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Buffalo Bill from Prairie to Palace

<h2 class="vspace">CHAPTER XXIII. A ROYAL WELCOME.</h2> While in the midst of extensive preparations for their opening, the proprietors of the Wild West received an intimation that the ex-premier, the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M. P., proposed honoring them with a preliminary call. The date fixed for the visit was the 25th of April, and shortly after 1 o’clock P. M. on that day the distinguished visitor arrived at Earl’s Court with Mrs. Gladstone, and accompanied by the Marquis of Lorne (husband of the Princess Louise), attended by Lord Ronald Gower and Mr. Waller (Consul-General of the United States), escorted by Nate Salsbury. The cowboy band welcomed the visitors with the strains of “Yankee Doodle,” and they were presently introduced to Colonel Cody, who in turn presented to them the denizens of the encampment. The Grand Old Man was soon engaged in conversation with Red Shirt, to whom Colonel Cody had explained that Mr. Gladstone was one of the great white chiefs of England. Red Shirt was much puzzled by Mr. Gladstone’s inquiring, through an interpreter, if he thought the Englishman looked enough like the American for him to believe that they were kinsmen and brothers. Red Shirt created quite a laugh by replying that “he wasn’t quite sure about that.” It would be hard to picture the astonishment of the visitors when the Indians, in full war-paint, riding their swift horses, dashed into the arena from an209 ambuscade, and the enthusiasm grew immense when Colonel Cody placed himself at the head of the whole body and wheeled them into line for a general salute. It was a real treat to see the ex-premier enjoying himself like a veritable school-boy when the lasso, the feats of shooting, and the bucking-horses were introduced; and when the American cowboys tackled the incorrigible bucking-horses he sometimes cheered the animal and sometimes the man. At the conclusion of the exhibition Mr. Gladstone expressed himself as having been greatly entertained and interested, and spoke in warm and affecting terms of the instrumental good work the Wild West had come to do. In a brilliant little speech he proposed “success to the Wild West Show,” which aroused the enthusiasm of all present. His demeanor on this and other occasions when he met the Americans made clear to them the reason of the fascination he exercises over the masses of his countrymen. <div id="ip_209" class="figcenter" style="width: 412px;"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_208.jpg" width-obs="412" height-obs="335" alt="" /> <div class="caption">A REDSKIN VILLAGE IN A PALEFACE CITY—LONDON.</div> </div> Then for Colonel Cody commenced a long series of invitations to breakfasts, dinners, luncheons, midnight layouts, and other attentions by which London society delights to honor a distinguished foreigner. In addition to many receptions tendered him, he was made an honorary member of most of the best clubs, notably the Reform Club, where he was presented to the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, and many prominent gentlemen. He was afterward a guest at a civic lunch at the Mansion House, with the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress; a dinner at the Beaufort Club, where that fine sportsman the Duke of Beaufort occupied the chair; and a memorable evening at the Savage Club, with Mr. Wilson Barrett (who had just returned from America) presiding, and an attendance comprising such great spirits as Mr. Henry210 Irving, John L. Toole, and others great in literary, artistic, and histrionic London. At the United Arts Club he was entertained by the Duke of Teck, and at the St. George’s Club by Lord Bruce, Lord Woolmer, Lord Lymington, Mr. Christopher Sykes, Mr. Herbert Gladstone, and others. Subsequently he dined at Mr. Irving’s, Lady McGregor’s, Lady Tenterden’s, Mrs. Charles Matthews’ (widow of the great actor), Mrs. J. W. Mackay’s, Lord Randolph and Lady Churchill’s, Edmund Yates’, and at Great Marlow. These are but a very few of the many invitations he was called upon to accept during this visit. When Mr. and Mrs. Labouchere gave their grand garden production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” Colonel Cody was an honored guest. He also accompanied Lord Charles Beresford in the Coaching Club Parade in Hyde Park, and was prevented by press of business from accepting an invitation to a mount with the Honorable Artillery Company of London (the oldest volunteer in the kingdom), in the parade in honor of her majesty the queen’s birthday. Considering the fact that the Indians were all new from the Pine Ridge Agency and had never seen the exhibition, and that 100 of the ponies came direct from the plains of Texas and had never been ridden or shot over, it is a wonder how Colonel Cody, with these social demands made upon his time, succeeded in forming so good an exhibition on the opening day. During all this fashionable hurly-burly Colonel Cody received the following letter: <blockquote> Marlborough House, Pall Mall, S. W., April 26, 1887. Dear Sir: I am desired by the Prince of Wales to thank you for your invitation. His royal highness is211 anxious I should see you with reference to it. Perhaps, therefore, you would kindly make it convenient to call at Marlborough House. Would it suit you to call at 11.30 or 5 o’clock either to-morrow (Wednesday) or Thursday? I am, dear sir, Yours faithfully, (Signed) Francis Knollys, Private Secretary. </blockquote> This resulted in an arrangement to give a special and exclusive performance for H. R. H. the Prince and Princess of Wales, although everything was still incomplete, the track unfinished, and spoiled by rainy weather and the hauling on of vast timbers. The ground was in unspeakably bad condition. The Prince of Wales being busily occupied in arranging matters for the queen’s jubilee had but limited latitude in regard to time, so postponement was out of the question. The royal box was handsomely rigged out with American and English flags, and the party conducted into the precincts of the Wild West was a strong one numerically as well as in point of exalted rank: The Prince and Princess of Wales, with their three daughters, Princesses Louise, Victoria, and Maud, led the way; then came the Princess Louise and her husband, the Marquis of Lorne; the Duke of Cambridge; H. S. H. of Teck and his son; the Comtesse de Paris; the Crown Prince of Denmark; followed by Lady Suffield and Miss Knollys, Lady Cole, Colonel Clarke, Lord Edward Somerset, and other high-placed attendants on the assembled royalties. Colonel Cody was introduced by the Prince of Wales to the princess, and introductions to the other exalted personages followed, in which Nate Salsbury and the writer were included. This was one of many meetings between his royal highness and Colonel Cody, and before leaving London the212 prince presented to the colonel a very handsome diamond copy of his crest—the three ostrich feathers mounted in gems and gold—as a breastpin. When the prince gave the signal the Indians, yelling like fiends, galloped out from their ambuscade and swept round the inclosure like a whirlwind. The effect was instantaneous and electric. The prince rose from his seat and leaned eagerly over the front of the box, and the whole party seemed thrilled at the spectacle. From that moment everything was all right; everybody was in capital form and the whole thing went off grandly. At the finish an amusing incident occurred. Our lady shots, on being presented, cordially offered to shake hands with the princess. Be it known that feminine royalty offers the left hand, back uppermost, which the person presented is expected to reverently lift with the finger-tips and to salute with the lips. However, the princess got over the difficulty by taking their proffered hands and shaking them heartily. Then followed an inspection of the Indian camp and a talk between the prince and Red Shirt. His royal highness expressed through the interpreter his great delight at what he had seen, and the princess personally offered him a welcome to England. “Tell the great chief’s wife,” said Red Shirt with much dignity, “that it gladdens my heart to hear her words of welcome.” While the ladies of the suite were petting John Nelson’s half-breed papoose, the prince visited Colonel Cody’s tent and while there seemed much interested in the gold-mounted sword presented to Colonel Cody by the generals of the United States Army. Despite the muddy state of the ground, the prince and his party made an inspection of the stables, where 200 bronco horses and other animals214 were quartered. He particularly gratified Colonel Cody by demanding a full, true, and particular history of Old Charlie—then in his twenty-first year—who had carried his owner through so much arduous work on the plains and who once bore him over a flight of 100 miles in nine hours and forty minutes when chased by hostile Indians. <div id="ip_214" class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_213.jpg" width-obs="372" height-obs="619" alt="" /> <div class="caption"> <div class="in2"> <table class="names" summary="Royal Visitors (Women)"> <tr> <td class="tdl">H.R.H. Princess of Saxe-Meiningen</td> <td class="tdl">Countess of Dudley</td> <td class="tdl">Grand Duchess Serge of Russia</td></tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">H.R.H. Princess of Wales</td> <td class="tdl">VICTORIA EMPRESS OF INDIA.</td> <td class="tdl">H.R.H. Princess Beatrice, Battenberg</td></tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">Princess Louise</td> <td class="tdl">H.R.H. Princess Mary Adelaide</td> <td class="tdl">Queen of the Belgians</td></tr> </table></div> ROYAL VISITORS TO THE WILD WEST, LONDON. </div> </div> At 7 o’clock the royal visit, and our first full performance in England, terminated by the prince presenting the contents of his cigarette-case to Red Shirt. A walk around the principal streets of London at this time would have shown how, by anticipation, the Wild West had “caught on” to the popular imagination. The windows of the London bookseller were full of editions of Fenimore Cooper’s novels, “The Pathfinder,” “The Deerslayer,” “The Last of the Mohicans,” “Leather Stocking,” and, in short, all that series of delightful romances which have placed the name of the American novelist on the same level with that of Sir Walter Scott. It was a real revival of trade for the booksellers, who sold thousands of volumes of Cooper, where twenty years before they had sold them in dozens, while Colonel Prentiss Ingraham’s realistic “Border Romances of Buffalo Bill” had a tremendous sale. There is no doubt that the visit of the Wild West to England set the population of the British Islands to reading, thinking, and talking about their American kinsmen to an extent theretofore unknown. It taught them to know more of the mighty nation beyond the Atlantic, and consequently to esteem it better than at any time within the limits of modern history. The Wild West having made its début in London, the following comment of the Times and letters from General Sherman will be appreciated by the reader: 215 <blockquote> <h3>AMERICAN WILD WEST EXHIBITION.</h3> The American exhibition, which has attracted all the town to West Brompton for the last few months, was brought yesterday to an appropriate and dignified close. A meeting of representative Englishmen and Americans was held, under the presidency of Lord Lorne, in support of the movement for establishing a Court of Arbitration for the settlement of disputes between this country and the United States. At first sight it might seem to be a far cry from the Wild West to an International Court. Yet the connection is not really very remote. Exhibitions of American products and scenes from the wilder phases of American life certainly tend, in some degree at least, to bring America nearer to England. They are partly cause and partly effect. They are the effect of increased and increasing intercourse between the two countries, and they tend to promote a still more intimate understanding. Those who went to be amused often stayed to be instructed. The Wild West was irresistible. Colonel Cody suddenly found himself the hero of the London season. Notwithstanding his daily engagements and his punctual fulfillment of them, he found time to go everywhere, to see everything, and to be seen by all the world. All London contributed to his triumph, and now the close of his show is selected as the occasion for promoting a great international movement, with Mr. Bright, Lord Granville, Lord Wolseley, and Lord Lorne for its sponsors. Civilization itself consents to march onward in the train of “Buffalo Bill.” Colonel Cody can achieve no greater triumph than this, even if he some day realizes the design attributed to him of running the Wild West show within the classic precincts of the Coliseum at Rome. This association of the cause of international arbitration with the fortunes of the American Wild West is not without its grotesque aspects. But it has a serious import, nevertheless. After all, the Americans and the English are one stock. Nothing that is American comes altogether amiss to an Englishman.216 We are apt to think that American life is not picturesque. We have been shown one of its most picturesque aspects. It is true that Red Shirt would be as unusual a phenomenon in Broadway as in Cheapside. But the Wild West, for all that, is racy of the American soil. We can easily imagine Wall Street for ourselves; we need to be shown the cowboys of Colorado. Hence it is no paradox to say that Colonel Cody has done his part in bringing America and England nearer together.—Editorial from the London Times, November 1, 1887. </blockquote> <div class="tb">* * * * *</div> The following letters were received by Buffalo Bill from Gen. W. T. Sherman soon after the opening of the Wild West in London. <blockquote> Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York, May 8, 1887. Dear Cody: I was much pleased to receive your dispatch of May 5th announcing the opening of the Wild West in old London, and that your first performance was graced by the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales. I had penned a short answer to go by cable, but it fell so far short of my thoughts that I tore it up and preferred the old-fashioned letter, which I am sure you can afford to await. After your departure in the State of Nebraska I was impatient until the cable announced your safe arrival in the Thames, without the loss of a man or animal during the voyage. Since that time our papers have kept us well “posted,” and I assure you that no one of your host of friends on this side of the water was more pleased to hear of your safe arrival and of your first exhibition than myself. I had, in 1872, the honor and great pleasure of meeting the Prince of Wales and the Princess Alexandra on board our fleet in Southampton Bay, and was struck by the manly, frank character of the prince, and the extreme beauty and grace of the princess. The simple fact that they honored your opening exhibition assures us all that the English people will not217 construe your party as a show, but a palpable illustration of the men and qualities which have enabled the United States to subdue the 2,000 miles of our wild West continent, and make it the home of civilization. You and I remember the time when we needed a strong military escort to go from Fort Riley in Kansas to Fort Kearney on the Platte; when emigrants to Colorado went armed and organized as soldiers, where now the old and young, rich and poor, sweep across the plains in palace cars with as much comfort as on a ride from London to Edinburgh. Your exhibition better illustrates the method by which this was accomplished than a thousand volumes of printed matter. The English people always have, and I hope always will love pluck and endurance. You have exhibited both, and in nothing more than your present venture, and I assure you that you have my best wishes for success in your undertaking. Sincerely your friend, W. T. Sherman. </blockquote> <div class="tb">* * * * *</div> <blockquote> Fifth 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 been 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 cowboys. 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 the218 Missouri River and the Rocky 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 one epoch of the world’s history, have illustrated it in the very heart of the modern world—London—and I want you to feel that on this side the water we appreciate it. This drama must end; days, years, and centuries follow fast; even the drama of civilization must have an end. All I aim to accomplish on this sheet of paper is to assure you that I fully recognize your work and that the presence of the queen, the beautiful Princess of Wales, the prince, and British public, are marks of favor which reflect back on America sparks of light which illuminate many a house and cabin in the land where once you guided me honestly and faithfully in 1865–66 from Fort Riley to Kearney in Kansas and Nebraska. Sincerely your friend, W. T. Sherman. </blockquote> <hr /> 219 </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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