266
Kalir Fields
Last week General and Mrs. Anson McCook were reveling in the World's Fair, first steaming about the lagoons in a launch as guests of President Palmer, and then viewing the illuminations from the Administration Building. General McCook says it is worth a journey round the world merely to look at the buildings in Jackson Park, and he is right. I found him and his family at Buffalo Bill's Wild West after a day's tramp through the Fair, delighted with what he called "a great show." It ought to be inside the Fair grounds, and would have been had Colonel Cody's proposition been accepted by the Fair authorities. Better for him as it is, however, as he makes all the money and is his own master. General and Mrs. McCook will pass the summer at Rutland, Vermont. They could not have selected a lovelier spot. Fortunately for the Capital, these popular McCooks will return to their Washington house next winter.
267
BUFFALO BILL'S WILD WEST.
Among the many attractions and places of interest for Red Men to visit during the World's Fair, we know of none more interesting and profitable to visit than Buffalo Bill's Wild West, corner Stony Island Ave. and 63d Street, in close proximity to the 63d Street entrance to the Fair grounds, reached by the Illinois Central and the elevated railroad.
Here you will find the native aborigine at his home, and much valuable information concerning dress, customs, manners, etc., may be gained. Many details of the Indian which are beneficial to Red Men may be gained here. In the arena you will see the daring horsemanship of the Indian, the various dances, manner of moving and setting up camp or village, mode of warfare, attack on a veritable stagecoach, attack on a hunter's lodge, buffalo hunt, etc., etc., and much more of Indian customs and doings, all of which is of inestimable value for Red Men to see. Besides this Indian feature, this exhibition has many other attractions, cowboys and scouts in their feats of daring on horseback, lassooing, racing, bronco riding, etc., etc., noted horsemen of the different nations of the world, celebrated acrobats of foreign climates remarkable glass ball shooting by Buffalo Bill and others, all of which is to be seen in one immense arena at Buffalo Bill's Wild West, which is truly the greatest exhibition on earth. Every feature of the exhibition is well worth the price of admission to the whole, and we would impress on every Red Man in particular, and visitors in general, to avail themselves of more opportunity of visiting this great exhibition while in Chicago.
268
Times July 9
THE WILD WEST.
"It is hard to find new words and new ideas with which to express oneself regarding the same fact or incident, but the extreme novelty and the many thrilling and daring feats of Buffalo Bill's Wild West are enough to inspire most any one with a new method of expression. So large is the entertainment and so diversified are the feats thereof that to enter into details regarding its many beauties and attractions would tire the pen of the most gifted historian or poet, so that very little must be expected of the newspaper writer."- Colonel Cody's Press Agent.
269
Chicago News July 4"
AMY LESLIE AT THE FAIR.
The Pleasant Entertainment Given a Party Held Captive by a Rainstrom. --------------------- JOHN L. 'S ENCOUNTER WITH THE BEAR. --------------------- Good Stories About Other Stage Characters Who Were Not Born to Be Actors.
James Corbett is aflame with enjoyable smiles, congratulations and Midway complaisance, but Wiliams Brady is consumed with palpitating woe and occupied priacipally in ferocious denials, contemptuous threats and reserved casus belli. Brady is the most versatile volume of strategy and snare-drum tactics who thrives upon the public. He would have a plausible excuse for a cyclone which would seize his star and drift him heavenward and that contract which Mr. Brady cannot elude with the agility of Corbett at the punching-bag has never been drawn up. Hine illae lacchrimae, because everything except the prospective Mitchell's visage has been broken by the all too fascinating James. The Corbett exhibition is really very charming. A " string-show" in which James does considerable graceful " stringing" on his own account.
When John L. Sullivan was making his first and most electic tour over the states, challenging anybody to stand up before him for three rounds, he struck Butte City, Mont., in the midst of a vital adoration for one huge and indestructible mountaineer decorated with the fitting title " Grizzly Bear." Mr. Grizzly scofed a defiance at the approching Boston pride. which gleamed from the Rockies to Council Bluffs. Bets on the western marvel bestrewed Sullivan's laureled path and excitement was at fever heat when he reached the city of mines and short cards. Sullivan, of course, had no doubts, but his backers were a trifle awed by the girzzly's tremedous physical development. He stripped for the ring and made John L. Look like a little boy in comparison. He was gigantle in every proportion and compact as an oriole's nest. All Montana money of course was plunged on Grizzly, the betting was violently partial and reckless and the eastern syndicate ventured with more discretion than seemed warranted by past success. Sullivan arranged to quietly signal to his crowd after the first attack whether they should bet on him or against him and when the Butte monster made a wild provincial lunge at John and threw himself very hard aginst the murky Montana atmosphere John smiled one of those porterhouse extra beams of satisfaction which encouraged the syndicate to take all enthusiastic prairie bets and increase the sport by large challengson their own side. The infatuation and sincere faith in the Grizzly gentleman did not swerve until about the last of the second round, when John began to land a few choice samples of that cheering double-handed punishment of his upon the mountain terror's jaw, the one spot where it did not encourage the Grizzly. The Montana faction yelled itself hoarse and above the din carolled one piping voice : " Say, Grizzly, why don't ye stop some o' them air slugs?"
Grizzly caught his fleeting breath and made a mammoth effort to respond to the call of time, answering the query with : " Waal, do ye see any o' them slungs goin by me ? "
When the Butte City worshipers picked the gaint out of a corner and straightened him out from the tangle into which Mr. Sullivan had knit him admirers stood by him to a man and one of them said : " Try it again termorrer, Grizzly ; ye air kinder surprised like, but yer a winner. "
" Is that so?" exclaimed Grizzly. " Waal, I calcaulte I'd ruther stay a winner an ' quit right whur I be. "
Sunday I was caught in the worst combination of weather delayed train and summer toilet that has been my lot this vicarious season. In an iridescent flash of mentality I bethought myself of Annie Oakley's cunning tent, which stood under the trees near the station, and I blew in there, drenched, gasping and sure of a royal welcome. Beneath this white-winged shelter I discovered a cohort of genius and wit which made my damp costume and dripping feather erinkle with delight. There was Isidora Rush, radiant as a June morning, covered with dimpling smiles and diamounds ; Roland Reed in his perpetual state of rejuvenation, Nate Salsbury, Maj. Burke, Gus Pennoyer and two or three lovely girls from New York. It was dry and cozy in the tent as in any parlor and while they served us ices and melting jelly cake the wind rocked the lamps, tumbled over a stack of guns and howled defiance in all the tongues of dynamo and the Teepee.
Reed remembered a story of a Kansas City storm which overtook Joseph Folk once while that comedian was in the cluches of a man who had a melodrama to read and sell. The playwright had corralled Polk within in the hospitable walls of a Kansas City cottage, lent Polk slippers, given him a pillow, a drink and other emollients preparatory. to the play onslaught In the middle of the third act tounderous assaults upon the roof, dazzling lighting and a simoon of landscape decorations began to sail through the dismal climate. The playwright's cottage shook from rafters to foundation, crockery, furniture, wadrobe and illumination began to shiver and frolic about the room and Polk was heaved from his comfortable couch and his head bumped furiously by dismantled picture-frames, candles, coal-scuttles and other articles of started vertu. Calm as a bronzed Nemesis, the playwright had never stopped reading the fearful play at Polk. With a Delsartean spread of base, a titling lamp in one hand and the manuscript in the other he raised his voice above the storm and kept right on ' without losing his place. Polk lunged up against the reciting author, whispering : " For heaven's sake what is it?"
" Nothing but a cyclone---'and never! no, never ! can I love you now, Rupert' slow curtain and end of third act. "
Col. Cody arrived with a crash of thunder and accompanying trepidation and shaking his silver mane immediately joined in the congenial exchnage of experiences sure to grow like tendrills in a company like the gathring in this pretty tent. Some restless body proposed tea and Nate Salsbury and I eloped to the Cody kitchen the only umbrella. High Bear stood like a Keneys lion in the doorway and without cermony lifted me over a seething gurgle of muddy waves which ran between me and oolong. Miss Rush planted her tiny French shoes in a pair of gunning boots and followed with the rest of the party, but Pennoyer, who is hopeless target for all the accidental ills of man and not on to the ropes of camping existence, stumbled at the hempen ten-guard and sprawled in the mud like a gray and indigant porpoise He stood under the pouring caves of the kitchen and let the kindly storm wash his mud-dyed face and clodded shirt-front while High Bear glared at him in some solemn amusement from his scarlet blanket. Once in the Cody hosterly, stories were rife and pungent as the delicious tea dn until time for the colonel to don his buckskins and introduce the show sparkle of recounted adventure swept round the dainty table like a searchlight upon glorious memories.
The first traveling company Roland Reed ever adorned came from the dephs of darkest St. Louis. Nobody had any wardrobe nor expected any salary. Just acting, that was all. They had been out two weeks and, of course, had no money to furnish " props" with the necessary collartercal to run stage festivities according to Delmonico. " Lucretia Borgia" was the bill and old Joe Hann. who was about first old man after Fort Dearborn surrendered, appeared as Grebbo in a costume consisting of red tights in an appalling state of darn, a rubber head-band from which two black curls fluttered, a Claudian drapery and scuffling sandals. The old man isisted upon singing the drinking song, and the banquet table, upon which flowing bowls of liquid which had been cautiously lifted to the lips of the other Lucretian feasters and suddenly very much let alone, loomed up before the old actor in great shape as he began the brindis in a cracked and tortuous voice. He had tremblingly rollicked through the complimentary couplets addressed to the Borgia and came to the gallant "Here's to, etc." He tossed the glass to his lips, dashing the contents down in swaggering security of an encore, but a spams of agony seized him and choked him from further vocalism than the vivid explanation: Kerosene, by the just heavens!"
" Props" had done the best could under the pressure of finance and filled the jubilant cups with coal oil.
Nate Salsbury's intial discovery to the grateful public began under the benign influence of Jennie Hight and a choice group of pliocene stars. They explored the habitations of the far west and insular contiguity. They never had known the charms of a regular ghost walk in all the Tuesdays of the year and town halls often were not so large or inviting as the Auditorium. It was customay for the manager (who incidentally played the drum or cornet) to step on the stage and look over the calico curtain, count the people and if $ 1 apiece seemed to stare from partical vacancy the gleesome announcment : " All right, it's in, ring up, " started the Thespic fall rolling. If less than board and lodging spoke from the benches and actors slipped away if the populace had not been forewarned by similar experience. The shortest notice on the Salsbury record came in this tour of Miss Hight, when in the third act of " Rederic Dhu" a poster on the call board greeted the actors with " Season will close after the fourth act. "
When the dull earth first glowed with the scintillating idea of putting " Buffalo Bill" in touch with sensation-hungry public by means of the stage everything preliminary was arranged in the briefest possible time. However, the cogent necessity of a drama had not suggested itself to the instigators and perpetrators of this public surprise. All was ready to open with acclaim at old Nixon hall on the west side before the fire. When the printing came it revealed the promise of a melodrama entitled. " Scouts of the Praire," by Ned Buntline. The attraction was billed for Sunday night and Thursday somebody asked Buntline about the play. In his usual bustling hustle Ned appreciated the obvious exigency demanding a play of some sort and tearing off his coat he said : " I'll go up-stairs and write it now." He ordered the landlord of the Briggs house to send all his clerks up to copy the acts as he wrote and probably the most remarkable examples mongrel literature ever launched upon the desultory sea of letters began to fly about the room devoted to this sudden evolution of hybrid drama. In four hours Ned had most of the thing on paper and, flushed with his own success, he asked Cody how long he thought it might take him to learn the part. Cody said with becoming assurance : " About a year, " and Texas Jack thought " mebbe" he could do it in six months, but nothing dismayed by the "cussedness" of his stars the inderfatigable Buntline opened to standing-room and yells Sunday night. Gen. Sheridan, many honorable persons in the city's call and all the boys within hailing distance waited for the curtain to rise. Of course neither Bill no Jack knew a line of the weird parts presented them by Buntline. When Mr. Cody's entrance music stirred the dusky air he yelled : " What am I going' to say, anwhow? "
Buntline replied: " Tell some stories ; I'll run ye off some cues."
Never having seen or heard of cues, except chalked ones of the enticing green, William strode on full of various spirit and sportive daring. Ned would ask him a question about some escapde and Bill would fall in line and tell it in his own inimitable way. This kept the house in a roar for nearly half an hour and after a particularly happy hit Ned warily stepped to the relieved prompter and said : " Send on the Indian supers. " On they came and Cody shot savagely at them while the curtain fell under a blaze of red fire.
All the actors stood dismayed when Buntline commanded : " Everybody dress for the second act. " A chorus of aspiring Chicago actors chimed with the astonishing announcement: "We haven't played the first act " "Cut it!" said Buntline and the drama went bravely on.
One night, after a week of frantic wrestling with art, Texas Jack and Cody arrived at the theater primed for skylarks and gave orders with the beguiling assistance of persusasive derringers to begin with the last act and play it backward. Buntline was in front and when the curtain disclosed the scene and motif of his last and most bloodthirsty act he looked at his watch, would it up and inquired the time, then rushed back to find the dazed stage manager covered by the Texan's gun during the Cody scene and under a similar guard from Cody during the episodes when jack appeared.
In the halcyon days of melodrama and border plays McVicker produced " The Spy" with great magnificence and the ripping old story was a wild and unmitigated failure in spite of the cast and the costly surroundings. Ned Thorne played the leading part and the McVicker stock company completed the cast. Thorne persistently " guyed" the part and the pray until Mr. McVicker accused him of it and threatened fines, dismissal and vengeance generally unless the "guying " stopped immediately. Thorne courteously denied the charge and Mr. McVicker came that night to watch him through the entire piece. Thoron's performance was absoutely faultless in every scene until the very last when a courier rushes in with the govermental offer of reward.
" A thousand dollars for the spy !" shouted the courier.
" It's yours, manuscript and scenery !" cried Thorone, and McVicker sat in the box till the lights went out, stunned at his lead's humor and nerve. AMY LESLIE.
270
The Chicago Times July 9"
BUFFALO BILL'S CAMP.
Behind the Rockey Mountains at the Wild West Show.
Nobody can say that he has seen the Wild West properly and fully who has not spent an hour or two in the camp, where Indians, cowboys, Cossacks, Germans, French, Mexicans, and English eat, drink, and sleep together harmoniously cheek by jowl. The grove of trees in which the camp is pitched makes the place quite picturesque. Every nationality has sometbing distinctive about its quarters. The tepees of the Indians are ornamented with rude native paintings of animals put men; around the tents of the Frenchmen are green wooden trellises, forming an arbor-like porch to the neat canvas home; an attempt at a garden here and there marks the instinctive love for flowers in some cavalier from the Rhineland or trooper from the country lanes of Devon or Surrey, and everywhere throughout the streets of the camp order and tidiness reign; there is no litter of waste paper or fringe of tomato cans near the tents; the stables are clean and airy and the horses look as contented and well fed as the men, and that's saying a good deal.
It has always been a strong point with Col. Cody to give his men lots of grub, and the silliest lie that was ever told about the Wild West was that the Indians were not properly fed. One has but to look at the big blanketed braves striding about the camp to know that they get good food and lots of it. It will put an edge upon your appetite to see the four, or five cooks preparing dinner, slapping huge steaks into the pan, as they come fro the butcher who wields his cleaver inside a fly-tight wire cage just outside the kitchen. When you've seen the show you'll understand what an appetite a cowboy has a right to have after his work. The bill of fare changes every day, but Sundays chickens are always the crowning dish at dinner. Over 400 fowls lose their heads to make a rough riders' feast once a week. In fact the commissariat department big feature of the show, though few see much of it. It is practically a full regiment of cavalry that has to be cared for.
Maj. Burke says that the different races in bis big family never quarrel. The Indians and the cowboys are studiously polite to each other; Frenchman salutes German as a brother in arms, and the Britisher never thinks of singing "We don't want to fight, but, by Jingo, if we do!" when his hereditary foe, the Cossack, is passing by. It might be said of the encampment that the lion and the lamb lie down there together, if to any member of the Wild West aggregation could be ascribed the mild attributes of a juvenile sheep. It is the more remarkable that so many men, ail feræ nature, but of different races, get along so well together.
All the fighting that is done is among men of the same nationality. Of course there are quarrels, but rarely serious ones: The Indians have their own police officers, elected by themselves, and they, backed up invariably by the best and also strongest element among the Sioux, have no difficulty in squelching any warrior who comes home with a superfluity of firewater aboard. When an Indian leaves the camp for an excursion of any sort he deposits with the Indian policeman at the gate a leather check, and he has to pass inspection by this official when he returns before he can obtain again the check, which entitles him to his place in the Wild West's ranks. In this way an Indian who gets tanked up down town and comes back to camp looking for trouble can be side-tracked into the caboose till his amiability is fully restored.
The Wild West has some of the appointments of a good-sized town. Its electric lighting apparatus is quite large enough to illuminate the average town of 10,000 inhabitants. The engines are of 250-horse power, and a double equipment of dynamos insures perfect service. The other night, for instance, the belt connecting one of the dynamos slipped and the lights went out. There was darkness for a minute or two in the immense arena, relieved by the prompt playing of "Where Was Moses When the Light Went Out?" and then the other dynamo set a new current in motion, and the 200-odd lights, representing something like 50,000-candle power, blazed out again.
No one in the camp allowed to drink lake water, a supply of Waukesha being had from mains specially laid. All these things cost money, and one need not be much of an arithmetician to figure out that 400 men and as many horses, camped on ground which, from its location between the 1llinois Central and the fair itself, is the most expensive site of its size near Chicago, must cost a big
(DRAWINGS) RIDING A "BUCKER", A COSSACK RIDER, THE ORIGINAL SKIRT DANCER
pile of money to keep going, to say nothing of the original cost of building a stand seating 16,000 people without crowding and the vast sums spent on advertising, as the Wild West management believes in doing. For all that the Wild West is making more money than any other out-of-door show ever made in this country, and Maj. Burke takes particular delight in pointing out a brand- new steel safe which they had to put in the other day to accommodate the stream of currency which kept flowing into portly Jule Keen's treasury tent.
"Do Indians really wear clothes like those?" asked a Tady at Buffalo Bill's Wild West the other day. The gentleman of whom she asked the question was somewhat at a loss bow to answer, for he had just made out to his own satisfaction that the nearest Indian in the arena bad on a complete coat of blue paint and nothing else to speak of. But he answered like a hero: "Yes. dear, more or less."
Half the people who see the Wild West get the impression that the Indians are clad in skin-fitting tights. Perhaps it is unkind to