Wild West Show

“ Every Sunday the President of the Fair sent for me to go to a wild west show. I took part in the roping contests before the audience. There were many other Indian tribes there, and strange people of whom I had never heard.
When people first came to the World's Fair they did nothing but parade up and down the streets. When they got tired of this they would visit the shows. ”

“ I teased Pa to take the first train for home, so we could join the circus before it closed the season, and he could report to the managers the result of his business trip to the west, but Pa said he had heard of a man who had a herd of buffalo on a ranch not far from that town, and before he returned to the show he was going to buy a herd of buffalo for the cowboys and Indians to chase around the wild west show. ”

“ But the West is not wholly reconstructed. There are still the Texas Rangers, and in them the man from the cities of the East will find the picturesqueness of the Wild West show and its happiest expression. If they and the sight of cowboys roping cattle do not satisfy him, nothing else will. The Rangers are a semi-militia, semi-military organization of long descent, and with the most brilliant record of border warfare. At the present time their work is less adventurous than it was in the day of Captain McNelly, but the spirit of the first days has only increased with time. ”

“ Well, sir, you can never make me believe that money obtained dishonestly will stay by a person, or do him any good, and that was demonstrated in the case of our show the next day. We got acquainted with an old showman who was out of luck, who used to run a wild west show, but got busted up, and as he didn't care where he went, we took him with us on the train, and all day Sunday he talked about his show experiences, and finally he said if we had any horses with our show that could run races, we could make a barrel of money at Guthrie, where we were to make our next stand. ”

“ Jim McWilliams ran out and slipped an arm around his shoulders, regardless of what his friends might think of him for it.
“You’re all in, old man. Y’u hadn’t ought to have ridden, even though y’u did skin us all to a finish.”
“Nonsense, Mac. First place goes to y’u or—or Jack Holloway.”
“Not unless the judges are blind.”
But Bannister’s prediction proved true. The champion, Sanford, had been traveling with a Wild West show, and was far too soft to compete with these lusty cowboys, who had kept hard from their daily life on the plains. ”

“ What grimacing and contorted image we see in our national mirror is only the grimacing and contorted image of ourselves. The days of our actual strength and dignity are yet to come. We must outlive Wild Wall Street before we can outlive Wild Westernism. They are equal parts of a hysteria which is our own. A nation fails which hires athletes to show its strength, hires fighters to show it war, hires clowns to show it art. ”

“ It takes genius to foresee and meet a public frame of mind which will accept as real a third act such as that of "The Girl of the Golden West." In effect, we are asked to believe that grown men acted like clowns and fools at a time and in a country where the best and the shrewdest men of the entire world were gathered—California in the early gold days.
On of the first Wild West dramas ever written was done in earlier and less responsible days by Mr. Belasco and Mr. Flyes—that whilom example of Western realism know as "The Girl I Left Behind Me." ”

“ When it is taken into consideration that these operations were dealing with an expenditure of over one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, the greatness of the enterprise can be understood. An arena of more than a third of a mile in circumference, flanked by a grand-stand filled with seats and boxes to accommodate 20,000 persons, sheltered stands for 10,000 more, the standing-room being 10,000, will give an idea of the size of the Wild West exhibition grounds. ”

“ A special performance was given by the Wild West, the understanding being that her majesty and suite would take a private view of the performance. The queen, ever since the death of her husband nearly thirty years ago, has cherished an invincible objection to appearing before great assemblages of her subjects. She visits her parliament seldom, the theaters never. ”

“ In 1913, feeling that the common routine had rather palled, the managers decided to inaugurate a new order of things, and as a result the "Frontier Days" came into existence, with its spectacular displays of "bulldogging," relay races, stage-coach races, cowboys, cow-girls, Indians, etc., one of the last stands of the Wild West. In spite of the great success of these exhibitions as a means of drawing crowds and creating interest, the frontier days were not a financial success. ”

“ On Friday morning, May 4th, at 11 A. M., amid the cheers, well-wishes, and handshaking of a vast crowd, the Wild West left Manchester by special train for Hull, where the last performance in England was given on the afternoon of Saturday, May 5th, and at 9 o’clock on that evening the entire effects of the monster aggregation were aboard the good ship Persian Monarch, upon which vessel, under the command of the brave, gallant, and courteous Captain Bristow, the Wild West left for New York the next morning at 3 o’clock. On the homeward voyage Colonel Cody’s favorite horse Charlie died. ”

“ The Wild West visited many of the principal cities of this country, played a winter season in New Orleans, a summer season at Staten Island, and the winter of 1886–87 in Madison Square Garden in New York. But with the immortal bard who wrote “ambition grows with what it feeds on,” Colonel Cody and Mr. Salsbury had an ambition to conquer other nations. The importance of the undertaking was fully realized, but nothing daunted by all that would have to be undergone to reach a foreign land and give exhibitions, the owners of the Wild West boldly made the venture. ”

“ Amid frantic jumps and flickerings, a Wild West story unwound itself with its inevitable saloons and sheriffs and cow boys and sweetly efficient heroines with bobbing curls and six-shooters bristling at their waists. ”

“ You have real cowboys with bucking horses, real buffaloes, and great hordes of steers, which are lassoed and stampeded in the most realistic fashion imaginable. Then there are real Indians, who execute attacks upon coaches driven at full speed. No one can exaggerate the extreme excitement and ‘go’ of the whole performance. It is simply immense, and I venture to predict that when it comes to London it will take the town by storm.”
Among other early callers upon the Wild West, and who gave their influence and friendly aid in London, were genial John L. Toole, Miss Ellen Terry, Mr. ”

“ MANY are the things that have been done to the West in the name of art and fiction by the ignorant, the innocent, the deliberate faker, the plagiarist, and the patronizing car-window tourist. "The best Wild West writers live in Brooklyn, New York, and most of the prominent Wild West artists reside in Lyme, Connecticut." The craftsmen in ink and color and acting picture the cow-puncher with leather "panties" wrong side foremost, wide "hanky," large gun, large spurs, large quirt, and large muffler. ”

“ Having disposed of the cowboys, Young Wild West now asked the keeper of the saloon if he thought there would be any objections to their pitching a camp somewhere around in the vicinity.
"I reckon not," was the reply. "There ain't no one as lives here in Big Bonanza, what would 'ject ter anything like that. They've all heard tell about Young Wild West, I reckon, an' some of 'em says as how they've seen yer. Yer kin bet that yer will be welcome here! Jest help yourselves ter any spot yer want." ”

“ At Killarney we took a carriage and set off on my favourite mode of travel, soon entering upon tracts of that wild nature I was most anxious to experience. The evening was deepening, and in its solemn tones I saw for the first time the Wild West Land, whose aspect gradually grew wilder and more strange as we neared the mysterious mountains that rose ahead of us. I was content. I was beginning to taste the salt of the Wilds. What human habitations there are are so like the stone heaps that lie over the face of the land that they are scarcely distinguishable from them ”

“ He acts jest as though he ain't no prisoner. He's got nerve enough fur ten, I reckon."
"I reckon it's his bluff that's always carried him through," remarked one of the outlaws, as he looked at the helpless boy and nodded. "But there's always a time, yer know. Young Wild West has gone ther length of his rope!"
"I reckon you'll find that my rope is a great deal longer than you think," Wild answered, thinking it good policy to keep in conversation with them, as the more time Charlie and Jim had to figure out a way of helping him the better it would be. ”

“ This, of course, was itself a bad omen, and it ought to have taught me that public taste is fickle and that the gamble of theatrical management is surrounded by all kinds of perils. A West-end audience may be just as capricious and as hard to please as my audience of village lads in the garden.
My first real venture, a London one, was at the Criterion Theatre, which with a few others I took on lease from Sir Charles Wyndham, in order to produce "The Wild Rabbit." It was by Mr. George Arliss, who has since given up writing plays in order to act them, and he is now a "star" in America. ”

“ To the ignorant and deliberate fakers must be added a large class of entirely innocent enthusiasts who annually rediscover the railroad and summer resort west from the Yellowstone to the Grand Cañon, and who return to write and paint about it. These give annual details of the phenomena of Western life, with diagrams of the diamond hitch, or the ever-present story of Curly, Sandy, Pete, and in the fair but honest daughter of the ranch-owner. ”

“ Wallett accounts for this untoward incident by stating that the dismounted cavaliers were clowns and acrobats, and that few members of those sections of the profession can ride; but, considering that grooms could have been made available, a ‘powerful company’ should have been able to mount twelve horses for an entrée without putting into the saddle men who could not ride.
James Wild’s show was a small concern, combining a drama, à la Richardson, with the performances of a tight-rope dancer and a fortune-telling pony. ”

“ The few inhabitants of Big Bonanza were not in the habit of seeing female visitors.
"Well, gentlemen," said Young Wild West, "we have just dropped in here by accident, and I reckon if there's no objection we'll camp around here somewhere until morning. We are making a trip across the state, and we are going in a straight line as much as possible. What we happen to strike makes little difference to us; whether it is a mining camp or a desert. We are used to all kinds of traveling, and generally go prepared for anything." ”

“ Jest because these galoots you're talkin' about happened ter clean out ther gang you belonged to in Arizony, don't say that they're goin' ter do anything like that with us. What did I hear yer say—that Young Wild West is only a boy?"
"That's all he is," Bob answered. "But he kin do more than any man I ever seen." ”

“ While they were still a mile from the ranch house the pinto and its rider could be seen loping toward them.
“Ride forward, Denver, and tell Miss Helen we’re coming. Better have her get everything fixed to doctor him soon as we get there. Give him the best show in the world, and he’ll still be sailing awful close to the divide. I’ll bet a hundred plunks he’ll cash in, anyway.” ”

“ Invited to the studios of artists in Rome, Berlin, Paris, and elsewhere, Buffalo Bill extended the courtesies of his camp to many whose names are known the world over by their works. The Wild West became a central place of attraction to artists as well as to military men and statesmen, and often painters and sculptors were seen going about the camp looking for subjects for their brush and chisel. ”

“ The signs when finished bore the words:
"Short Cut Pass—No danger!"
(Signed) "Young Wild West."
"There! I reckon as soon as we have put these up we will call the job complete," he said.
Not until they were up did our friends return to their camp.
There was a big time in Big Bonanza, as might be supposed.
A messenger had been sent over to Silver Bend to spread the news of the capture of the outlaw band, and, with the prisoners locked in a shanty, the miners danced around it in delight. ”

“ When upon the back of the beautiful sorrel stallion he always rode he made a picture that was dashing and handsome in the extreme. When on his trips through the wildest parts of the Great West he invariably was attired in a fancy buckskin hunting suit, and with his sombrero tipped well back upon his head, he surely showed up as a dashing young hero. ”

“ How little is he known, and thus abused, for no braver hearts, no more generous motives, are to be found among men than are those that beat beneath the hunting-shirt of the cowboy, whether he comes from the country bordering on the Rio Grande, the great plains of the Southwest, the level prairies of the West, or the grazing-lands of Wyoming. ”

“ There was, in the first place, then, the West of the fur trade. For generations the wild peddlers of the woods had traced the waterways of the far Northwest, sometimes absent for one, two, or more years from the place they loosely called home, sometimes never returning at all from that savagery which offered so great a fascination, often too strong even for men reared in the lap of luxury and refinement. ”

“ He carries a campin' outfit with him, an' he's got two young gals an' a young woman along, as well as his two pards an' this Chinee an' another one. Oh, Young Wild West is used ter goin' about, an' it don't 'pear ter make any difference ter him an' his friends whether there's a hotel ter put up at or not. ”