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COWBOYS AND BUFFALO BILL.

WHEN Colonel the Hon. William F. Cody, better known as Buffalo BIll, was asked a short time since as to his opinions regarding cowboys, he waxed almost indignant because of the ignorance of the average Englishman concerning those "unique specimens of humanity," as he characterised them. But it is hardly to be expected that English people, or indeed any of the "offsprings of an effete civilisation" (again to quote the redoubtable ex-scout) in this antiquated Eastern world, should have a very high opinion of a class of men of whom they seldom hear, except when their deeds of violence and their wild debaucheries are chronicled in the newspapers of their own country, and are telegraphed to the newspapers of this hemisphere. Said Colonel Cody, " The cowboy is not a blackguard; nay more, he is in nine cases out of ten better than his fellows. He has certain attributes that commend him to creation. He is manly, generous, and brave. He is not merely a create of impulse, but uses the gifts given him by his Maker with a discretion which might be copied by more of us. I speak after years of study, resulting in a conviction which nothing can shake." Now, without in any way desiring to shake Buffalo Bill's sincere conviction, it is only fair to the Eastern public to say that the principal information they possess concerning the cowboys of Western American has been of a kind calculated to throw considerable doubt upon his statements.
Whenever any mention has been made in English newspapers of these "heroes of the prairie," it has invariably been culled from the newspapers published in the United States, and has, therefore, been relied upon as correct. A drunken frolic in Denver city, or in Kansas city, or in Colorado city, or in Austin, Texas ending in bloodshed with sudden and violent death to more than two or three people, these are the usual reports, and always the belligerent and irritating parties have been "cowboys." A train on its way, by Omaha and Utah, to San Francisco, stopped and boarded, the passenger frightened and occasionally robbed or maltreated, and always by "cowboys." A small frontier town nocturnally visited, its inhabitant awakened in affright and made the victimes of practical jokes in the way of exhibitions of marvellous skill.