Buffalo Bill.
New York, Nov. 17. - Vice-President Penfield of te America Exchage in London, who was also America Vice-Consul Genoral of the United States in Great Britian, reports that during six moths there were over three millions of people who paid admissions of 25 cents each. Buffalo Bill and his company were under contract with the exhibition and had one third of the receipts, so that Bill probably cleared $100,000 as his share during the season. Next year am Italian exhibition will be run by an English syndicate at the same site.
275
MEN.
The doctor recently captured Dublin by consenting to allow everyman four ounces of whiskey per diem at dinner. The Mayor of Cardiff has been made a knight which will make him a great card if there are no other kights in the pack. Bufalo Bill will wake the echoes of the past by giving exhibitions n the Coliseum at Rome. No Roman Emperor ever had his hair riz.