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41 revisions | Grant Shanle at Jul 30, 2020 03:36 PM | |
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228Sunday Herald. June 26th. THE SUNDAY HERALD, CHICAGO, JUNE 25. BUFFALO BILL'S SHOW. UNIQUE AMONG ENTERTAINMENTS. "Rough Riders of the World," With Characteristic National Scenes From Many Countries - Col. Cody's Little Grand-daughter and Her View of the Fair. Have you ever seen Buffalo Bill's wild west show? No? Then you have one of he rarest pleasures on earth still in store for you. It isn't a show merely. It isn't a cricus. It is in no sense an aggretion of curios. But it is the gathering together in one sweep the rough activities of 5,000 years. It is the strength, the virility, the physical prowess, the speed and the daring of forceful man in all the races from Abraham to Sheridan. The company is a rather large one. There are perhaps 500 men and women in the em- ply of the management, and the exhibition they submit for the approval of thousands daily is a peculiarly interesting one. In the first place there are a good many interesting things up and down the plaza outside the amphitheater along which the tents and cabins of the various performers are ranged. And the avenues sepearating the rows of dwellings are crowded all day with visitors who are interested in the personal side of the life they see illustrated within the ring. Indians from the western plains, cossacks from other plains of the far-away east, French, German and English soldiers from the roughest military service in the world, all have their homes here, and all are willing to receive the addresses of friends and to tell them what they can of the homely side of life. There is Little Johnny Burke No-neck, a Sioux lad who was found just alive after the battle of Wounded Knee, and who has been adopted by the gallant Major Burke, and brought here with his people after a tour almost around the world. There is a cossack prince from the land of the czar, who has the permission of his master to come here and show to western eyes a glimpse of vigor from the east. There are chiefs of the Sioux nation, expert rifle shots, both of men and women, and all about them are collected the accoutrements of life s they lvie it at home. There is the kitchen and the great dining tents, presided over by Billy Langan, whose family requires 180 dozens of eggs at a meal, and other good in proportion; dark little Jose, from Mexico, who quit tring to ride bucking bronchos and turned his attention to hauling wood as a safer occupation. Jose came back to the show, limping from an injury received by falling under his load. He says he will ride all the bucking horses in the country before he will go to hauling wood again. "A mana know whata horse going to do," he says. "Don't knowa noting 'bouta load of wood." But the show, after all, is inside, Let me tell you about it. A great square of ground inclosed on three sides by rising tiers of seats; a grand stand across the south end, opposed at the north by a stretch of stage scenery representing mountains and valley land. That is the theater. A "lecturer" perched on a pedestal in the near foreground tells the number exactly as you learn it from your programme at the play. The cowboy band at the back of the grand stand begins a rattling melody. There are no Wagner strains in this cowboy band. It plays what the people want to hear. Its leader does not believe in giving people music that is distastful, as he might if music were medicine. There is a moment of silence and then the lecturer announces the entrance of the American Indians. The great gate at the northern end of the plaza opens and a hundred wild Indians gallop wildly into the quadrangle. The show has begun. Yelling, leaning wagerly forward, lashing their steeds with short and harmless whips, sitting with naked legs close to the naked back of the horse, these wild men of the plains, vanishing remnant of a singular race, sweep past the eyes of the spectators, and take up position in line facing the stand. They sit there at characteristic rest. Their feet are drawn up here and there and rested on the backs of their horses. The animal is so much a part of themselves that they trat them as you would a couch, or a divan, or the broad bosom of the welcoming ground. There is another hoarse announcement from the lecturer - which you cannot understand - and out of the distant gate comes a company of French cavalry. They are heavier men in appearance. Their horses are certainly larger, and they run more ponderously. But it is a run. There is a stir and a thrill in the sight of that rushing company. It gives one a sense of force and freedom that nothing else cna impart. The gallop of a body of horses like a wonderful feat of human strength, goes down to the basis of man and stirs that spirit his soberer life has almost covered up. Then to the blatant air of "Die Wacht am Rhein," comes the German cavalry. They, too, sweep in splendid company front the length of the quadrangle, wheel to the left and salute you as they pass the grand stand, and then take up their position just in front og the French who preceded them. Then cam the Mexicans, riding like centaurs, yelling like demons, clanking all the silver adoenments of their stange apparrel, sweeping low as they pass you, and ranging just in front of the Germans, armed and at rest. Then the cowboys, with Frank Hammitt in the lead - king of riders, and sturdiest of men. He sits his horse like a king on his throne. THere is not a jar of the shoulders, not a mobement of the hips. The man is part of the horse till the ride is done. There are English lancers, eith a gallant color bearer in the lead. And they ride to a goos old English air, bit the difference between their riding and that of the cowboys, is the difference between music and scolding. Cossacks follow, standing in the stirrups, wabing, shouting, twirling their guns - a dangerous crowd they seem as they take their position in the rapidly forming body of horsemen. And then come the Arabs, their long cloaks flying, their little horses bending low and fanning the earth with their sharp little hoofs. THey are like a leaf from "Aladdin." They are like a dream from Asia. There is an American girl alone - an American girl who can tell you something of this country you call your home. She has lived her life in the wider west, and her friends are the mountains. She passes like a flash, but she helps her horse as he wheels about and faces you. Buffalo Bill's Granddaughter. And then, with a blare of trumpets and the noise of much shouting, comes the American cavalry from the distant entrance way. A pretty incident was added the day I visited the show. In the box below me sat Mrs. Cody, wife of Buffalo Bill, with her daughter and her daughter's daughter - the latter a bright little child of about 5 years. The little one had kept her place in the box till the Americans were heralded, and as the strains of "The Star Spangled Banner" welcomed the soldiers sh slopped from her mother's side and began a little waltz of her own up and down the passageway between the boxes. | 228Sunday Herald. June 26th. THE SUNDAY HERALD, CHICAGO, JUNE 25. BUFFALO BILL'S SHOW. UNIQUE AMONG ENTERTAINMENTS. "Rough Riders of the World," With Characteristic National Scenes From Many Countries - Col. Cody's Little Grand-daughter and Her View of the Fair. Have you ever seen Buffalo Bill's wild west show? No? Then you have one of he rarest pleasures on earth still in store for you. It isn't a show merely. It isn't a cricus. It is in no sense an aggretion of curios. But it is the gathering together in one sweep the rough activities of 5,000 years. It is the strength, the virility, the physical prowess, the speed and the daring of forceful man in all the races from Abraham to Sheridan. The company is a rather large one. There are perhaps 500 men and women in the em- ply of the management, and the exhibition they submit for the approval of thousands daily is a peculiarly interesting one. In the first place there are a good many interesting things up and down the plaza outside the amphitheater along which the tents and cabins of the various performers are ranged. And the avenues sepearating the rows of dwellings are crowded all day with visitors who are interested in the personal side of the life they see illustrated within the ring. Indians from the western plains, cossacks from other plains of the far-away east, French, German and English soldiers from the roughest military service in the world, all have their homes here, and all are willing to receive the addresses of friends and to tell them what they can of the homely side of life. There is Little Johnny Burke No-neck, a Sioux lad who was found just alive after the battle of Wounded Knee, and who has been adopted by the gallant Major Burke, and brought here with his people after a tour almost around the world. There is a cossack prince from the land of the czar, who has the permission of his master to come here and show to western eyes a glimpse of vigor from the east. There are chiefs of the Sioux nation, expert rifle shots, both of men and women, and all about them are collected the accoutrements of life s they lvie it at home. There is the kitchen and the great dining tents, presided over by Billy Langan, whose family requires 180 dozens of eggs at a meal, and other good in proportion; dark little |
