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17
LETTERS OF COMMENDATION FROM PROMINENT MILITARY MEN
FROM AN OLD COMMANDER.
[COPY.]
5th Avenue Hotel, New York, June 29, 1887.

HON. WM F. CODY, London, England.
DEAR CODY:- In common with all your countrymen, I want to let you know that I am not only gratified, but proud of your management and general behavior; so far as I can make out you have ben modest, graceful and dignified in all you have done to illustrate the history of civilization on this Continent during the past century.

I am especially pleased with the graceful and pretty compliment paid you by the Princess of Wales, who rode in the Deadwood Coach while it was attacked by the Indians and rescued by the cow-boys. Such things did occur in our days, and may never again.

As near as I can estimate there were in 1865 about nine and a half millions of buffaloes on the plains between the Missouri River and the Rockey Mountains; all are now gone-killed for their meat, their skins and bones.

This seems like desecration, cruelty, and murder, yet they have been replaced by twice as many neat cattle. At that date there were about 165,000 Pawnees, Sioux, Cheyennes, Kiowas, and Arapahoes, who depended on these buffaloes for their yearly food. They, too, are gone, and have been replaced by twice or thrice as many white men and women, who have made the earth to blossom as the rose, and who can be counted, taxed, and governed by the laws of nature and civilization. This change has been salutary, and will go on to the end. You have caught

17
LETTERS OF COMMENDATION FROM PROMINENT MILITARY MEN
FROM AN OLD COMMANDER.
[COPY.]
5th Avenue Hotel, New York, June 29, 1887.

HON. WM F. CODY, London, England.
DEAR CODY:- In common with all your countrymen, I want to let you know that I am not only gratified, but proud of your management and general behavior; so far as I can make out you have ben modest, graceful and dignified in all you have done to illustrate the history of civilization on this Continent during the past century.

I am especially pleased with the graceful and pretty compliment paid you by the Princess of Wales, who rode in the Deadwood Coach while it was attacked by the Indians and rescued by the cow-boys. Such things did occur in our days, and may never again.

As near as I can estimate there were in 1865 about nine and a half millions of buffaloes on the plains between the Missouri River and the Rockey Mountains; all are now gone-killed for their meat, their skins and bones.

This seems like desecration, cruelty, and murder, yet they have been replaced by twice as many neat cattle. At that date there were about 165,000 Pawnees, Sioux, Cheyennes, Kiowas, and Arapahoes, who depended on these buffaloes for their yearly food. They, too, are gone, and have been replaced by twice or thrice as many white men and women, who have made the earth to blossom as the rose, and who can be counted, taxed, and governed by the laws of nature and civilization. This change has been salutary, and will go on to the end. You have caught