This souvenir pin bore the crest and motto of the Prince of Wales, and readers will perhaps be familiar with the story of how this crest and motto (Ich dien, “I serve”) were wrested from the King of Bohemia at Cressy by the Black Prince, son of Edward III. of England.
Few men have had such honors bestowed upon them as has Buffalo Bill, for he can also point with pride to a superb diamond crest presented him by Queen Victoria, the elegant pin from the Prince of Wales, while from Prince George of Russia he received a magnificent gold tankard of mosaic pattern.
Other royal personages have also made him the recipient of many costly gifts, while persons in private life have shown their appreciation of the record he has won in many ways.
The prince and princess and their sons and daughters were frequent visitors to the Wild West during its stay in London. Upon one occasion his royal highness determined to try the novel sensation of a ride in the old stage, and notwithstanding some objection on the part of her royal husband, the princess also booked for inside passage and took it smilingly, seeming highly delighted with the experience. On one occasion the royal lady startled the managers of the show by an intimation that she would that evening attend the performance incognito. The manager whose duty it was to receive her declared himself in a “middling tight fix” as to where and how to seat her. Upon her arrival, in answer to the question if she desired any particular position, the lady replied, “Certainly, yes. Put me immediately among the people. I like the people.” The manager, with great thoughtfulness, ushered her into one of the press boxes, with Colonel Montague, Mrs. Clark, and her brother the Prince of Denmark. Later, to his surprise, several of the newspaper boys came into the adjoining box, and in order to avert the latter’s suspicion of who the lady occupant of the box was, the manager was compelled to address the royal lady and her escort as “Colonel and Mrs. Jones, friends of mine from Texas.” The princess took the joke with becoming gravity, and afterward confessed the evening was one of the pleasantest and funniest she had ever spent in her life.
And so, amid the innumerable social junketings, roastings, and courtly functions, added to hard work, the London experiences of the Wild West drew to a successful close.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE HOME TRAIL.
From London the Wild West visited Birmingham, where it occupied the Aston Lower Grounds; thence to Manchester—“Cottonopolis,” as it is endearingly called by its inhabitants—where the winter season was opened. In the short space of two months the largest theater ever seen in the world was here erected by an enterprising firm of Manchester builders, together with a commodious building attached to it for the accommodation of the troupe, whose tents and tepees were erected under its shelter. The whole of the structure was comfortably heated by steam and illuminated by electric light. This building was built on the great race-course, where several times in the course of each year it is not uncommon for 80,000 or 100,000 persons to assemble; and the buildings in which Ormonde, Ben d’Or, Robert the Devil, and a thousand other world-famed equine wonders had taken their rest and refreshment, were now appropriated to the comfort of the broncos, mustangs, and other four-footed coadjutors of the Wild West.
The first performance given in Manchester was complimentary, and the entire beauty, rank, and fashion of Manchester and the surrounding towns were invited guests. The mayors, town councils, corporation officials, prominent merchants and manufacturers, bishops and clergy of all denominations, and an able-bodied horde of pressmen came down in their thousands. From Liverpool, across country through Leeds and York to Hull and New Castle, and from Carlisle, as far south as Birmingham, everybody of consequence was present, and the immense building was filled to its utmost capacity. The consequence was that from the opening day, and despite the dreary winter weather, the well-lighted, well-warmed “Temple of Buffalo Bill and Thespis”—as somebody called it—was constantly crowded with pleasure-seeking throngs. Incidentally it may be mentioned that the scores of requisitions from the heads of schools and charitable institutions for reduced rates for “their little waifs,” was always met by the management of the Wild West with a courteous invitation for the little ones to attend the Wednesday afternoon performances free of charge. During their stay in “Cottonopolis” the members of the Wild West were welcomed with the same ungrudging and overwhelming hospitality that had marked their visit to the capital. While here Colonel Cody was publicly presented with a magnificent rifle by the artistic, dramatic, and literary gentlemen of Manchester, and the event having got wind in London, the élite of the metropolitan literati, headed by Sir Somers Vine and including representatives of all the great American journals, secured a special train and ran up to Manchester some hundred strong to grace the ceremony with their presence. The presentation took place in the arena, and afterward Colonel Cody invited the whole crowd of local celebrities and London visitors to a regular camp dinner, with fried oysters, Boston pork and beans, Maryland chicken, and other American dishes, and a real Indian “rib-roast” as the piece de resistance. The banquet was held in the race-course pavilion. Among the guests were the Mayor of Salford, a number of civic dignitaries from both Manchester and the neighboring borough, United States Consul Moffat of London and Consul Hale of Manchester, the latter of whom made the speech of the evening. This dinner was certainly an entirely original lay-out to the visitors, and the comments of the English guests upon the novel and to them outlandish fare they were consuming were highly amusing to the American members of the party. To the Englishmen corn-cake, hominy, and other American fixings were a complete revelation, and the rib-roast, served in tin platters and eaten in the fingers, without knives or forks, was a source of huge wonderment. The American flag was rarely ever toasted more heartily by Englishmen than on that occasion, and for a week afterward the press of the country were dilating on the strange and savage doings at the Wild West camp.