Four Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill

se r i e s edi t or

D. Kurt Graham
ch arles eldridge griffin

Four Years in
Europe with
Buffalo Bill
Edited and with an introduction by Chris Dixon

University of Nebraska Press

Lincoln & London
 Support for this volume was provided by a generous
gift from The Dellenback Family Foundation.

© 2010 by the Board of Regents of the

University of Nebraska. All rights reserved.
Manufactured in the United States of America

All images courtesy the

Buffalo Bill Historical Center.

Support for the printing of this

volume was provided by
Jack and Elaine Rosenthal.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Griffin, Charles Eldridge.

Four years in Europe with Buffalo Bill / Charles Eldridge Griffin;
edited and with an introduction by Chris Dixon.
p. cm. — (The papers of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody)
Originally published: Albia, IA : Stage Pub. Co., 1908.
Includes bibliographical references.
isbn 978-0-8032-3423-9 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-8032-3465-9
(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show — History. I. Title.
gv1821.b8g75 2010
791.8'40973 — dc22
2010011201

Set in Iowan Old Style by Bob Reitz.

 con ten ts

List of Illustrations vii

Series Editor’s Preface ix
Introduction xiii
About this Edition xxvii

Four Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill 1

Appendix: Buffalo Bill’s Wild

West in Europe, 1902–1906 137
Bibliography 155
 il lustr ations

1. James Bailey and William Cody, ca. 1901 xxxi

2. Wild West advertising poster with female royal
personages xxxii
3. Wild West advertising poster with male royal
personages xxxiii
4. Entente Cordiale poster from the 1904 French tour xxxiv
5. Signed photograph of William Cody 7
6. Facsimile of Cody letter to Charles Griffin 8
7. Fred Martin, and George Sanger 9
8. Facsimile of George Sanger letter to Charles Griffin 10
9. Charles Eldridge Griffin 11
10. James Bailey 14
11. Line drawing, It Was Fun to Watch the Seagulls Dive
for Biscuits 23
12. Line drawing, All Going Out, Nothing Coming In 24
13. Frederick Bailey Hutchinson 30
14. Paris office and advance staff 37
15. George Starr, and Jule Keene 38
16. Petticoat Lane, London, and Bostock’s
Hippodrome, Paris 42
17. The Wild West in Paris, 1905 70
18. Entrance to the Wild West, Champs de Mars,
Paris, 1905 72
19. The Wild West in Rouen, 1905 80
20. A group of Senegalese, and a mother and son,
Orléans, 1905 84
21. The Tragedie des Chevaux, and a sad farewell 88
22. Line drawing, A Visit to Chateau d’If — Monte Cristo
Island 94
23. Line drawing, In Winter Quarters, Marseilles, 1905–6 96
24. Line drawing, Working under the Southern Sun,
December, 1905 97
25. Winter quarters at Marseille, France (1905) 99
26. The staff in winter quarters, and Cody’s
two favorite horses 100
27. The office at winter quarters in Marseille,
and F. B. Hutchinson having a go at lawn tennis 101
28. Line drawing, Street Scene, Genoa, Italy, March, 1906 104
29. Opening day in Rome, March 22, 1906 108
30. A bunch of the Wild West, photograph taken in
the old Colosseum, Rome 110
31. Line drawing, The Royal Family’s Visit to the Wild
West at Rome, Italy, 1906 112
32. The sideshow, 1906 116
33. Sioux Indians, and Johnny Baker and Dollie, the
laughing horse 118
34. Opening day in Genoa, and double-deck tramcar
used in England 120

viii illustr ations

 s er i es ed i t o r ’ s pref ac e

Four years ago the McCracken Research Library in Cody,

Wyoming, set out to edit and publish the collected papers
of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody. It seemed like an idea
whose time had come; in fact, it seemed long overdue.
William F. Cody was the most famous American of his
time. As a cultural figure his influence was unparalleled.
And yet, Cody’s role in our national narrative is largely
underappreciated. As Gretchen Adams, the senior editor of
this documentary editing project, has stated, “The Papers
of William F. Cody documents the life and times of not one
but two men: William Cody and Buffalo Bill. When Cody
died in 1917, his public persona so completely eclipsed the
identity of the man who created it that they may have buried
the body of William F. Cody, but the funeral itself was for
Buffalo Bill.” Indeed the familiar Buffalo Bill is perhaps
viewed today as a quaint character, if not caricature, whose
image obscures the substantive William F. Cody. Because
Cody is surrounded by so much myth and lore, it is often
difficult to trace the very real contribution that he made
to the development of the American West.
By publishing William F. Cody’s own writings as well
as contemporary accounts about him, such as this one by
Charles Eldridge Griffin, the Cody Papers will reveal the
man behind the character and the character behind the
man. This present volume in particular illustrates that Buf-
falo Bill’s Wild West was the point where man and myth
intersected. In the editing of this volume, Chris Dixon
has given us an annotated edition that will enhance both
the reading experience and classroom use. He has also
updated the names of all of the locations where Buffalo
Bill’s Wild West appeared, which is extremely helpful,
given the way the map of Europe has changed since Cody’s
time. Dixon’s careful work brings a little-known writing
into circulation and is a tremendous resource for scholars
and interested readers at all levels. The Dixon edition of
the Griffin volume is a fitting beginning for The Papers of
William F. Cody.
One of the major objectives of the project is to collect
materials that document the personal and professional life
of a man who had thousands of employees, friends, and
customers who wrote to him and about him. In addition to
the print edition of the Papers, a key output of the project
will be a digital version of this entire corpus of material,
complete with authoritative transcriptions, which will be
made available through the project website and continually
updated as new materials are located.
The creation of this digital collection, which brings
together the entire body of research materials related to
William F. Cody’s personal and professional life, will enable
a variety of audiences to consider the impact of William
F. Cody the cultural entrepreneur on American life and
provide contextualizing documents from other sources,

x series editor’s preface

including audio-visual media that exist for the final years
of his life.
It will allow more scholars to study the man within his
times, will provide new resources to contextualize stud-
ies of other regional and national events and persons, and
will encourage digital edition visitors to explore and learn
more about these vital decades of American expansion and
development. The digital edition of the Papers will differ
significantly from the print edition by including manuscript
materials, photographs, and film and sound recordings, and
it will offer navigational and search options not possible
in the print edition.
As Griffin’s volume reveals, it took many people to
make Buffalo Bill’s Wild West happen. Likewise, there
are many people whose combined efforts have made this
documentary project a reality. All of the generous donors
and talented scholars who have contributed to the suc-
cess of this effort will be noted in due course. But in this,
the first publication, it is appropriate to acknowledge that
big ideas are carried to fruition only by sound and steady
leadership. The McCracken Research Library was fortunate
at the advent of the papers project that in its board chair
it had such a leader. Maggie Scarlett was not only an early
supporter of this documentary editing project but also its
first true champion. It was through her connections (and
tenacity) that the initial funds were raised to launch the
project. Whether seeking support from private donors,
the Wyoming State Legislature, federal granting agencies,
or the United States Congress, Maggie led the charge and
thereby secured the future of this worthy endeavor. Thus,

series editor’s preface xi

this reissue of Griffin’s account is a legacy not only to Wil-
liam Cody but also to all of those who have made this effort
and the larger undertaking possible. In that spirit, though
these pages rightfully belong to Charles Eldridge Griffin
and to Mr. Dixon, if this volume were mine to dedicate, it
would be to Maggie.
Kurt Graham

xii series editor’s preface

 i nt r o d uc ti on
Chris Dixon

By any standard Charles Eldridge Griffin was a remarkable

man. Author, comedian, conjurer, contortionist, dancer,
fire-eater, hypnotist, illusionist, lecturer, magician, news-
paper owner, publisher, sword swallower, and yogi: Charles
Griffin was also known by the stage names of Monsieur F.
Le Costro, Professor Griffin, and the Yankee Yogi.
Charles E. Griffin, as he preferred to style himself, was
born June 16, 1859, in St. Joseph, Missouri, and, although
his mother, Fanny, was a musician, there was nothing in
his family background to suggest the appeal that the circus
had for him and his two brothers, Frank and Fred. All three
made their living in and around a variety of big tents in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when the
circus and sideshow industries were becoming big business
in America and beyond. By 1862 the family had moved to
Albia, Iowa, where his father, John Griffin, was Monroe
County superintendent of schools and later county clerk of
the courts. It was the “Hawkeye State” with which Griffin
always identified and which he always called home.
The earliest record we have of Griffin as a performer
is at the age of sixteen in 1875 when he and his “one man
valise troupe” were touring county fairs, school houses,
and town halls in the Midwest. This was a challenging
apprenticeship for one so young, but it gave Griffin the op-
portunity to hone the talents that he would later display to
larger audiences across the United States and internationally
with various companies including most notably the Bob
Hunting Circus, the Ringling Brothers Circus Sideshow
and, of course, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.
Griffin’s first known engagement with a circus com-
pany dates from 1881 and was fairly short-lived. He joined
the struggling Hilliard and DeMott’s Circus as a magician
and side show lecturer and remained with them until they
folded the following year. He clearly made a strong impres-
sion though, because at the tender age of twenty-two he
was invited to travel to France and become general man-
ager of the Paris Pavilion Shows. This was Griffin’s first
notable venture overseas. Little is known about his time
in France, but he resurfaced in the United States two years
later with Pullman and Mack’s Circus, appearing as “The
Comic Yankee Conjurer” throughout its brief existence
in the 1884–1885 season. The company’s demise was not
a setback for Griffin, however, and the following year his
career went from strength to strength when he joined the
famous Sells Brothers Circus as both a fire-eater and a
sideshow lecturer.
Griffin’s life took a crucial turn in 1886, when he left
Sells Brothers to join the newly formed Hurlburt and Hunt-
ing Circus in New York City, which later became known as
Bob Hunting’s New York Circus. During the twelve years
that he spent with Hunting, he set up his own New York
Conjuring College and added writing and publishing to his

xiv introduction
growing list of accomplishments. He produced Griffin’s Book
of Wonders, the first of his many instruction manuals for
aspiring circus performers, in 1887. A year later, the first of
his two memoirs, Traveling with a Circus: A History of Hunting’s
N.Y. Cirque Curriculum for Season 1888, came off the Van Fleet
presses in New York. These were followed by booklets on
snake charming, using dumb bells, conjuring, how to be a
contortionist, fire eating, and his 1897 The Showman’s Book
of Wonders, a compendium on “magic, ventriloquism, fire
eating, sword swallowing and hypnotism.” The multital-
ented Griffin self-published all but one of these (Satan’s
Supper, or, Secrets of a Fire King) and sold them at the circus
for ten cents a copy.
These were fruitful years for Griffin, both professionally
and personally. He was variously billed in Hunting’s pro-
grams as “Professor Griffin, the Yankee Yogi, Magician and
Sword Swallower”; as “Illusionist and Ventriloquist”; and
as “Manager All Privileges.” By 1898 he owned and managed
the entire sideshow operation. The previous year, he became
part-owner of the Maquoketa (Iowa) Weekly Excelsior. It was
during this time that he met and married his wife, Olivia,
a snake charmer who worked with him on the show.
The Frank A. Robbin’s Circus recruited Griffin to run
its sideshows in 1898, but he remained with them for only
one season. Griffin spent the next four years from 1899 to
1902 with the Ringling Brothers Circus Side Show based
in Baraboo, Wisconsin, as both stage manager and enter-
tainer in his own right, performing magic, ventriloquism,
and sword swallowing, as well as lecturing.
In June 1902, when the Ringling Circus appeared in

introduction xv
Canton, Ohio, the renowned James A. Bailey of Barnum
and Bailey fame, who was by that time a partner in Buf-
falo Bill’s Wild West, made what Griffin described as an
unprecedented visit to a rival circus with the objective
of recruiting performers for the Wild West’s forthcom-
ing tour of Europe.1 Griffin was one of those that Bailey
approached, and on March 28, 1903, accompanied by his
wife and son, he set sail for Liverpool aboard the Cunard
steamer Etruria.
Griffin joined the Wild West in Manchester and per-
formed his “Yankee Magic” in the sideshow throughout
the remainder of that season. His managerial talents and
experience did not go unrecognized, and when Lew Parker
decided not to rejoin the show for the 1904 British tour,
Griffin replaced him as manager for the Wild West. He
stayed in that role through 1905 and 1906, wintering in
Europe when many of the other leading figures returned
to the United States for the off seasons. He travelled with
the Wild West across France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and
Luxembourg, and to various parts of central and eastern
Europe which, at that time, came under the single banner
of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and encompassed present-
day Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland,
Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, and the Ukraine.
Upon his return to the States in October 1906, Griffin
settled in his old home town of Albia, Iowa, and began
writing Four Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill (1908), his second
memoir and the work for which he is best known among
Cody scholars. The book took Griffin two years to complete
due in part to ill health, as he suffered a mild stroke in late

xvi introduction
1906, and also in part to his professional commitments,
as he rejoined the Wild West for the 1907 season as man-
ager and side show artist. This was his final curtain call as
a performer, if we discount occasionally entertaining his
neighbors with performances at Albia’s Opera House in the
closing years of his life. The first—and so far only—edition
of Four Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill, was published under
the imprint of Griffin’s own Stage Publishing Company,
which he had acquired around the turn of the century. Its
print run was a mere five hundred copies.
Although eclectic in nature, as memoirs often are,
Griffin’s direct and at times almost conversational style is
engaging throughout. He tells us early in the work that his
intention is not “to tire the reader with useless verbiage
or dry statistics [ . . . . . . ] but to give a straightforward
narrative of the many interesting places visited, and the
contretemps met with in such a stupendous undertaking.”2
It is an intention that he meets admirably.
Writing and publishing remained the primary focus
of Griffin’s activities for the rest of his life. He continued
to produce guides for aspiring performers on Black Face
Monologue, contortionism, fire eating, juggling and balanc-
ing, magic cauldron and magic kettle acts, rope and wire
walking, stage dancing, and ventriloquism—each available
by mail order for $1.00, postage paid, from his Albia base.
He even produced his own (almost certainly bootleg) edi-
tion of Helen Whetmore Cody’s 1899 Last of the Great Scouts,
which was “expressly printed to commemorate the return
from Europe of Colonel Cody and his Rough Riders of the
World.”3

introduction xvii
 Death came to Charles Eldridge Griffin on January 3,
1914, at his home in Albia in the aftermath of a serious
stroke that left him completely debilitated. He had crammed
so much into his relatively short life that it is difficult to
believe he was only fifty-four years old.

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in Europe

Between 1887 and 1892, and again from 1902 to 1906, Buffalo
Bill’s Wild West delighted audiences in England, Scotland,
Wales, and fifteen other countries in continental Europe
with its unbeatable combination of the authentic and the
exotic.4 It was a sensation, igniting “Wild West Fever” by
offering what purported to be a genuine experience of the
American frontier that people in Europe had previously
only ever read or dreamed about.5
The Wild West’s initial foray to London—where it rep-
resented Nebraska at the great American Exhibition of
1887—came at a time when relations between the United
States and Britain were not at their best. The strain caused
by the War of 1812 and concerns that Britain would recognize
the Confederacy during the more recent Civil War had not
entirely passed from the consciousness of either nation.
Yet, by the end of the Wild West’s run, Cody was being
lauded by the London Times for doing his part in bringing
“England and America” together.6 The most striking oc-
currence of the run was Queen Victoria’s visit to the show
on May 11, 1887, , which marked her first public appearance
since the death of her consort, Prince Albert, from typhoid
fever on December 14, 1861. This and the subsequent com-
mand performance given at Windsor on June 20, 1887, are

xviii introduction
evidence of the extent to which Cody was, in addition to
being a man of his own times, very much a “Renaissance
man” out of his time—multi-talented and with a thirst for
the patronage of the great and good that was, quite liter-
ally, food and drink to the great talents of fifteenth- and
sixteenth-century Europe.
Cody is said to have remarked, when the Kings of
Denmark, Belgium, Greece and Saxony and the Prince of
Wales all rode in the Deadwood Stagecoach, “I’ve held
four kings, but four kings and the Prince of Wales makes
a Royal Flush such as no man ever held before.”7 His com-
ment inscribes new meanings to such patronage, however,
in an intercultural nexus that juxtaposes the contempo-
rary and quintessentially American game of poker with
the presence of personages from ancient royal houses of
Europe. Cody, the nineteenth-century entrepreneur, was
not slow to cash in on this winning hand, and he quickly
had lithographs produced that depicted his head encircled
by those of his royal patrons. These lithographs were soon
reproduced as prints that subsequently became the basis for
publicity posters. Indeed, publicity was food and drink to
the “mobile dream factory [ . . . . . . ] producing narratives
of heroic conquest for mass audiences”8 that was Buffalo
Bill’s Wild West.
At the close of the American Exhibition, the show
moved on to Birmingham and Manchester for shorter, al-
though similarly successful, runs. It did so well that the
following year the show remained in the north of England,
appearing in Manchester again and also in Hull.
When the show opened in Paris on May 14, 1889, as part

introduction xix
of the Universal Exhibition, ten thousand spectators gave it
an enthusiastic reception, and the “Marseillaise” was played
after the “Star-Spangled Banner.” In the absence of royalty,
Monsieur Carnot, president of the French Republic, was
the leading patron, and although the exiled Queen Isabel
II of Spain attended a performance, the difference of em-
phasis in the French show reflected Cody and his troupe’s
understanding that Europe was not just one homogeneous
setting for the reception of the accomplished product of
American mass culture that the Wild West had become.9
Audiences in Paris were themselves culturally and lin-
guistically diverse, reflecting not only the cosmopolitan
nature of the city but also the fact that trains from various
parts of the continent were bringing eager spectators from
all over Europe to see the recently inaugurated Eiffel Tower,
the industrial advances on show at the Exhibition, the
Pavilions of the participating nations, the anthropological
exhibition on human evolution, and, of course, Buffalo Bill
and company. The clamor for tickets excited interest in the
prospect of a more wide-ranging European tour, which the
troupe undertook later that year and into 1890, travelling
first to Lyons and Marseille in the south of France and
then on to Spain, where they made a single five-week stop
in Barcelona before proceeding through Italy, the Austro-
Hungarian Empire, and Germany.
Wherever they stopped contemporary newspaper ac-
counts not only spoke of the show’s success but also pro-
vided evidence of the intercultural dialogue and exchange
that was going on, with elements of the show being ap-
propriated for various local purposes and to reflect local

xx introduction
concerns. The show was parodied in London, Paris and
Barcelona, and the French press used the figure of Cody to
ridicule General Georges Boulanger.10 The Catalan satirical
magazine Esquella de la Torraxa even lampooned Francesc
Rius i Taulet, the recently deposed mayor of Barcelona,
by caricaturing him in a blanket and feathers begging for
a job with the Wild West.11 Louis Warren has rightly ob-
served that “Europeans did not admire his [Cody’s] show
simply because they liked Americans. Buffalo Bill’s Wild
West drew huge crowds in the United Kingdom and on the
Continent because of the ways that it spoke to European
desires and anxieties.”12
The 1891 season began in Germany and Belgium be-
fore the troupe returned to the British Isles where it was
joined in April by twenty-three Lakota “prisoners of war”
who had been released into Cody’s custody less than three
months after the so-called Ghost Dance uprising of the
previous December. They provided a boost to the show’s
publicity by depicting the authentic savagery of the fron-
tier as an imminent phenomenon, though the closest any
of the prisoners ever came to actual rebellion was when
they performed in Cody’s interpretation of Indian-white
relations in Scotland, England, and Wales.13
Spring 1892 saw a series of theatre appearances by an ad
hoc concert party comprising the Cowboy Band, the Tyrolean
Singers, and a group of twelve Indians who performed mu-
sic, songs and, dances in a number of small venues around
Glasgow.14 The season culminated in another successful
six-month stand in London, after which Buffalo Bill’s Wild
West would not be seen in Europe for almost a decade. The

introduction xxi
show that returned would be substantially different from
that which had toured there before.
The intervening ten years were not kind to William F.
Cody, the man who grew up with Manifest Destiny,15 and
whose life in many ways reflects the aspirations and dis-
appointments of many Americans during the nineteenth
century. With his rise from relative poverty to wealth, from
obscurity to celebrity, Cody undoubtedly lived a version
of the American dream, but he was also beset by the same
boom- and-bust cycles that were known to homesteaders,
factory workers and other circus owners and performers.
The circus industry was changing, as many small con-
cerns folded under pressure from their larger rivals, while
others were bought out by emerging super-companies like
the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey.16The injec-
tion of cash that James A. Bailey’s investment provided to
the Wild West in the midst of one of Cody’s many financial
crises was effectively a buyout through which Bailey took a
controlling interest at the request of Cody’s partner Nate
Salesbury. This had the positive side-effects of allowing the
show to grow considerably and providing some measure of
financial stability. It was only after Bailey’s death in 1906,
and in the wake of the financial controversies surrounding
his will, that Cody’s Wild West had to merge with Pawnee
Bill’s show in 1908.
In the second phase of its European activities the Wild
West was bigger, and it incorporated a much more expansive
sideshow operation. There would be few of the longer runs
which had characterized the nineteenth-century version of
the show. The standard operating procedure would now

xxii introduction
be a series of one night stands with only the occasional ex-
tended run in major cities where the market was projected
to be sustainable. The progress of civilization that Cody
had fictionalized and symbolized in the transformation of
the West was being worked out in a very real sense in the
transformation of the show itself. Improved infrastructure
facilitated faster travel, technological advances made it pos-
sible to set up and dismantle more quickly, and the economic
pressures that had put so many of the smaller troupes out
of business had dictated the necessity to become part of a
larger conglomerate. Clearly, the globalizing influences that
would come to the fore throughout the twentieth century
were already at work.
The turn of the century was also a difficult period in
Cody’s personal life. The loss of his acrimonious divorce
case caused him to be roundly criticized in his hometown
of North Platte, Nebraska, and lampooned in the national
press. This negative publicity actually appears to have been
damaging to him personally—to say nothing of the po-
tential damage to his business interests—and Warren has
described the years in Europe which followed as a “figura-
tive exile that largely kept him from the public gaze in the
United States.”17
Exile or not, Cody was very much in the public gaze
during the long and successful run in London through the
second half of 1902 and the first three months of 1903. He
spent the remainder of that year and the next traveling to
numerous smaller venues across England, Scotland, and
Wales. Press coverage of the show was almost universally
positive, as the narrative of civilization’s banishment of

introduction xxiii
savagery from the globe continued to captivate audiences.18
It was a discourse that clearly resonated with the late Vic-
torian public of a British Empire on which the sun literally
never set and which was just emerging from the Second
Boer War, the latest of its own many colonial conflicts on
its far-flung frontiers.
Charles Eldridge Griffin joined the show in Manchester
in April 1903 and remained with it through the end of the
1906 season. He missed only the initial London run and the
first few Manchester engagements during the four years
in Europe to which his memoir refers. His work provides
readers with an insider’s view of the remaining dates in the
British Isles, the year-long tour of France in 1905, complete
with its iconography on the emerging entente cordiale with the
United States, as well as the peripatetic 1906 season when
the show ranged far and wide through Italy, the Austro-
Hungarian Empire, Germany, Luxembourg, and Belgium,
welcoming distinguished visitors from many royals houses
along the way. Contemporary commentators, in Germany
and Italy in particular, showed an increasing fascination
with the Indians as romantic symbols of a preindustrial
age.19 Griffin’s idiosyncratic commentaries, while often re-
flecting prevalent American views of the various European
nations, stand in stark contrast to these German and Italian
romantic ideals, both in the frankness of their tone and the
down- to-earth realism of their content.
Griffin is generally positive about the English, who
“respect and admire Americans more than the people of
the States generally imagine,”20 and the Germans, who
“take every advantage of their natural resources,”21 but

xxiv introduction
his views on the French are more mixed. He comments
favorably on their energy but condemns them for their
“extreme excitability and social immorality.”22 Among Grif-
fin’s most poignant views are those on the ethnic diversity
and linguistic mix of the cities the Wild West visited in the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, a tinderbox only eight years
before it would ignite Europe in four years of bloody war.
He writes, “Some towns would be about equally divided
between four or five nationalities, and, although they all
understood German, the official language, each would insist
on being addressed in his native language. We think we
have a race problem in America, but it is more complicated
and acute in Eastern Europe, and it is not a matter of color,
either.”23

Unless otherwise noted, all biographical details are based

on Roger Grant’s study, “An Iowan with Buffalo Bill: Charles
Eldridge Griffin in Europe: 1903–1906,” in Palimpsest: Jour-
nal of the State Historical Society of Iowa 54, no. 1 (January–
February 1973): 2–14, which was based in part on material
from interviews with Charles E. Griffin’s nephew, John
W. Griffin.

Notes
1. Griffin, Four Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill, 17.
2. Griffin, Four Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill, 18.
3. Griffin, Four Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill, 19, 95–96.
4. Blair, “Blackface Minstrels and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West,” 8.
5. Rydell and Kroes, Buffalo Bill in Bologna, 116.
6. London Times, November 1, 1887.
7. Russell, Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill, 331.

introduction xxv
 8. Rydell and Kroes, Buffalo Bill in Bologna, 31.
9. Rydell and Kroes, Buffalo Bill in Bologna, 112.
10. Warren, Buffalo Bill’s America, 349–50.
11. Marill Escudé, Aquell hivern, 105.
12. Warren, Buffalo Bill’s America, 302.
13. Maddra, Hostiles?, 190.
14. Cunningham, “Your Fathers the Ghosts,” 149–50.
15. Reddin, Wild West Shows, 54.
16. On which see in particular Assael, The Circus and Victorian
Society.
17. Warren, Buffalo Bill’s America, 524.
18. Warren, Buffalo Bill’s America, 348.
19. On which see Fiorentino, “Those Red-Brick Faces,” and
Warren, Buffalo Bill’s America, 345.
20. Griffin, Four Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill, 41.
21. Griffin, Four Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill, 81.
22. Griffin, Four Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill, 58.
23. Griffin, Four Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill, 79.

xxvi introduction
 a b o ut t hi s edi t i on

By the end of his life William F. Cody had become the en-
tertainment industry’s first international celebrity, blazing
a trail that was to be followed by others with the advent of
mass communication media in the decades after his pass-
ing. The vehicle that brought him international stardom
was Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. During the three decades that
he operated and appeared in various incarnations of “the
western world’s greatest travelling attraction,”1 European
and American audiences were offered a carefully crafted
narrative of the history of geographic expansion in the
trans-Mississippi west of the United States that displayed
in itself the products of nineteenth- and early twentieth-
century industrial civilization while purporting to represent
authentically the savage life of the frontier.2 From its in-
ception in 1883, the show was a reflection of the dominant
positivist ideology of progress from savagery to civilization
seen through the lens of Cody’s own imagination, with his
own constructed persona at the heart of it all.
More than any other individual, it was Cody who
brought America to the world, crafting out of his own
biography, imagination, and ambition an international and
intercultural legacy that is still debated by scholars nearly
one hundred years on. Every year the museums dedicated
to his memory—in Cody, Wyoming, Golden, Colorado,
and North Platte, Nebraska—attract a steady stream of
visitors from throughout the United States and abroad.
Given the unquestioned international importance of Cody’s
life and works and the enduring interest they continue to
engender, it is scarcely credible that the only contemporary
book-length commentaries on his Wild West in Europe,
which has been referenced by every leading Cody scholar
from Don Russell to Warren,3 has only ever appeared in
one edition with a single print run of five hundred copies
and that it is now only available to specialists in a small
number of libraries and archives. And yet, though a century
has passed since it first appeared, that is the case for Four
Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill.
A number of writers, such as Robert Rydell and Rob
Kroes, have linked the development of mass-market Ameri-
can cultural products in the late nineteenth century to
the origins of American cultural imperialism, arguing that
its emergence as a global phenomenon pre-dates the de-
cades between the two world wars that had previously
been generally accepted.4 Others scholars, such as Warren,
have identified the need for further study of “the show’s
meaning for its diverse European audiences.”5 It is in the
context of these recent debates that this new edition of
Griffin’s memoir is presented: a first-person narrative in
straightforward prose that forms part of the documentary
record of William F. Cody’s life and career. It sheds light on
some of the deepest questions about nationalism, imperial-
ism, and an emerging global mass culture that dominate

xxviii about this edition

contemporary scholarly and public interest by describing
and commenting upon some of the key events of the Wild
West’s extensive European tours of 1902 to 1906.
It is not, however, the intention of this edition to be
overly academic, for to do so would be a tremendous disser-
vice to the original. Griffin’s distinctive voice draws his read-
ers in as he addresses them directly in an unselfconscious
manner that is at no time dry or scholarly. In producing this
authoritative version of his text, complete with the accom-
panying line drawings and photographs from the princeps,
care has been taken to ensure the integrity of the original.
Corrections have been made to some aberrant spellings,
especially of foreign words and place names; a number of
abbreviations in the original have been clarified in full words
to make the text either more accessible (particularly when
these refer to foreign currencies or measurements) or more
consistent (such as in the names of months). The text is
otherwise as it appears in the Stage Publishing Company
edition of 1908. Where place names have subsequently been
changed, the text has not been amended and the current
place name is given in the notes.
These annotations serve to provide further information
on some of the personalities mentioned, to contextualize
the narrative within the scope of the scholarly discussions
mentioned above, and to indicate those aspects of the 1902–
1906 tours on which further published material is available
(further source are listed in the bibliography).
As an appendix to the volume, a complete listing of the
dates and venues for the Wild West tour’s engagements
is included. Based on the original route books, care has

about this edition xxix

been taken to ensure that current place names and modern
orthography are used throughout the appendix. Particular
care has been taken in relation to the much changed map of
central and eastern Europe in order to ensure that modern
states that formed part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
have been correctly identified.
This new University of Nebraska Press edition of Four
Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill will, therefore, make a key
primary source more readily available for scholars engag-
ing in these intercultural dialogues while offering Charles
Griffin’s own work to the more general audience that it
has heretofore lacked. The edition has been produced as
part of the print edition of The Papers of William F. Cody
under the aegis of the project of the same name, located at
the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.

Notes
1. Blair, “Blackface Minstrels and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West,” 3.
2. Sears, “Bierstadt, Buffalo Bill, and the Wild West in Eu-
rope,” 3.
3. See Russell, Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill, and Warren,
Buffalo Bill’s America.
4. Rydell and Kroes, Buffalo Bill in Bologna.
5. Warren, Buffalo Bill’s America, 302.

xxx about this edition

1. James Bailey and “Buffalo Bill” Cody in about 1901.
2. Wild West advertising poster containing the
images of female royal personages.
3. Wild West advertising poster containing the
images of male royal personages.
4. Entente Cordiale poster from the 1904 French tour.
Four Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill
 Four Years in
Europe with
Buffalo Bill

by ch a r l es el dr idge gr iffin

A Descriptive Narrative of the

Big American Show’s Successful Tour
in Foreign Lands,
Illustrated with Original Photos
by the Author.
 ta bl e of con ten ts

Buffalo Bill — A Sketch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

James Anthony Bailey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
chapter i. 1903
Our ocean voyage—General impressions of Old
England. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
chapter ii. Summer 1903
Opening of the season—Accident to Buffalo Bill. . . . 27
chapter iii. Winter 1903–1904
Wintering in London—Sights and scenes of the
great city—A trip to “Gay Paree,” the fashion
capital of the world. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
chapter iv. 1904
Second year of Buffalo Bill in Great Britain—A visit
to the potteries—Bonnie Scotland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
chapter v. Winter 1904–1905
Again in London—Shop showing—The Waverly
carnival—Studying French . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
chapter vi. 1905
Grand opening at Paris—A zigzag tour of
France—Disease among the horses—Tragedie
des Cheveaux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69

four years in europe with buffalo bill 3

chapter vii. Winter 1905–1906
Marseille, the gateway to the Orient—Wintering
under canvas—More observations of French
manners and customs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
chapter viii. 1906
Opening of the season at Marseille—Tour of Italy,
Austria-Hungary, Germany and Belgium . . . . . . . . 103
chapter ix. 1906–1907
Closing of the tour—Departure for and arrival
at New York—Impressions of New York after
four years abroad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Official Roster of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West

Season 1907 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Programme, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Season 1907 . . . . 131

4 four years in europe with buffalo bill

 b u f f a l o b i l l — a s k et c h 1

Although Colonel William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) has

a vast army of personal friends, his tremendous suc-
cesses (yes, I meant that to be plural) have made him
many envious enemies, who assiduously exaggerate
and circulate all kinds of villainous and scurrilous
stories about the great scout—but that is one of the
penalties of being great and famous.
It is really too bad that everybody cannot know
the Colonel as his friends know him. He is truly one
of the best fellows in the world—open hearted and
generous to a fault. Why, his managers have to hedge
him in and keep the people from him during the sea-
son, otherwise he would have his tents filled with free
tickets, and that would not do, as it takes an enormous
pile of money to keep so vast a concern moving from
day to day.
He is not such an old man as people generally
imagine, either. It is common to hear them say, “Why,
this cannot be Buffalo Bill—I heard of him when I was

1. Griffin’s admiration of Cody—a sentiment not uncommon in the writings of those

who worked closely with the showman—is clearly reflected in this sketch, as it is
elsewhere in Griffin’s memoir.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 5

a boy.” Doubtless that is true, as Buffalo Bill began
making history when he was a boy fourteen years old,
in Kansas, during the “Jayhawk” War.
William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) was born in Scott
County, Iowa, February 26, 1846. He moved to Kansas,
with the rest of the family, when but eight years of
age. His father was assassinated by the “Cesesh,” in
1855.2 He is a well preserved man of sixty-two years,
and as he is temperate in all things except work, I
should say, barring accidents, he is good for twenty-
five years yet.
When the Grand Duke Frederick3 met the Colonel
at Vienna, in 1906, he said:
“How old are you, Bill?”
“Sixty.”
“Is that all! Why, you are quite a boy yet.”
The duke was then eighty-two years old, and it had
been seventeen years since he had met Cody.

2. Griffin’s reference to the death of Isaac Cody is inaccurate. Cody himself places the
event in April 1857 (see Life of Hon. William F. Cody, Known as Buffalo Bill, 57) and identifies
the cause as “liver disease,” although he qualified the statement with the comment that
Isaac had never fully recovered from the 1855 wound he received in the Kansas border
disputes, which Griffin refers to as the “Jayhawk War.”
3. Archduke Frederick Maria Albrecht, Duke of Teschen, was only fifty years old at the
time of his meeting with Cody in 1906.

6 four years in europe with buffalo bill

5. Pholtograph of Cody autographed and addressed to Charles
Griffin, “In memory of four years in Europe.”
6. Facsimile of letter from William F. Cody to Charles E. Griffin,
dated January 7, 1908. It reads: “My Dear Griffin, Thanks your
letter. Certainly you can use the photo for your book. Are you to
be with us the coming season I hope so. I haven’t had much rest
this season winter I mean. As I have so much to do out here but
it’s a change from the show life. And I like to be kept busy
and am feeling fine. Yours truly, W. F. Cody.”
7. Photographs of Fred Martin (top) and George Sanger.
 8. Facsimile of George Sanger letter to Charles E. Griffin. “I
am in receipt of your letter, and have the pleasure to enclose a
photograph for insertion in your book as requested. Yours very
truly, George Sanger.”
9. Charles Eldridge Griffin.
 j a m es a n t ho n y b ai l ey

The subject of this sketch was born at Detroit, Michi-

gan, July 4, 1847, of Scotch-Irish parentage.4 He left
home at ten years of age, and for a time worked on a
farm at $3.50 per month.
While serving as a bell-boy in a hotel at Pontiac,
Michigan, Fred Bailey, general agent of the Lake &
Robinson Circus, came there and engaged young Bailey
to assist him.
This was his opportunity, and he took advantage of
it. His rise from billposter to general agent was rapid,
and finally a proprietor in 1872, when he entered into
partnership with J. E. Cooper, forming the celebrated
“Cooper & Bailey Great International Allied Shows,”
visiting Australia, New Zealand, South America and
India, returning to America in 1878 and consolidating
with Howe’s Great London Shows.

4. Born James Anthony McGuiness, James A. Bailey rose through the ranks of the
circus world from teenage runaway to successful owner and manager—along with
P. T. Barnum—of the so-called Greatest Show on Earth. On the involvement of Barnum
and Bailey with Cody’s partner, Nate Salisbury, and the circumstances by which Bailey
came to be a partner and co-owner of the Wild West Show, see in particular Russell,
Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill, 378–82; Kasson, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, 144–51; Bridger,
Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull, 408–10; and Carter, Buffalo Bill Cody, 380–81.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 13

10. James Anthony Bailey.
 In 1880 he forced P. T. Barnum into a partner-
ship, forming the “Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show
on Earth,” which, with the exception of one year, he
continued to manage up to the time of his death.
“The little Napoleon of show business”—what
an apt synonym! What Napoleon was to the military
world, James A. Bailey was to the circus business.
When Bailey picked up a newspaper he did not first
turn to the baseball score, nor did he stop to read the
news of the day until he had first scanned the market
reports and ascertained the price of cattle, hogs, flour,
potatoes, cotton, tobacco, butter, eggs, etc. That told
him more than the most thrilling headline—that was
his barometer to business conditions.
It was Bailey’s master mind which conceived and
executed the idea of making the Buffalo Bill Show
a one-day stand show. The Wild West was so tre-
mendously cumbersome that Colonel Cody himself
never dreamed that it was possible to make one day
stands with it, and for years it would take them two
or three days to move from place to place, and would
consequently make long stands at expositions and
large cities.
In 1904 he invited the five Ringling brothers into
partnership with him by selling them a half interest
in the Forepaugh-Sells Show, probably seeing in them
his only possible successors.
He was united in wedlock to Ruth L. McCaddon,
of Zanesville, Ohio, who was his constant compan-
ion in all his struggles and triumphs, and the great

four years in europe with buffalo bill 15

showman paid a touching tribute to her devotion in
his will. “I know of no one more entitled to the re-
sults of our combined labors than my beloved wife,
Ruth L. Bailey.” And all his vast estate, amounting to
millions, was left to Mrs. Bailey, she being named as
administratrix, without bond.
Mr. Bailey passed to the “great beyond” at his beau-
tiful mansion at Mount. Vernon, New York, Wednesday
afternoon, April 11, 1906, erysipelas being the cause
of death. He was interred at Woodlawn Cemetery on
Saturday, April 14.
Requiescat in Pace.

16 four years in europe with buffalo bill

 f o r ew o rd

When the late James A. Bailey, undisputed king of

the show world, visited the Ringling Bros.’ Circus, at
Canton, Ohio, in June, 1902, he unconsciously, perhaps,
paid the Ringling brothers the greatest compliment
that could be paid to a rival concern, inasmuch as
he had never before deigned to visit a similar insti-
tution personally. However, he would keep himself
thoroughly posted in their movements by means of
his many agents.
On this occasion several employees of the Ringling
Show were approached in regard to a tour of England
with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, the following Spring.
I was among the lucky ones, and when I received
my contract I felt highly elated at the prospect of a
European tour with the most successful amusement
institution of modern times.
The great show was transported across the Atlan-
tic on the S. S. St. Paul, American Line, in December,
1902.
A preliminary engagement was played at Olym-
pia, London, opening on the afternoon of December
26, 1902 (Boxing Day), and continuing until April 4,

four years in europe with buffalo bill 17

1903—one hundred and seventy-two performances
being given in that city.5 The show met with instant
and long continued success.
It was visited twice by King Edward, Queen Alex-
andra, the Prince and Princess of Wales, together with
numerous other royal personages, but as the writer
was not a party to this preliminary, or prologue, per-
formance, I will confine myself to a description of the
road tour only, nine days elapsing from the closing in
London until the opening in Manchester.
It is not my intention to tire the reader with use-
less verbiage or dry statistics, such as the ordinary
Circus Route Book affords, but to give a straightfor-
ward narrative of the many interesting places visited,
and the contretemps met with in such a stupendous
undertaking.
Of course, I found plenty to criticise abroad, be-
cause it was all so different from what I had seen at
home, but I trust I have not been too severe, and I
hope any of my foreign friends who feel aggrieved will
pay a visit to America, where, I dare say, they will find
an abundant field for retaliation.
All of which is respectfully submitted,
Charles Eldridge Griffin.
New York, December, 1906.

5. On the 1902–1903 London run, see Gallop, Buffalo Bill’s British Wild West, 216–22.

18 four years in europe with buffalo bill

 no t i c e

Every reader of this book should know the true life

story of “Buffalo Bill,” contained in “The Last of the
Great Scouts,” by Colonel Cody’s sister, Helen Cody
Whetmore. This book is an ornament to any library,
contains 244 pages, large, clear type, gold side and
back stamp, copiously illustrated by Frederic Rem-
ington and E. W. Deming, and intensely interesting
and thrilling throughout.
Sent post paid on receipt of $1.00 by
Stage Publishing Co.
Box 431, Albia, Iowa.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 19

 chapter i—1903
Our Ocean Voyage—General Impressions of Old England

We left New York City, Saturday, March 28, 1903, at

four p.m., on the good ship Etruria, Cunard Line, for
Merrie England.
The Etruria is one of the staunchest, even though
it is the senior, of this oldest of the Atlantic liners.
She is 540 feet long and 51 feet wide.
Dinner, our first meal on board, was served at six
o’clock, and everyone was there with a normal appe-
tite—but, “Oh, what a difference in the morning!”
We were then well out to sea, and the boat was
rolling to “beat the band.”
A few old salts smiled and ate their breakfasts, but
the majority seemed bent on feeding the fishes.
I remained in my berth all day Sunday, unable to
get up or to eat a bite. Monday morning I ventured on
deck and the fresh sea air did me good—in fact, from
that day on I enjoyed the trip, and ate my regular six
meals a day.
They gave us breakfast at eight, bouillon and sand-
wiches at eleven, luncheon at twelve, tea at five, dinner
at six, and supper at eight o’clock.
The first cabin or saloon is “gilt-edge,” second

four years in europe with buffalo bill 21

cabin good enough for anyone who does not want silk
jackets on their potatoes or gold nails in their coffins,
and third class, or steerage, is not at all bad going over,
but they say it is something awful coming this way.
There was something new every day to vary the
monotony. The first thing I would look for when I went
on deck was three sea-gulls that followed us all the way
over. One of the sailors told me that they would roost
on the waves and sometimes on the ship at night.
One day we saw a whale spouting in the distance,
and at another time we encountered a number of mon-
ster icebergs from the frozen North.
Impromptu concerts were given in the cabin each
evening, which culminated in one grand affair April
3, at which time I had the honor of being made chair-
man of the evening. On April 4 another entertain-
ment was given in the grand saloon for the benefit
of the Seamen’s Charity Fund, at which time the Rt.
Hon. the Earl of Rosslyn1 was made chairman. This
is the earl who, it is said, came to America in search
of an heiress, finally found one at Pittsburg and was
“turned down” at the finish. He impressed me as be-
ing rather a brilliant young fellow, and not at all like
the newspapers have made him appear.
A daily paper was issued on board, giving the news
of the world by wireless telegraphy. They played quoits

1. James Francis “Harry” St. Clair-Erskine became the Fifth Earl of Rosslyn in 1890 at
age twenty-one, on the death of his father, the Fourth Earl, Robert Francis St. Clair-
Erskine, a prominent Scottish Conservative politician. The son held the title until his
death in 1939.

22 four years in europe with buffalo bill

 11. It was fun to watch the seagulls dive for biscuits which we
would throw into the sea.

on deck, had a billiard, card and bar room, and a well

stocked library, so you see we were not badly treated
at all.
After being out six days we sighted land—the rocky
West coast of Ireland—and here our three sea-gulls
were joined by thousands of others, thus losing their
identity. It was interesting sport to throw crackers into
the sea and watch the gulls dive for them.
The ship did not land at Queenstown,2 but came
to anchor, while harbor boats took off the mail and
passengers. This was about one o’clock p.m. A number
of real Irish lassies came aboard to sell their beautiful
hand-made laces. It was a cold, rainy day, and it struck
2. The port of Cobh in the southwest of County Cork, Ireland, was known as Queenstown
from 1849 to 1922, in commemoration of a visit by Queen Victoria.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 23

 12. All going out, nothing coming in.

me as peculiar that they should wear furs and straw

hats, but I became accustomed to that incongruity
after landing in England, as women wear straw hats
there the year ’round.
Five o’clock Sunday morning we arrived at Liverpool.
The machinery had stopped, the pulse of the big ship
had ceased to beat, and everyone awoke with a start.
During the seven days consumed in the voyage, we
had become so accustomed to the constant vibration
that when it ceased, it put our nerves all on edge, as
it were, and from that time until we landed, at ten
a.m., all was bustle and excitement among the five
hundred passengers.
As we scattered, many sad farewells were spoken,
as sincere friendships and firm attachments are formed
on an ocean voyage.
We had no trouble in passing through the customs,
as England is a free trade country; tobacco, liquor and

24 four years in europe with buffalo bill

playing cards being about the only contraband articles
of any consequence.
From Liverpool we took train at once for Man-
chester, and such funny little cars, they seemed to be
no larger than our narrow gauge cars. There are first,
second and third class cars, divided into compartments,
with room for ten people in each compartment. The
cars are not heated, but, on a cold day, they give you a
foot warmer in the shape of a tank of hot water, which,
if you go far, will be ice at the end of your journey.
Neither are there any toilet conveniences, except on
the long distance express trains. Another peculiarity
of English railway travel is they do not check your
baggage or luggage; you give a railway porter a penny
or two to put your luggage on the train, and at your
destination another porter takes care of it for a like
amount. The rails are called “metals,” the engineer a
“driver,” and the conductor a “guard.”
Manchester is the second largest city in Great Brit-
ain,3 being next to London in size. It is in Lancashire,
the centre of the cotton spinning industry. They speak
a very peculiar dialect, and it took us some time to get
“next” to it. They have an excellent system of trolley
cars or tramways, superior to any I have seen in the
States. The cars or carriages are double deck, each car
is licensed to carry just so many passengers, and are
owned by the city.

3. According to the 1901 census, the population of Manchester was 543,872, making it
the second largest city in England at the time. Glasgow, with a population in excess of
760,000, was the second largest city in Great Britain.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 25

 The English system of coinage is quite different
from ours, the unit of value being pounds, shillings
and pence. Twelve pence, one shilling; twenty shillings,
one pound—($4.80 in our money). Paper money does
not circulate promiscuously.
A fellow might as well be broke as to be in London
with a £5 note (about $25.00), as no one will take it
unless endorsed by some well known business man
or firm.
The Spring was very backward, and we all suffered
with the cold, although the thermometer did not indi-
cate cold weather. But the dampness was fierce. They
use open fireplaces instead of stoves, and put on coal
by the thimbleful.
I happened to be in the mill district one evening at
six o’clock, and of all the noises I ever heard, the clatter
of the wooden clogs on the pavement “took the biscuit.”
I can only liken it to a troupe of cavalry on the march.
The hotels, or “pubs,” as they are called, are open
Sunday, but restaurants and eating-houses are closed.
So there is no trouble about getting plenty to drink,
but I found it very difficult for a stranger to get any-
thing to eat on a Sunday, even at such an important
place as Liverpool.
I did not see a frame building or shingle roof in
England, all being substantial brick or stone structures,
with slate roofs.
Most of the buildings are from two to four stories.
I did not see a “sky-scraper” in all Europe, there being
a law forbidding the building of a house taller than
the width of the street.

26 four years in europe with buffalo bill

 c h a pt er i i— s u m mer 1 903
Opening of the Season—Accident to Buffalo Bill

We opened the tenting season of 1903 at Brook’s Bar,

Manchester, April 13, Bankers’ Holiday, to turn away
business, in a cold drizzling rain, which turned to
snow. At the opening performance Colonel Cody was
thrown from his horse, or, rather, the horse stumbled,1
severely spraining one of the Colonel’s ankles, conse-
quently he was unable to ride during the three weeks’
engagement at Manchester, but was driven around the
arena in a carriage at each performance.
Saturday, April 24, our press contingent was en-
tertained by the Manchester Press Club, and I had the
honor of closing the programme with an exhibition
of Yankee magic. Lew Parker,2 manager of privileges,
arranged the programme, which was a most enjoyable
one. Major John M. Burke, Harvey Watkins, Charles
S. Wells and Dexter Fellows constituted our press

1. According to the New York Times of April 14, 1903, while rearing up, Cody’s horse
overbalanced and fell on him, causing the injury to his ankle.
2. Lew Parker was a veteran minstrel show performer, manager, and publicity agent
who had been involved with Cody’s Wild West since its earliest days. Parker published
his own reminiscences in an undated (1910?) volume that includes some interesting
reflections on the Wild West’s earlier European tours. Griffin wrongly identifies him
as “Lew Graham” in the original 1908 text.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 27

staff, and a capable quartet they proved to be, judg-
ing from the immense amount of free advertising the
show received.3
All the members of the English press I met were
a fine lot of gentlemen, and decidedly friendly to
Americans.
We closed our three weeks’ stay at Manchester,
Saturday night, May 2, and began a three weeks’ en-
gagement at Liverpool, Monday, May 4.
Sunday afternoon, May 10, the good Bishop of
Liverpool held services in the arena for the benefit of
the Wild West. Dr. Chavasse4 is a grand, good man,
and he delivered a beautiful sermon, which was highly
appreciated by Colonel Cody and his motley assem-
blage of Indians, cowboys and rough riders from all
nations. His lordship was assisted by a large choir of
gentlemen and boys, the hymns sung being “Rock of
Ages,” “Oh, God, Our Help in Ages Past,” and “On-
ward, Christian Soldiers.”
The Bishop commenced his remarks by saying:

3. “Major” “Arizona” John M. Burke was another longtime associate of Cody who acted
as press agent and advance agent for the Wild West on many occasions, including the
European tours. Burke is sometimes suggested as the ghostwriter of material published
in Cody’s name. Harvey L. Watkins had acted as press agent on Barnum and Bailey’s
1897 tour of Europe and authored a memoir of that tour published in the same year.
According to Tom Cunningham, Charles S. Wells was the press agent who often acted
as advance agent on the 1902–1906 tour. Cunningham, “Your Fathers the Ghosts,” 267.
Dexter W. Fellows joined the Wild West as a press agent and went on to work in a similar
capacity with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey circuses. For more on his
involvement with each see his autobiography, This Way to the Big Show (1936).
4. Dr. Francis James Chavasse was the Anglican Bishop of Liverpool from 1900 to 1923.
Alan Gallop gives the account of the service that was published by the Liverpool Daily
Post on May 11, 1903. Gallop, Buffalo Bill’s British Wild West, 229.

28 four years in europe with buffalo bill

“Colonel Cody and My Friends—It is a singular honor
and pleasure my being here to speak to you as an
Englishman. Between England and the United States
of America I trust there will be never anything else
but peace, for we worship God in the same faith and
in the same language, and as a Bishop of the National
Church, I came here to speak to you a few words on
behalf of our Master, Christ.”
His lordship then proceeded to address us on the
words of the patriarch Job: “Behold, God is mighty
and despiseth not anything.”
During our second week at Liverpool, beginning May
11, we had the “Lord” George Sanger Show as opposition.
This is the leading tented aggregation of all Europe,
and corresponds in size with one of our ten-centers.
Personally “Lord” George is a fine old gentleman of
seventy-eight years, but looks twenty years younger.
Diamond and Beatrice, Prof. Roethig, the Royal
Shanghai Chinese Troupe, and your humble servant,
appeared at a smoker for the Liverpool Press Club,
May 15.
At Birmingham, June 7, there was born to Chief
Standing Bear and wife Laura (Sioux), a squaw5 pa-
poose, the only one ever born in Great Britain.6 The
little stranger was duly christened Alexandra-Pearl-
5. Many people, particularly among American Indian communities, now find the use
of this term profoundly offensive. There is no indication that it was considered to be
so in Griffin’s day and its use is maintained here with sincere apologies to readers who
may find the term offensive.
6. An Indian child had been born with the Wild West in Europe before Red Shirt’s wife
gave birth to her child in Paris in 1889.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 29

13. Frederick Bailey Hutchinson.
Olive-Octavia-Birmingham-England-Standing Bear.7
Two hours after giving birth to the child the mother
walked across a large field to our big dining pavilion,
ate a hearty meal and returned to her tepee without
assistance. Two days later Manager Parker had them
on exhibition in the annex, where they proved a po-
tent attraction.
During the Birmingham engagement Alfonso,
our human ostrich, swallowed a £5 note for a skeptic
who had more money than brains. Talk about “be-
ing from Missouri,” you certainly have to show them
over there.
I am sure the reader will pardon me for record-
ing here a very pleasant affair, and especially so to
myself, which occurred at Kidderminster, June 16, at
which time I was presented by the attaches of the
Wild West Side Shows with a handsome gold medal
to commemorate my forty-fourth birthday.
June 17 Colonel Cody’s valet suddenly disappeared
with a lot of jewels, viz.: A diamond studded pin, given
to Colonel Cody by King Edward VII, at Olympia; a
double gold rope chain; a diamond horseshoe pendant,
presented by the Wild West company; buffalo head
cuff links, given by the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia,8
and about £4 ($20.00) in gold coin.
7. Standing Bear’s own account gives the baby’s name as Alexandra Birmingham Cody
Standing Bear. Standing Bear, My People the Sioux, 266.
8. The Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovitch was the fourth son of Tsar Alexander II of
Russia, who famously journeyed to the United States in 1872. Cody acted as a guide
for him in a buffalo hunt on the Kansas plains and gives his account of the event in his
autobiography. The Life of Hon. William F. Cody 295–305.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 31

 The matter was placed in the hands of C. C. Mur-
phy, our special Pinkerton detective, who, after three
days, captured the thief, recovered the jewels, and had
the culprit sentenced to “gaol” (that’s the way they
spell it over there) for six months at hard “labour.”
June 27 Jacob Posey, our efficient master of stock,
was presented with a fine silver mounted cane by the
members of the company, the occasion being “Popular
Posey’s” fortieth birthday.
We celebrated our national holiday, July 4, with a
grand banquet at Aberdare, South Wales. The deco-
rations were especially fine, and Colonel Cody made
one of his characteristic speeches.
At Swansea, Wales, July 14, I was made F. O. S. and
the Sloper award of merit presented to me. The Sloper
Club9 is a popular London organization.
The first fatal accident occurred at Bristol, July
23. Isadore Gonzalez, one of the Mexican riders, was
thrown from his horse and instantly killed. He was
buried at Bristol. It is just as well, perhaps, that the
general public do not realize the danger that forever
attends the participants of the Wild West perform-
ances. Every time they enter the arena, especially in
the bucking horse act, they practically take their lives
in their hands.
At Taunton, August 3, for the second time this
season, we showed day and date with Lord George

9. The Sloper Club was a Victorian gentlemen’s club, located in India Street, in central
London.

32 four years in europe with buffalo bill

Sanger’s Circus. It being Bank Holiday, both shows
did capacity business.
We showed at Hastings, August 20. This is one of
the favorite seaside Summer resorts of Great Britain,
and we were blessed with a beautiful day and cor-
responding business. Our camp was pitched facing
the beach, which was about one hundred yards dis-
tant, and we enjoyed ourselves on the sands between
shows. Our trains were left at St. Leonards, three
miles distant, the drive being along a high sea wall.
At night a fierce storm arose and some of the drivers
were completely engulfed by the high waves dashing
and breaking over the wall.
During the season of 1903 our tour was confined to
England and Wales. We heard the clatter of the clogs
in Lancashire, saw the noble Hereford on his native
heath, ate Banbury cakes from the original cookshop
at Banbury, and Yarmouth bloaters at Yarmouth.
The season closed at Burton-on-Trent October
23. Colonel Cody and the American contingent of
the Wild West sailed October 24 from Liverpool per
S. S. Etruria, Cunard Line, for America, to spend the
Winter months at their various Western homes, while
the paraphernalia, railway cars, wagons, horses, tents,
etc., were taken into Winter quarters at Stoke-on-Trent.
We had a very pleasant and prosperous season, not-
withstanding the fact that the elements were against
us most of the time. Three hundred and thirty-three
performances were given, and it can be recorded with
satisfaction that only one performance was omitted,

four years in europe with buffalo bill 33

at Bradford, evening of October 6,10 and that made
necessary as a matter of public safety on account of
the high gale prevailing at the time.
The tour consisted of one hundred and ninety-
four days, divided as follows: Two stands of three
weeks; one, two weeks; two, one week; two, four days;
three, three days; six, two days, and seventy-eight,
one day.
Only seven parades were given during the entire
season, and those mainly as competitive measures
at points where some of the English circuses were
exhibiting on the same day.
The weather conditions throughout the entire sea-
son were most depressing, and the fact is recorded by
the English press that never in the history of the coun-
try has there been a Summer where climatic conditions
were as bad as those of this year. The coldest day was
at Manchester, April 16, when the thermometer regis-
tered 31 degrees, while the warmest was experienced
at Hereford, July 2, when the mercury mounted to 86
degrees—quite a contrast to weather experienced by
troupers in the States.

10. On the three performances which did take place in Bradford on October 5 and 6, 1903,
see Noble, Around the Coast with Buffalo Bill, 111–12. The afternoon performance of the
second day went ahead in a downpour of rain but the evening performance was canceled
due to concerns for public safety when the wind strength increased.

34 four years in europe with buffalo bill

 ch apt er i i i— w i n t er 1 903–1 904
Wintering in London—Sights and Scenes of the Great City—
A Trip to “Gay Paree,” the Fashion Capital of the World

We left Burton, our closing stand, at eight-thirty a.m.,

October 24, by the Midland Railway, and arrived at St.
Pancreas Station, London, at twelve-thirty, noon.
Having considerable heavy luggage, we experienced
some difficulty in getting it transferred to King’s Cross
Station, Metropolitan underground railway, as baggage
wagons are not waiting for you, like birds of prey, in
the States, such work being done by “outside porters,”
with push carts. While it would have cost at least
$2.00 to have our luggage transferred in New York, it
only cost a half crown (62 cents) in London. However,
every railway porter who handles your luggage expects
a tip—in fact, the tipping system is so much in vogue
that all public servants, to use a “flash” expression,
“have their mitts out.” Waiters in first class hotels and
restaurants receive no wages at all. On the contrary,
they usually pay for the privilege of working by divid-
ing their tips with their chief or head waiter.
The service of the Metropolitan underground railway
is not so good as the Boston subway. Soft coal is used,
which makes it very dirty, and the cars are old fashioned,
but there is no overcrowding, and I believe they can

four years in europe with buffalo bill 35

handle more people in a given length of time than we
can by our system. There are no surface tramways in
London proper, the Metropolitan covering practically the
entire business section with an inner and outer circle.
The “tuppenny tube,” Yerkes’ new system,1 run-
ning from Shepherd’s Bush, West London, through
Central London, to the Bank of England, is up-to-date,
and even ahead of the Boston subway. Electricity is
used for motive power, and the cars are built on the
American plan.
Large double-deck ’buses or stages, drawn by two
horses (they have since been almost entirely super-
seded by motor ’buses), take care of the passenger
traffic on the surface in Central London. The top of
the ’bus is a good vantage ground from which to view
the sights of the city.
I felt more at home in London than in any part of
England.
There are American shoe stores, American quick
lunches, American pharmacies, American barbers,
American dentists, American bars, American this
and American that, with the irrepressible American
himself on every hand “blowing his horn,” and his
money at the same time—a verification of the immortal
Lincoln’s words, “He who bloweth not his own horn
verily it shall not be blown.”

1. On Charles Tyson Yerkes, a controversial Philadelphian financier who came to London

from his Chicago base in 1900 with the backing of considerable American investment
and played a leading role in the development of the London underground system in the
opening years of the twentieth-century, see Franch, Robber Baron.

36 four years in europe with buffalo bill

 14. Paris office and advance staff.

After getting comfortably settled in a flat in the

West End of London I started out to see the city. I
asked a “bobby” which ’bus for Piccadilly Circus?
He said: “You’ll see the name on the ’bus.” Then I
commenced reading the signs on the ’buses as they
hove in sight: “Grape Nuts,” “Fry’s Cocoa,” “Mellin’s
Food,” “Pear’s Soap,” “Carter’s Little Liver Pills,” etc.
Finally, when a ’bus was a block past, I discovered
in the least conspicuous place in small letters, “Pic-
cadilly Circus.” At last I got the right ’bus, but when
we got to Piccadilly Circus there was no circus there.
Here in “Ole Lunnon” they have a fashion of calling
a circle or centre, from which several streets radiate,
a circus, hence Piccadilly Circus, Ludgate Circus, Ox-
ford Circus, etc.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 37

15. George Starr (top) and Jule Keene.
 It will not be surprising to those who know me
to learn that the first place of amusement I visited in
London was Maskelyne & Cook’s Egyptian Hall, of
thirty years’ standing, in Piccadilly. They presented a
refined entertainment of magic and mystery. The fea-
ture of the programme was Herr Valladon, the clever
magician, who afterwards toured this country with
our great and only Kellar, creating a most favorable
impression. The hall itself is small, seats perhaps
five hundred people, odd and curious, suggestive of
mystery—looks as though it might be a vault in one
of the ancient Pyramids. It was in this hall that P. T.
Barnum first exhibited General Tom Thumb to Lon-
don, and where Artemus Ward2 showed his “Grate
Morril Paneramy.”
Other places of interest I visited on this occasion
were the Art Gallery in Trafalgar Square, the Houses
of Parliament, Hotel Cecil, Mansion House, where
the Lord Mayor holds forth; Tower of London, Bank
of England, in Threadneedle Street; St. Paul’s Cathe-
dral, etc., all of which, on account of their antiquity,
reminds one of the grandeur of ages past. I will give
detailed descriptions of most of these places when I
have more leisure to visit them.
One Sunday morning, chaperoned by a Hebrew friend,
I visited the famous “Petticoat Lane,” in Whitechapel,
where the Jews’ Saturday market is held.

2. Artemus Ward was the nom de plume of the American satirical writer and lecturer
Charles Farrar Brown, who traveled to England in 1866 and exhibited the Great Moral
Panorama (parodied here with Griffin’s idiosyncratic spelling).

four years in europe with buffalo bill 39

 There are miles of narrow streets, with squalid
shops and booths on both sides of the curb, with
every conceivable thing on sale, from fine bric-a-brac
to bologna sausage and winkles (a snail-like shell food,
very popular among the poor class). The streets are
packed with all classes of humanity. Here you get some
idea of the immensity of London.
They have a peculiar system of auctioneering. For
example, an article is started at a high figure and the
price lowered until a buyer is found.
Imagine, if you can, the combined population of
Iowa, Minnesota, Dakota and Nebraska confined to
one of our good sized counties, and you have some
idea of the density of the population of London, which,
in reality, is a country in itself—more interesting than
any country I have ever visited.
I left London Saturday, December 12, for a four
weeks’ engagement at Bostock’s Hippodrome,3 Paris,
which was in gala attire for la fete de Noel (Christmas
holidays). The boulevards were lined with booths for
the sale of holiday goods, and the numerous port-
able “show shops” were erected at the intersection
of principal thoroughfares, giving it the appearance
of a great street fair.
Shortly after my arrival in Paris the morning papers

3. Englishman Frank C. Bostock started his career in small circuses around the English
Midlands and went on to travel the world, surviving attacks by lions and tigers, to
exhibit in cities such as Paris, Indianapolis, and New York, ultimately becoming the
foremost animal trainer of his day. Bostock’s volume on the training of wild animals
has remained in print almost continuously since its first publication in 1902, most
recently reissued in 2003.

40 four years in europe with buffalo bill

came out with a “scare head,” “Paris Sans Pain” (Paris
without bread). A big boulangers’ (bakers’) strike was
on, and troops of cavalry paraded the streets to pre-
vent rioting.4
They bake loaves of bread in Paris fully a yard in
length, cut off as much as you wish and sell it by the
kilo (two pounds, our weight, making one kilo).
Sunday is the last day of the week in Paris, and is
a day set out for pleasure and recreation. I have been
informed that there are thirty thousand Americans
residing in Paris. It is a common saying in New York
that all good Americans go to Paris when they die. It
is therefore somewhat astonishing that the Franco-
American population is not greater than it is.
The Hippodrome is located in the Boulevard de
Clichy. Although one of the finest amusement temples
in the world, it was a financial failure until the advent
of Frank C. Bostock, an Anglo-American. The building
is beautifully finished and furnished throughout; the
arena is 125 feet by 250 feet, and the seating capacity
is 9,000. Business was immense from the time of
Mr. Bostock’s opening, thousands being turned away
Sundays and fete days.
Frank C. Bostock is a showman in the best and
broadest sense of the word. I only wish the show world
had more like him. Although born in the business, he
was educated by his parents for the Church. At the age

4. The New York Times of December 23, 1903, makes no suggestion of rioting as the
reason for the rigorous policing but rather the desire to prevent the bakers’ strike from
spreading to other food industries.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 41

16. Petticoat Lane, London (top), and
Bostock’s Hippodrome, Paris.
of twenty-six he found old England, his native country,
too small for his progressive ideas, and therefore, in
1892, he went to America for elbow room. Here he
had room to expand, and after conquering the largest
cities in the Western Hemisphere, it was but proper
that he should “tackle” the effete East, and have the
fashion capital of the world do him homage. Long live
“Bostock, the Animal King!”
After a month’s sojourn in the gay capital of France,
I was glad to get back to London, where I could make
my wants known without making signs. Some of those
people who continually poke fun at and take advantage
of foreigners (and there are plenty of them in every
country) should visit a foreign land themselves and
see how they like it. From what I saw of Paris I did not
like it as well as London; and London—well, London
is not New York.
I had begun to think that I was to be denied the
privilege of seeing a London fog, but I was disillusioned
Saturday morning, January 23, by waking up and find-
ing it still dark at nine a.m. The papers declared it to
be the worst fog of the century. The street lamps were
burning all day, and even then you could not see two
feet in front of you. It actually seemed as though you
could cut it with a knife. My studio was in West Ken-
sington, opposite the new Post Office Savings Bank
Building, which is one of the largest structures in Great
Britain, employing 3,000 government clerks of both
sexes. The electric lights in this big building looked,
through the fog, like stars glimmering through a cloudy

four years in europe with buffalo bill 43

sky. After paralyzing business for the day and causing
many accidents, it disappeared as mysteriously as it
came. No one seems to know where it comes from
or where it goes to.
Talk about “Winter lingering in the lap of Spring.”
During the Summer of 1903 we had Winter all Sum-
mer, and, just to even things up, it seems, during the
Winter of 1903–4 we had Summer all Winter; in fact,
I did not see a snowflake, though there were some
little flurries of snow in the midlands to the North of
us. However, we did have an abundance of rain. The
River Thames was four miles wide in places, and many
farms were flooded. January was warmer than June
of the preceding year. In February grass was green,
butterflies were caught on the wing, and the half tame
birds in the parks were nesting. Even the snakes at the
Zoo had roused themselves from their dormancy and
were shedding their skins. Of such are the vagaries
of British weather, but there—an English gentleman
told me once: “We do not have weather here; we only
get samples from America.”
In February, 1904, I paid a second visit to the Tower
of London.5 This ancient castle was founded by Caesar
during the Roman occupation, and completed by Wil-
liam the Conqueror in 1078. It embraces almost every
style of architecture that has flourished in England

5. Although built within the ancient walls of the Roman city which was to become
London, there is no evidence for Griffin’s fanciful claim that the Tower of London was
started by Caesar. The earliest known construction work on the site was the fortress
built by William the Conqueror in 1078.

44 four years in europe with buffalo bill

since its inception, as the various rulers have added
to and made alterations from time to time. It was
originally built for a fortress, but has been used as the
seat of government, the king’s palace, an arsenal, and
is now converted into a museum. The inner ward is
reached by going over a stone bridge. Passing the Bell
Tower and the King’s House on the left, and the Trai-
tor’s Gate on the right, we then go under the Bloody
Tower, turn to the right and we are at Wakefield Tower,
where we inspect the crown jewels.
The king’s crown, which occupies the most promi-
nent position in the case, was made for the coronation
of Queen Victoria, in 1838, from older crowns and the
royal collection. There are a number of other crowns,
viz: Those of Queen Alexandra, Queen Mary II, Charles
II, Prince of Wales and Mary of Modena, second wife
of James II.6 The latter is said to be the oldest. It is
needless to add that the various crowns contain many
costly and historic jewels. Here also may be seen the
royal plate, many jeweled swords and royal regalia of
various kinds and epochs.
We will now retrace our steps, pass back under the
Bloody Tower. To the left we pass, on a raised platform,

6. Queen Alexandra, the wife of King Edward VII, was the reigning monarch of the time.
Queen Mary II reigned jointly with her husband, William III, from 1689 to 1702. King
Charles II reigned from 1651 to 1685, although he was not officially recognized as king
until the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, after the demise of Oliver Cromwell’s
Commonwealth. Mary of Modena was the Catholic second wife of James II of England
(James VII of Scotland), who was king from 1685 until deposed by Parliament in 1688
amid fears that the birth of his son, also called James, might mark the return of a
Catholic monarchy.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 45

the gun carriage which carried the mortal remains of
Queen Victoria to her last resting place at Frogmore.
We next enter the Great White Tower, which is the
most conspicuous part of the entire structure. We pass
up a small flight of time-worn stone steps, through
the Chapel of St. John, where many of the beheaded
martyrs lie buried, into the Armory, which was for-
merly known as the Council Chamber and Banquet
Hall. It is divided into four rooms—two upstairs and
two down. These four large rooms are completely
filled with arms and armor for both man and horse,
representing all countries and all ages.
Leaving the White Tower, we pass over the spot,
marked by a tablet, where Queen Anne Boleyn, Lady
Jane Grey, the Earl of Essex, and various others, were
executed, the block and axe still being on exhibition
in the Armory.7 Strangely enough, the benches which
surround this sacred spot were occupied by solemn
looking ravens, a sinister reminder of the tragedies
that were here enacted centuries ago. The unhappy
victims were all beheaded with an axe except Queen
Anne Boleyn, who was decapitated with a sword.

7. Queen Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII, was executed in 1536 on
charges of adultery, incest, and treason. Lady Jane Grey was the de facto Queen of Eng-
land for nine days in July 1553 upon the death of her cousin, King Edward VI, who had
named her as his Protestant successor in preference to his Catholic half-sister, Mary
Tudor. When Parliament recognised Mary as queen, Lady Jane Grey was imprisoned in
the Tower and convicted of high treason. She was executed in private the following year
amid fears that the Protestant “Wyatt’s Rebellion” would overthrow Mary and restore
Jane to the throne. Robert Devreux, Second Earl of Essex, was a former favorite of Anne
Boleyn’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, but was executed on her orders in 1601 for his
involvement in a failed attempt to overthrow the monarch.

46 four years in europe with buffalo bill

The executioner of the Earl of Essex required three
strokes of the axe to do his bloody work, and was in
turn mobbed and beaten by the populace on his way
home.
Next we visit the Beauchamp Tower, whose ancient
prison walls are covered with inscriptions, carved in
stone, in many instances by kings and queens. The
history of these inscriptions alone make quite a large
book. One over the fireplace, in Latin, is especially
pathetic: “The more suffering for Christ in this world,
the more glory with Christ in the next.—Arundell,8
June 22, 1587.” Taken all in all, the Tower of London
is one of the most interesting relics of bygone ages
in all Europe.
The Drury Lane pantomime is as much an English
institution as a London fog or the income tax. Every
playhouse of any consequence concentrates the efforts
of the year on this holiday spectacle. The pantomime
season begins on Boxing Night, December 26, and runs
until the beginning of Lent. The various theatres will
present “Puss in Boots,” “Aladdin,” “Cinderella,” “Blue
Beard,” “The House That Jack Built,” and so on through
the entire gamut of fairy tales. I had the pleasure of
attending the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, seeing the
time honored “Humpty Dumpty,” with such notables
in the cast as Dan Leno, the king’s jester; Herbert
Campbell (both of whom have since passed to the great
beyond), Harry Randall, and many others equally as
8. The inscription is attributed to Philip Howard, Earl of Arundell, a staunch Catholic
who was imprisoned in the Tower from 1584 until his death some ten years later.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 47

clever, but not with the reputations.9 Our definition of
a pantomime is “a play without words.” The English
pantomime is therefore paradoxical, being pantomime
that is not pantomime at all, but what we would call
extravaganza or spectacular burlesque. Americans as
a rule do not take to this style of entertainment, but
I enjoyed it very much, although parts of it I found
a little tedious. The comedy was good, being mainly
topical, bristling with local hits, the singing fair, the
ballets fine, and the scenery simply gorgeous.
That reminds me of an incident that happened
in New York recently—pardon the digression: Young
“Bob” Hunting, aged six, had been up to see the Bar-
num & Bailey Show at Madison Square Garden, and
was describing to me what he had seen, with all the
eloquence at his command. He had apparently got to
the end of his string, so I asked him as seriously as I
could: “Now, ‘Bob,’ what was the best thing you saw
up there?” He studied for a moment and then answered
enthusiastically: “Why, the wagons.”
I think the English respect and admire Ameri-
cans more than the people of the States generally
imagine. Of course, we have our critics as well as our

9. Dan Leno, a stand up comedian, clog dancer, and noted pantomime dame, was the
leading star of London music hall in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Herbert Campbell, another leading music hall performer, was famously partnered with
Dan Leno in a comic double act at the Drury Lane Theatre, and became the forerunner
of the many comic partnerships in twentieth-century music hall, vaudeville, and, later,
cinema. Thomas William “Harry” Randall rose through the ranks of British music
hall, beginning as a bottom of the bill comedic singer in the 1880s to become a versatile
headline act touring throughout the British Isles in the early decades of the twentieth
century. As with Dan Leno, Randall was famous as a pantomime dame.

48 four years in europe with buffalo bill

champions. Englishmen who have made failures in
the States are prone to condemn everything Ameri-
can, but, happily, they are few and far between. Some
American artists (all performers are artists in Europe)
who have never been considered “in it” at home, have
achieved great success over here. On the other hand
some famous stars at home have been dismal failures
on this side. It is human nature to “speak well of the
bridge that carries us safely over”—that is, from a
selfish standpoint.
Although clothing and dress goods are somewhat
cheaper in London than America, it cost us almost a
third more to live there than in New York. I will quote
some of the prices which prevailed while we were there:
Flour, 20 cents for five pounds; bread 7½ cents for a
pound loaf; milk, 7 cents per quart; potatoes, 2 cents
per pound; tea, 42 cents per pound; coffee, 42 cents per
pound; soft coal, 33 cents per hundredweight; butter,
30 cents per pound; margarine, 12 cents per pound;
eggs, 20 cents and 30 cents per dozen; rump steak,
24 cents per pound; sirloin steak, 48 cents per pound;
pork chops, 18 cents per pound; chickens, 60 cents and
80 cents each; mutton, 8 cents and 14 cents per pound.
Well, I ate plenty of mutton, which reminds me:

Mary had a little lamb,

It grew up into mutton;
I ate so very much of it,
I feel just like a but’n.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 49

 c ha p t er i v—1 904
Second Year of Buffalo Bill in Great Britain—
A Visit to the Potteries—Bonnie Scotland

I left the English metropolis to begin my second tour

of Great Britain about the middle of April, beginning
the season with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, at Stoke-on-
Trent, Monday, April 25.
Mr. Lew Parker had during the Winter resigned as
manager of privileges, and returned to the States to
take the same department with Ringling Bros.’ World’s
Greatest Shows, and I was selected by the management
to fill his position with the Wild West.
Stoke is the centre of the potteries district, and
the Winter quarters of Barnum & Bailey, Ltd.,1 which
forms a small city in itself.2 There are twelve buildings
of brick and iron, everything being under cover from
railway cars to stakes and toe-pins. Here everything
connected with the Wild West had been gone over,

1. Griffin’s own note: In December, 1907, the Ringling Bros. acquired, by purchase, all
the rights, titles and interests of the Barnum & Bailey, Ltd., which was an English syn-
dicate. This makes the five Ringlings, viz., Al., Otto, John, Charlie and Alf. T., the most
extensive owners of show property in the world-the Ringling Bros.’ World’s Greatest
Shows, Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth and the Adam Forepaugh & Sells
Bros.’ Combined Shows, comprising the three biggest shows in the world, excepting,
of course, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.
2. On the Wild West in Stoke see Gallop, Buffalo Bill’s British Wild West, 222–24.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 51

repairs made where necessary, painted and renewed
during the Winter months, a force of two hundred
men being employed for this purpose.
This was my first visit to Stoke, and I found it very
interesting. It reminded me of Johnstown, Pennsyl-
vania, before the flood—a dingy conglomeration of
villages under separate municipal control, embracing
all together a dense population of working people, a
veritable beehive of industry. Both coal and potter’s
clay is mined there in enormous quantities; in fact,
the place is all undermined, and occasionally there is
a cave-in, houses demolished, and lives lost, just the
same as in the mining districts of America. I went on
a tour through one of the big potteries, and I found
the process of making an ordinary dinner plate both
complex and interesting. China clay, when ready for
the potter’s wheel, is composed of rot marl (clay),
granite, Cornwall stone, flint and feldspar, all ground
fine and reduced to a putty-like substance, which is
molded into shape on a revolving wooden wheel, dried
and then baked in an immense kiln with graduated
heat. The people of the potteries are hard-working,
warm-hearted, bright, kind and intelligent.
After showing a week in the midlands we jumped
over into North Wales, to the beautiful and pictur-
esque Llandudno-by-the-Sea. We put in three weeks in
Wales, from May 2 to 21, then into Cornwall to Land’s
End, showing at Penzance May 30. Thence Northeast,
showing around and in the suburbs of London for

52 four years in europe with buffalo bill

three weeks. July 13 found us at Windsor,3 and I had
the pleasure of visiting historic Windsor Castle, over
which floated the royal standard, denoting that King
Edward was at home.
At York,4 July 4, the whole show was a mass of
red, white and blue bunting, in honor of our national
holiday, the bands played patriotic airs, and the entire
company sat down to a regular Yankee dinner, which
almost made us forget, for the time being, that we
were “strangers in a strange land.”
July 11 to 16 our tents were pitched on the Town
Moor Recreation Grounds, Newcastle-on-Tyne, the
most beautiful park I have ever seen used for show
purposes, abounding in beautiful lakes, fountains,
islets, flowers, shrubbery and grassy lawns. Newcastle
is one of the leading manufacturing cities of Great
Britain, and is truly the metropolis of the North of
England, full of historic interest and replete with
the most modern phases of a manufacturing city.
The great national arsenal and ordnance works, and
numerous shipbuilding plants, among them the larg-
est one in the world, are located between Newcastle
and the sea.
July 26 the big Western Show made its entry into

3. Royal patronage was hugely important to the Wild West in Europe, as exemplified
by the numerous references made by Griffin to visits to the show by royal patrons. On
the appearance at Windsor and other royal visits to the show in England see Gallop,
Buffalo Bill’s British Wild West, 218, 220–22.
4. Noble, Around the Coast with Buffalo Bill, 107–24, discusses in detail the show’s ap-
pearances around Yorkshire and Lincolnshire from September 23 to October 14, 1904,
specifically the York appearance at 121–22.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 53

Bonnie Scotland5 at Hawick, pronounced by the na-
tives, Hike, and we had a two mile “hike” to the show
grounds through a Scotch mist, which in America we
would call a drizzling rain. Here I saw the first thistle
I had seen for more than two years, and it seemed like
seeing some one from home, as we used to have more
than a plenty of them in the old Hawkeye State where
I was raised. There were 20,000 soldiers encamped
at Hawick, including the king’s favorite regiment, the
famous Black Watch.
At Dumbarton, where we stopped for one day, July
30, our tents were pitched in another beautiful park,
with all the trimmings—lakes, swans, etc., while Gi-
ant Ben Lomond, famous as the rendezvous of Rob
Roy, loomed up in the distance.
August 1 to 6 found us at Glasgow, the metropolis of
Scotland, and there we did the largest week’s business
in the history of the Wild West as a traveling organiza-
tion, and only excelled by the abnormal business of
the Chicago World’s Fair season, in 1893.
Sunday morning, August 7, we invaded the Scottish
capital, one of the grandest cities I have ever visited.
Princes Street, with its rows of fine stores on one
side, and a beautiful valley between the mountains,
topped by historic Edinburgh Castle on the other side,
is certainly a picturesque dream.
While Edinburgh is “in it” for beauty, it does not
compare so favorably with Glasgow for business,
5. Making extensive use of local newspaper archives, Tom Cunningham provides a detailed
account of the Scottish engagements on the tour. “Your Fathers the Ghosts,” 169–313.

54 four years in europe with buffalo bill

notwithstanding our success was very pronounced.
Municipally both cities are splendidly administered.
We put in two months in Scotland, and our business
was immense throughout the Scottish tour.
We re-entered England at Carlisle, September 15,
and the remaining five weeks of the season were put
in on the West coast of England, closing our season at
Hanley, North Staffordshire, Friday, October 21. The
next day, October 22, Colonel Cody and the Wild West
contingent sailed for America, while the horses, rolling
stock and paraphernalia went into Winter quarters at
Stoke-on-Trent.
During the season we covered England, Scotland
and Wales, from the East to the West, and Land’s End
on the South to John O’Groat’s on the North. Consider-
ing that very few Englishmen have accomplished this,
it is somewhat of an achievement to boast of. Press
Agent Frank Small,6 who wore his Scottish kilts on
the Scotch tour, took photographs of the Indians at
Land’s End and John O’Groat’s.
To the average foreigner it would perhaps seem
incredible that such a vast concern as Buffalo Bill’s
Wild West, comprising 800 people and 500 horses,
could put in two seasons, or more than twelve months’
continuous showing, in such a small section of terri-
tory. While the tight little island, only a speck on the
map of the world, is not so small as some Americans

6. “Colonel” Frank Small worked with the Wild West as a press agent for a number of
years before moving on to work with other circuses and shows. Cunningham includes one
of the Indian photographs to which Griffin refers. “Your Fathers the Ghosts,” 242–43.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 55

imagine, considering the vast section of the earth’s
surface it has populated and dominated, it is very
large indeed.
The season has been the best in the history of
the show, and the members of the Wild West, from
the highest to the lowest, bid farewell to merry old
England with keen regrets and sincere good wishes
for the prosperity of her hospitable people, the fairest
and squarest country in the world to a stranger.

56 four years in europe with buffalo bill

 ch a pt er v—w i nt er 1 904– 1 905
Again in London—Shop Showing—
The Waverley Carnival—Studying French

At the close of the season of 1904 I returned to my

studio at West Kensington, London. By this time I
was well acquainted in the big city and found it a first
class place to live. During this time I had all kinds of
experiences in show business, from “penny gaffs” to
music halls and society entertainments—my adven-
tures in that line will make a book of itself.
But I must tell you about my second visit to Scot-
land and the great Waverley Carnival. I left gray old
London for Edinburgh, justly styled by tourists as the
modern Athens, a distance of four hundred miles.
The train runs through without change and is mod-
ern, being built as nearly on the American plan as it
is possible to have them over there, with their short
curves and narrow tunnels. They call them corridor
trains. Sleeping and dining cars are run through. They
serve an excellent four course luncheon for the low
price of a half crown (sixty-two cents). Until recently
there were three classes on all British railways, but a
great many of them have abolished the second class,
retaining only the first and third, which are practically
the same, except in price—indeed, you would hardly

four years in europe with buffalo bill 57

know the difference but for the paper labels which are
pasted on the doors of the compartments to denote
the class, and these are changed as occasion requires.
The advent of the American one class trolley cars and
the “tube” railways of London are tending towards a
universal class throughout Great Britain.
I went to Edinburgh under a three weeks’ contract
with Sir Henry E. Moss, for his Twentieth Annual
Waverley Market Carnival,1 which opened Boxing Day,
December 26, and closed Saturday, January 14. The
market is located at the East end of Princes Street,
near the post office, in the central part of the city. It
occupies a floor space of about 200 feet by 600 feet,
with an ornamental terraced roof which is on a level
with Princes Street, and laid out in beautiful shrubs
and flowers. This annual carnival has been for some
time recognized as a national Scottish institution. The
main entrance is down the Waverley steps, between
the market and the North British Hotel, leading to the
Waverley Station, which is the largest in the world.
The general admission to the carnival is six pence (12
cents), with six pence extra for a seat, and three pence
extra for each side show, of which there were fifteen,
ranged on the North side of the hall. On the South
side was a huge stage for vaudeville and circus acts,
with seats for about 2,000 persons. Amer’s Military
Band of forty musicians furnished excellent music.

1. Griffin is referring to the Twentieth Annual Waverley Market Carnival (1903–1904),

the program for which is in the Theatre Programmes Collection of the National Library
of Scotland (mus 250).

58 four years in europe with buffalo bill

There were gorgeous roundabouts, shooting saloons,
photographic galleries, ball games, and stalls of every
conceivable kind that go to make a carnival interesting.
The doors were open from eleven a.m. until eleven
p.m.; the stage performance running from two to five
and seven to ten-thirty p.m., with frequent intermis-
sions for the benefit of the side shows.
Sir H. E. Moss, the manager of the carnival, is the B.
F. Keith2 of Great Britain. He is the managing director of
the Moss Empires, Ltd., controlling, in addition to the
carnival, twenty-seven high class music halls, scattered
throughout the kingdom, of which the famous Lon-
don Hippodrome is the head. His father, James Moss,
belonged to an old Lancashire family, and young Moss
was, practically speaking, brought up in the business,
belonging to that class which we in America would call
cross-road showmen. When his father toured with a
concert party, young Moss was the accompanist, and
sang a humorous song at the piano. Subsequently the
elder Mr. Moss became the proprietor of the Horne
Music Hall, at Greenock, where he installed his son as
manager. At the age of twenty-three he acquired his first
music hall, the Gaiety, in Edinburgh. This house had
never enjoyed a very savory reputation, and Mr. Moss
decided on a revolution. He made one plucky attempt
after another to attract respectable people with a puri-
fied entertainment, but without success. The climax of

2. Benjamin Franklin Keith was a key figure in the development of the American circus
industry who later moved into vaudeville as a theater owner before becoming one of
the pioneers of the cinema.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 59

his misfortunes came when he organized a great New
Year’s entertainment in 1878. He spent large sums in
advertising, but the result was dire disappointment.
Success, however, eventually came, and he has never
looked back since.
His son, James, who was married to a daughter of
Sir Robert Cranston, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh,3
died in 1904, at the beginning of a most promising
career. This was a terrible blow to Mr. Moss—indeed,
he has never seemed quite the same since. He has a
younger son, Charles, who has assisted materially in
the success of the carnival, and whom we will probably
soon see regularly installed in the managerial harness.
Hogmanay (New Year’s Eve) and New Year’s Day
are the premiere festival days of the year in Scotland.
Several years ago the Scotch borrowed the Christmas
habit from the English, and even now it seems only
a preliminary celebration leading up to the climax of
gayety, which is reached on New Year’s Day. On the
other hand, Englanders are rapidly adopting the Scotch
Hogmanay—surely “fair exchange is no robbery.” All
day Saturday, the last day of the old year, the streets
were thronged with people, the weather being brae
(cold),4 and I then thought I had never seen so many
3. Sir Robert Cranston served as Lord Provost of Edinburgh, the Scottish equivalent of
mayor, from 1903 to 1906.
4. Griffin has almost certainly misunderstood something that he heard here. There is no
word “brae” in Scots, Scottish English, or Gaelic with the meaning “cold.” A more likely
term would be the Scots “braw,” generally meaning “good” but sometimes described
as deriving from a common root with the English “brave.” More likely it is from the
Gaelic breá, which also means “good.” Ironically, poor weather is often referred to in
Scotland as being “braw.” Brae is a Scots term for hill or slope.

60 four years in europe with buffalo bill

drunken persons in my life, but as evening advanced it
grew worse, and the debauch continued all night. My
lodgings were in Greenside Place, which seemed to be
about the centre of the disturbance. It was impossible
to sleep on account of the continuous singing and
playing of musical instruments, of which the accor-
dion seemed to predominate. “Bill Bailey” and “Blue
Bell” are indelibly engraved on my musical memory,
as they were the favorite airs. The “pubs” closed at ten
o’clock, so they laid in a supply of bottles, and as the
hour of midnight drew near they repaired to the Old
Tron Kirk, in High Street. As the clock tolled the hour
of the new year, they drank the contents and broke
the bottle on the walls or on heads that happened to
be in the way. The next day, Sunday, was a busy day
for the ambulances and hospitals.
As the celebration was continued Sunday and
Monday night, sleep was quite out of the question.
Monday the crowds were so dense in Princes Street
and Waterloo Place that it was nearly impossible to
get through, and although the price of admission to
the carnival was doubled, the place was packed from
ten a.m. until eleven p.m. Tuesday there was another
crush, mostly trippers from the surrounding towns.
Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, December 31, January
2 and 3, were declared legal holidays, and all busi-
ness, except that of catering to the holiday crowds,
was suspended. But with all the drunkenness, the
number of fights and similar infractions of the law
were comparatively few. On the whole, I am inclined

four years in europe with buffalo bill 61

to the belief that the common people in England have
a more wholesome regard for law and order than in the
States. I am sorry to say, however, that what amounts
almost to a national pastime over there, is wife beat-
ing, and the first American that invents a patent[ed]
safety lamp that can be thrown across the room with-
out exploding, will, in my humble estimation, reap
a rich harvest.
The carnival closed Saturday, January 14. On the
fifteenth (being Sunday) I took a much needed rest, but
Monday, January 16, I went sight-seeing, and I certainly
saw the sights of Edinburgh to my heart’s content, so
that when night came I felt tired to death, and my head
was full of old castles, ruined palaces, monuments
and other bric-a-brac too numerous to mention. The
first place of interest I visited was Sir Walter Scott’s
monument, located in the beautiful Princes Street
Gardens. It is two hundred feet in height and has a
heroic marble statue of the great poet underneath its
Gothic arches. It cost about £16,000 ($80,000), and is
adorned with statues of prominent characters in Scott’s
works, and with likenesses of the famous Scottish
poet. It was designed by George Meikle Kemp,5 son
of a shepherd on the Pentland Hill, who, when a boy
of ten, had his enthusiasm stirred by a visit to Roslin
Castle and Chapel, and subsequently devoted many
years of his life to the study of Gothic architecture.

5. George Meikle Kemp was a self-taught architect who won a public competition to design
the Scott Monument in 1838. Kemp met his death as described by Griffin on the foggy
night of March 6, 1844, when he fell into the canal on his way home from the site.

62 four years in europe with buffalo bill

Unfortunately the young architect did not survive to
see the work far advanced, being one night accidentally
drowned in the Union Canal.
A little further West on Princes Street is the Na-
tional Gallery. A visit here among such beautiful pic-
tures and artistic statues inspires even pauvre moi6 with
a desire to become an artist. The work that impressed
me most was an unfinished picture, John Knox dis-
pensing the sacrament at Calderhouse; on the farther
side of a long table, which crosses the picture horizon-
tally, stands in the centre the great reformer handing
a communion cup to a lady seated at the left Beyond
her are others seated at the table, and behind them a
bearded man passes with a basket of bread while on
the right is a knight with bread in his hand, two men
in armor reading from the same book, and others.
In the foreground to right and left are more figures,
including several children. The head of the reformer
and the groups to the right are almost completed, as
are two isolated heads on that side and three to the
left, but otherwise the figures are only sketched in
pencil. There is a pathetic side to this picture which
illustrates the uncertainty of human life. The artist,
Sir David Wilkie,7 commenced the picture in 1839. In

6. Griffin’s attempt at French for “poor me” which, strictly speaking, should be “pauvre
de moi.”
7. Sir David Wilkie was one of the leading Scots artists of his day. In 1809 Wilkie was
elected as associate of the Royal Academy of Edinburgh; in 1823 he became Royal Limner
of Scotland as a result of which he was commissioned to paint a portrait of King George
IV to commemorate George’s visit to Edinburgh the previous year. The painting described
by Griffin, which can still be seen in the National Gallery of Scotland, is one of two

four years in europe with buffalo bill 63

1840 he went on a journey to Constantinople, Egypt
and the Holy Land, from which he never returned,
having died on the homeward voyage. He was buried
at sea.
My next stop was at historic, battle scarred Edin-
burgh Castle, one of the most conspicuous and pic-
turesque citadels in all Europe. Built on a solid granite
rock of volcanic origin, it has stood the rack of ages. It
covers eleven acres at the bottom, seven acres at the
top, and is 443 feet above sea level. The castle rock was
probably a favorite post of the ancient Caledonians.
The earliest recorded fact, however, is the capture
of the fortress in 626, by Edwin, the Saxon king of
Northumbria. The walls vary from ten to seventeen
feet in thickness, and it strikes one as being well nigh
impregnable, but the modern methods of sapping and
mining, used so successfully by the Japanese at Port
Arthur, would probably reduce it in a short while.
In describing the principal interesting points of the
castle, we will commence at the top, which is reached
by a steep, winding roadway. Passing through a large
court, we enter the old Parliament Hall, now converted
into an armory 80 feet by 30 feet and 27 feet in height.
Next we inspect Queen Mary’s room, where James
VI of Scotland and I of England, was born, June 19,
1566. On the Northern parapet we find “Mons Meg,”

works in progress featuring the Scots Presbyterian reformer John Knox (unfinished at
the time of the artist’s death). The other is John Knox before the Lords of the Congregation,
which is in the Tate Gallery in London.

64 four years in europe with buffalo bill

a relic of the fifteenth century, said to be the largest
and oldest piece of ordnance in all Europe. It measures
13 feet in length, 7 feet in circumference, has a calibre
of 20 inches, and weighs upwards of five tons. Near
the breech is a considerable rent, which occurred in
1662, when firing a salute in honor of the Duke of York,
afterwards James VII.8 Piled up alongside of it are a
number of massive stone balls that would barely go
into an ordinary sized washtub, said to be some of
the identical ones fired from “Meg,” and afterwards
found on Wardie Moor, three miles distant.
The following is an extract from the chamberlain’s
roll, in the quaint language of the time: “To certain
pioneers for their labour in the mounting of Mons out
of her lair to be shot, and for the finding and carrying
of her bullets after she was shot, from Wardie Muir, to
the Castle, etc., 10 pence” (20 cents); “to the minstrels
who played before Mons down the street for 14 pence
and for 8 ells of cloth to cover Mons, nine and a quarter
pence.” A few feet to the rear of Mons we enter St.
Margaret’s Chapel,9 the oldest and smallest church
in Scotland, sixteen and a half feet by ten and a half
feet, and at least eight hundred years old. The crown
room, containing the royal regalia; the courtroom and
the prison, with its horribly significant chains and

8. James VII of Scotland and II of England, who reigned from 1685 to 1688, held the title
Duke of York at the time of the visit to which Griffin refers.
9. The chapel is named for Saint Margaret, who became Queen of Scotland upon her
marriage to King Malcolm III in 1066. Margaret was canonized by Pope Innocent IV
in 1250.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 65

manacles, completed my tour of the castle. The bar-
racks, accommodating about eight hundred soldiers,
being modern, I did not visit. From the castle a seven
minutes’ walk brought me to the National Museum
in Chamberlain’s Street, where they have everything
in natural history from a tiny bug to the skeleton of a
whale seventy-eight feet long. My time was only too
limited here. So far as my observation goes, however,
it is hardly up to our own Metropolitan Museum in
New York. Next I walked down to South Bridge Street,
passed the old Iron Kirk, across North Bridge, passed
the post office, county prison and Calton Hill Cem-
etery, which contains Lincoln’s monument, erected
by Scotch-Americans in 1893. A little farther East we
inspect the Burns monument, while right opposite,
high up on Calton Hill, the Royal Conservatory looks
down upon us. Holyrood Palace was the next point
of interest; I visited the picture gallery, containing
upwards of a hundred portraits of Scottish kings; Lord
Darnley’s rooms,10 from which a private stairway leads
to Queen Mary’s apartments,11 which have undergone
very little change, save by the ravages of time, since

10. Henry Stuart, First Earl of Albany, was the Lord Darnley who became the second
husband of his widowed cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, in 1565. Darnley’s murder two
years later was a key event in Mary’s downfall.
11. Mary Stuart, the ill-fated Mary Queen of Scots, reigned from 1542 to 1567, until
she was forced to abdicate as a result of an armed uprising in the wake of her nearly
immediate marriage to James Hepburn, the fourth Earl of Boswell, after the death of
her second husband, Lord Darnley. In 1568 she went into exile in England, where she
was effectively held prisoner on the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I, and ultimately
executed in 1587 amid fears of a Catholic conspiracy to overthrow the English monarchy
and place Mary on the throne.

66 four years in europe with buffalo bill

they were occupied by that unhappy queen. The bed
of Charles I is to be found in the paneled audience
chamber, as is also a grate, said to be the first used
in Scotland. Still more interesting is Queen Mary’s
bedroom, with its ancient bed and moldering finery.
The Chapel Royal, in ruins, where Queen Mary and
Lord Darnley were wedded, and the royal vault, con-
taining the remains of a long line of Scottish kings
and queens, restored to their last resting place by the
good Queen Victoria. Edinburgh has a population of
300,000, and is a progressive, go-ahead city.
On my return to London I was informed that the
Wild West would tour France the coming season, open-
ing at Paris in March. I went at once to the Berlitz
School of Languages in Chancery Lane, to see about
taking some French lessons. I went into the office
and stated my wants in as few words as possible. The
old professor looked over his spectacles at me and
said: “What part of America do you come from?” I
said: “How do you know I come from America?” He
replied: “That is sticking out all over you, but you are
a puzzle to me at that. Usually I can tell what section
of America you come from—East, West, North or
South—but in your case I am at sea.” Then I told him
my business, that I was a traveler, and I was a mystery
to him no longer.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 67

 c h a pt er v i— 1 905
Grand Opening at Paris—A Zigzag Tour of France—
Disease Among the Horses—Tragedie des Chevaux

I left London for Paris, March 15, to rejoin Buffalo

Bill’s Wild West for a tour of continental Europe. As
our season did not commence until April 2, we had
about two weeks for sightseeing.
Our grounds were beautifully laid out in the
Champs de Mars (Military Field), midway between
the Galerie des Machines and La Tour Eiffel. This
historic ground is the site upon which the great Na-
poleon marshaled his forces, and it is also the scene
of all the great Paris expositions.
Our tented city was artistically arranged in na-
tional groups, on grassy lawns, with graveled walks,
the tents being of the regulation kind used in army
field life. The main pavilion was the largest ever used
for a similar exhibition, with a seating capacity of
17,000, which was inadequate to accommodate the
immense crowds at least twice during every week of
our stay in Paris.
Sunday night, June 4, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West con-
cluded what may be justly termed the most pleasantly
prosperous engagement in the history of the white
tents.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 69

17. Two views of The Wild West in Paris, 1905.
 Colonel Cody, a Hawkeye by birth, is personally
lionized by the Parisians, and his unique exhibition, so
full of historical and dramatic interest, made a wonder-
ful impression upon the susceptible French public.
The twenty lessons I took in French, at the Berlitz
School of Languages, London, only gave me a faint idea
of what the language was like, but as I was required
to make my lectures and announcements in French, I
had my speeches translated, and was coached in their
delivery by Monsieur Corthésy, éditeur, le Journal de
Londres. Well, I got along pretty fair, considering that
I did not know the meaning of half the words I was
saying. Anyway it amused them, so I was satisfied. I
honestly believe that more people came in the side
show in Paris to hear and laugh at my “rotten” French
than anything else, and when I found that a certain
word or expression excited their risibilities, I never
changed it. I can look back now and see where some
of my own literal translations were very funny.
Colonel Cody’s exhibition is unique in many ways,
and might justly be termed a polyglot school, no less
than twelve distinct languages being spoken in the
camp, viz.: Japanese, Russian, French, Arabic, Greek,
Hungarian, German, Italian, Spanish, Holland, Flem-
ish, Chinese, Sioux and English. Being in such close
contact every day, we were bound to get some idea
of each other’s tongue, and all acquire a fair idea of
English. Colonel Cody is, therefore, entitled to con-
siderable credit for disseminating English, and thus
preserving the entente cordiale between nations.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 71

 18. Entrance to the Wild West, Champs de Mars, Paris, 1905.

The first place of public interest that we visited in

Paris was the Jardin des Plantes (botanical and zoologi-
cal garden) and le Musée d’Histoire Naturelle. The
zoological collection would suffer in comparison with
several in America I might mention, but the Natural
History Museum is very complete, and is, to my no-
tion, the most artistically arranged of any museum I
have visited.
Le Palais du Trocadéro, which was in sight of our
grounds and facing the Champs de Mars, is filled with
art treasures dating from the early ages up to the
present time. L’Hotel des Invalides contains relics of
past wars and illustrates the glories of le militaire de
France.
Adjoining the great War Museum is a magnificent
chapel, surmounted by a great gilded dome, under

72 four years in europe with buffalo bill

which rests the mortal remains of the great Napoleon,
while in a circle around his tomb lie the ashes of his
relatives and generals.
From le grand roue (the big wheel) in the Avenue
de Suffren, which overlooked our camp, you could get
an excellent bird’s-eye view of Paris. Connected with
the big wheel were a music hall, café and ballroom. On
one of my visits there I enjoyed the rare privilege of
seeing a real French duel between two rival editors.
Now, do not think that I am a bloodthirsty wretch
who delights to revel in gory bull fights, etc. On the
contrary, this was funny. The weapons were swords,
they were desperately in earnest, each one must have
expected to be killed, as each one had brought a phy-
sician. After a few feints one was scratched on the
back of the hand, drawing a few drops of blood, and
thus outraged honor was satisfied. Of course we all
went up in la Tour Eiffel, which was virtually in our
front yard. It is curious what different sensations are
experienced by those who make the ascension. Some
become exhilarated, while it makes others actually ill.
Some seem possessed of a hypnotic desire to jump
off into space, while others are indifferent to any but
ordinary feelings. The tower is 991 feet high, and the
base covers seven acres. The more you see and study
it the more beautiful it becomes. It is so gracefully
symmetrical in its proportions that it seems to be
architecturally perfect.
There are two classes of people in Paris; one class
is there for the sole purpose of making money, and

four years in europe with buffalo bill 73

the other class to spend it. They are both working
overtime, and as a result you pay top prices for eve-
rything. They do not seem to have regular prices for
their goods, but go on the principle that “a sucker is
good for all that he will stand for.”
The French people are overflowing with experi-
mental energy, and I have no doubt but that some
day they will solve the aeronautic problem. One day
I witnessed a balloon race in which there were eight
contestants; in fact, there was scarcely a day passed
but that there was one or more balloons hovering over
the Wild West Show grounds.
What seems to be the principal fault of the French
people—or rather the Parisian—is their extreme excit-
ability and social immorality. Paris, being a cosmopoli-
tan city, a city almost entirely given up to pleasure, is
corrupted by foreign contact, inasmuch as they cater to
the vicious tastes of the idle rich of all nations, there-
fore it is a wonder that it is not worse than it is.
One day a few hundred students in the Boulevard
St. Germain, who had a grievance against one of the
maîtres,1 were making a public demonstration, and
were dispersed by the gendarmes,2 who handled some
of the rioters rather severely. The next day they made
their appearance again, in increased numbers, and
marched to the office of the prefect of police, who
received them politely—a Frenchman is polite, above
all things—made a diplomatic speech denouncing the
1. French for “masters.”
2. French for “police.”

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former action of his subordinates, and in a few min-
utes they were marching down street, cheering for the
police just like a lot of capricious children.
The boulevards are broad, well paved and kept
remarkably clean. The pavements in front of the cafés
are almost blocked with chairs and little round tables,
at which men and women sit day and night, sipping
their wine or pernod (absinthe). There are a lot of low
grade men there who are supported by hardworking
women. One day a woman was pointed out to me in
the street pulling a baker’s wagon almost as large as a
house, while her husband was seated at one of these
tables, drinking wine with a gaily dressed woman of
the street.
Most of these tradesmen’s carts have one or more
dogs harnessed to the axle, who really and quite cheer-
fully, it seems, do all the work, while the man or woman
does the guiding.
They drink wine at their meals instead of tea or
coffee, and although immense quantities of it are con-
sumed, they seldom drink between meals, and there
is much less drunkenness there than in Great Britain
or America.
The French women do not possess the natural
beauty and splendid physique of the English and
American women, but they have a knack of arranging
costumes and toilets to make themselves very attrac-
tive for the minimum d’argent,3 and some very beautiful
and unique toilets are to be seen there.
3. French for the “minimum money.”

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 Although Paris was both beautiful and interesting,
when we gave our farewell performance on the Champs
de Mars, night of June 4, and went to bed in our own
sleeping cars, to wake up many miles away, we were
indeed a happy lot. Why? Because nine weeks is too
prolonged a stay in any one place for those accustomed
to one-day stand circus life in America.
Our first stop out of Paris was at Chartres, a ville of
5,000 inhabitants, fifty-five miles Southwest of Paris.
The change was indeed refreshing. Instead of the Eiffel
Tower, the big wheel, the huge Galerie des Machines
and the red sand of the Champs de Mars, we were
greeted with growing grass, green trees and running
streams. There we had an opportunity of seeing the
difference between the cosmopolitan Parisian and the
true French provincial, the latter reminding us very
much of the happy country circus crowds at home. We
stopped one day each at Alençon, Fleurs, St. Lô and
Cherbourg, in Normandy. Our stay in the latter city
should have been longer, as it is one of the principal
seaports of France, and in spite of the cold, drizzling
rain which prevailed all day, thousands of people were
turned away at both performances.
Rouen, where we exhibited June 15 and 16, on the
Champs de Mars, is an interesting old world city of
116,000 inhabitants. I took some snapshots here of
the great cathedral, 1,100 years old, and the swing-
ing bridge across the River Seine, which is a great
architectural curiosity. Two iron pillars about one
hundred feet high support a span across the river; on

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this is a trolley carrying a sort of car from side to side
within a few feet of the water. It is the conception of
an English mind, and is, in my mind, only a freak of
engineering skill.
The giant clock which is carved in stone over an
arch in the Rue du Gros Horloge is another mechani-
cal oddity built in the eighteenth century.
Our next stop was at Le Havre for two days. This is
an important seaport on the English Channel. We were
billed there for four performances, but on account of
a long haul and a soft lot the afternoon performance
on the first day and the evening performance of the
last day were abandoned.
At Arras, June 23, we saw a mammoth Wild West
poster in the Cathedral entrance—rather a unique
sight to us Westerners.
We stopped one day each at Douai, Calais and
Boulogne, all seaports on the English Channel.4 At
Boulogne the fisher folk in their quaint costumes re-
minded us of Bonnie Scotland. We occupied the entire
market place for our tents, which enclosed a large
cathedral. We had barely got our canvas enclosure
erected when a funeral applied for admission, but they
finally decided to drive on to another church.
June 28 found us at Armentiėres, in the extreme
North of France, on the Belgian border. Tobacco in
France is a government monopoly, the prices are high
for an inferior quality, and many of the boys took

4. Griffin is mistaken here. Calais and Boulogne are seaports but Douai is well inland.

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advantage of the cheap and superior quality over the
border. The solitary oarsman operating the only ferry
across the narrow river did a thriving business all day.
He capsized one boatload, to the great amusement of
those on shore.
July 1 to 4, inclusive, we spent at Lille, a prosper-
ous silk manufacturing city of 210,000 inhabitants.
July 4 we celebrated our national holiday. The entire
encampment was gorgeously decorated in tri-colored
bunting, a grand banquet was served to the members
of the company, the bands played patriotic airs, and
Colonel Cody (Buffalo Bill) made one of his character-
istic speeches, in which he eulogized the French nation
for the important part they had played in American
history. James A. Bailey, “the little Napoleon of the
show business,” and his able lieutenant, George O.
Starr,5 were visitors. This was the last time we saw
Mr. Bailey alive.
July 11 to 13 we exhibited at Reims, in the centre of
the great champagne district. The city is undermined
with huge wine vaults, excavated out of the solid chalk.
Many of those in the company who had never tasted
champagne before took advantage of its cheapness,
and succeeded in getting on a seven dollar “jag” for
thirty cents.
At Charleville, July 14, we had an opportunity of
seeing how the French people celebrate their national
independence day. This is equivalent to our Fourth

5. George Starr was Bailey’s business partner from 1899 to the time of his death.

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of July, and commemorates the fall of the Bastille.
Charleville-Mezzier was sacked and burned by the
Germans in 1871, and the village still shows signs of
that memorable struggle.
The next day, July 15, we exhibited on the Champs
de Mars, Sedan, where Napoleon III met defeat in
1870.6
During the month of July we traveled along the
Belgian, German and Swiss frontiers, and as these
towns were all well fortified, our audiences, in many
instances, were more than half military, who were
accorded a reduced rate, that being a national cus-
tom. They are a well behaved lot of fellows, being
composed of all classes, the conscript system being
in vogue—doctors, lawyers, tradesmen, mechanics,
et al., all being liable to three years’ service, for which
they receive pay at the rate of un sou (1 cent) per day.
The rations are barely enough to sustain life, and if
the poor soldier has no money or friends, he has a
sorry time of it indeed.
At Lunéville, July 21, our camp was pitched in a
basin, surrounded by hills or mountains, which formed
a great natural amphitheatre, from which those who
had neither the price nor the inclination to pay, could,
and did, view the performance gratis. “Grand stand

6. The army of Napoleon III, Charles-Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, the nephew of the

Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (who was both the first president of the French Republic
and the last monarch of France), was defeated at Sedan on September 1, 1870, by the
Prussian Army in one of the decisive actions of the Franco-Prussian War. Napoleon III
was taken prisoner by the Prussians the following day.

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 19. The Wild West in Rouen, France, 1905.

hill” was lined with French soldiers, whose red caps

and trousers, blue coats and white over-gaiters, with
the green grass for a background, formed a unique
picture, full of color.
August 4 we began a ten days’ stay at Lyons,
the third city of France, with a population of nearly
500,000. Lyons is celebrated for the manufacture of
silks.
Sunday, August 20, was a gala day at Vichy, the
Saratoga of France, where the Shah of Persia7 and suite,
numbering about fifty persons, honored us with a visit.

7. Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar was the fifth Shah of Persia from the Qajar Dynasty be-
tween 1853 and 1907. Cody’s own account of his encounter with the Shah was published
in the Philadelphia Press Sunday Magazine, May 12, 1907, p. 8.

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There were fully 17,000 people present, and when Colo-
nel Cody shook hands with His Highness, the applause
was tremendous. The Comtesse de Paris8 and party
occupied a private box on the same occasion. If France
were still a monarchy she would probably be the reign-
ing queen, as she is next in line of succession.
En route from Riom to Montluçon, August 22, one
of our huge stock cars was derailed by a misplaced
switch. The railway force labored for about two hours
to replace it, without success. Finally our crew of “ra-
zor-backs” came to the rescue, and had the car on the
track in fifteen minutes.
As a whole, the railway service in France is good,
but the wages are very low. My opinion is that those
who are most in favor of government ownership of
railroads in America would be the first to complain
were the present order of things reversed.
We had some terrific storms during the season, but
the most severe of all struck us at Orléans, August 25.
It completely demolished the big tent, and scores of
people were more or less injured, but none fatally.
On the morning of August 24, by special invitation,
we visited the Exposition, which had been running

8. Marie-Isabelle d’Orléans, Comtesse de Paris, was the widow of Louis-Philippe d’Orléans,

a claimant to the French throne under the putative title of Philippe VII of the House of
Orléans. Although an extremely distinguished royal personage of the sort whose patron-
age was courted by Cody—she was the granddaughter of two kings, Louis-Philippe I of
France and Ferdinand VII of Spain—Griffin is wrong to assert that Marie-Isabelle would
have been the reigning queen of France if the country were still a monarchy. Her son,
Philippe d’Orléans, was the claimant to the French throne from that particular royal
house at the time, under the putative title of Philippe VIII, and the Comtesse would
therefore have been Queen Mother.

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here since May. Among its most interesting features
were le Village Noir (the Black City), composed of
ninety Senegals, from the French colonies in Africa.
On every hand we are reminded by beautiful paint-
ings, sculpture and marked historical spots that this
was the birthplace of Joan of Arc.
Wednesday, August 30, we viewed the partial
eclipse of the sun at Thouars. This unusual spectacle
was followed by a terrific electric storm, lasting about
twenty minutes. Lightning struck one of the Wild West
horse tents and instantly killed four horses, among
them the two valuable white Arabians which Colonel
Cody drove to his private carriage. Several of the at-
taches of the stable department suffered from shock,
but none were seriously injured.
At Quimper, September 11, we encountered an
English colony with a lot of excursionists from the
Isle of Jersey. It seemed strange indeed to have people
ask us questions in English, and after wrestling with
a foreign language so long, we were almost at a loss
to form sentences in our native tongue.
Morning of September 12 we were treated to a
beautiful view of the harbor of Brest, with the formi-
dable French fleet at anchor. Here is where the English
and French navies had their fraternal maneuvers to
seal the entente cordiale,9 which has been of immense

9. The French term “entente cordiale,” meaning “cordial understanding,” was used
extensively in the publicity for the Wild West’s 1905 tour of France and was used to
emphasize the historically friendly relations between the United States and France,
which dated back to the time of the American Revolution.

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value to France in a commercial way. The English for-
got their old resolve to stay at home and spend their
holiday money and flocked to the French resorts by
the thousands. My friend, Sydney Wire, writing me
from Paris at the time, said: “Never in its history has
the French capital been so engulfed with English-
speaking people.”
At Saint-Malo, September 14, we had another big
crowd of English visitors from the Channel Islands.
September 15 found us at Rennes, where the final
chapter in the Dreyfus10 case was enacted. The Palais
de Justice, where he received his final pardon, was
close to the show ground and was visited by many of
the show people.
Bordeaux, with a population of 256,638, was the
next large city we visited, making a ten days’ stay
there on the beautiful Place des Quinconces, situated
in the heart of the city. Well, it would be equivalent
to Union Square in New York City, surrounded by
beautiful statues, heroic monuments, sparkling foun-
tains and everything that goes to make a public park
attractive. At the back or rear entrance was the river
and wharf, with its varied shipping, the huge barges

10. The Dreyfus case was a hugely controversial political scandal in turn-of-the-century
France. Jewish captain Alfred Dreyfus was wrongly convicted of being a German spy and
evidence of his innocence was suppressed by high-ranking military officials in what was
later to be seen as an anti-Semitic coverup. After the intervention of Emile Zola in an
open letter to the newspaper L’Aurore (January 23, 1898), Dreyfus was granted a retrial
and again convicted, although this time sentenced to ten years hard labor rather than
life imprisonment. He received the final pardon to which Griffin refers in April 1906. For
detailed accounts of the case see in particular Bredin (1986) and Whyte (2008).

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20. Group of Senegalese, and a mother and son, Orléans, 1905.
of wine casks being mainly in evidence. Broad stone
steps lead up to the grounds between two ancient stone
towers representing commerce. Standing almost in the
side show door was a magnificent gray stone soldiers’
monument, about two hundred feet high, one of the
finest in all France, “A la mémoire des Girondins.”11 At
the base of this monument, on either side, are beau-
tiful bronze marine groups of statuary representing
peace and progress. One block to the East of us was
the beautiful Theatre Municipal, and to the South, a
short block, was a fine monument in memory of and
surmounted by a heroic statue of “Gambetta,12Père du
Pays” (Father of the Country). October 1, our last day
at Bordeaux, was celebrated by many of us going aux
Arènes Espagnoles13 to see a Spanish bull fight. All
were unanimous in declaring it to be the most beastly
and blood-thirsty exhibition they had ever seen. There
is a law against bull fighting in France, and as the
bull ring is located on city property the aldermen are
solemnly brought to justice every Monday morning
(bull fights always take place on Sunday) and fined
16 francs ($3.20).

11. The Girondins were a republican faction at the time of the French Revolution, a
group that got its name from the fact that a significant proportion of its representa-
tives in the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention came from the region
of the Gironde.
12. Léon Gambetta, the son of an Italian immigrant grocer, was a French radical politi-
cian who rose from his humble origins through the ranks of the law to ultimately serve
as prime minister from 1881 to 1882. The statue referred to by Griffin was unveiled by
the president of France in April 1905 and can still be seen in the Place Gambetta in
Bordeaux.
13. French for “to the Spanish arenas.”

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 Four days after our departure from Bordeaux, the
annual fëte or fair, one of the largest in France, held in
honor of the grape harvest, was given on the grounds
we occupied. La Société des Forains (the society of
open air showmen) made a desperate fight to keep the
Wild West out of Bordeaux, but without avail. They
boycotted and scandalized us in every conceivable
way, but despite that fact, and that it rained torrents
eight of the ten days we were there, we did a good
paying business.
October 3 we showed at Bayonne, only two miles
from Biarritz, the famous coast resort, and twenty-
five miles from the Spanish main. The little blue,
toboggan-like caps told us plainly that our audience
was composed mainly of Spaniards. It is a strongly
fortified place, in remembrance of the many bloody
wars between France and Spain in the misty past.
There are miles and miles of stone masonry, and the
city is completely surrounded by a moat which could
be flooded with water in case of attack.
At Pau, October 4, we got our first glimpse of the
Lower Pyrenees. It is a great Winter resort of English
and American tourists. En route from Pau to Tarbes,
thirty-seven miles, we passed Lourdes, famous for
cures of the faithful. There we had a fine view of the
Upper Pyrenees, including le pic du Midi, or South
peak (10,000 feet), which was covered with this year’s
snow, and as there was a strong wind from that di-
rection, we nearly perished with the cold. Although
the show ground was five kilometres from the city,

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and a drizzling rain prevailed, we had two immense
audiences.
October 6, at Mont de Marsan, our tents were
pitched on the racetrack, surrounded by a turpentine
grove, five miles from town, and only cabs and carry-
alls to convey the crowds to and from the show—well,
many of us had to ride “Shank’s ponies.”
October 9 we stopped at Bergerac, where Monsieur
Rostand dug up his quaint character of Cyrano.14 The
ancient chateau of the great fighter is one of the inter-
esting relics that link the past with the present.
At Béziers, October 21, 22, we occupied the mili-
tary field, adjoining which was the bull ring, one of
the largest and finest we had seen, built of red brick
in circular form, with a seating capacity for 12,000
people. It is a noticeable fact that where we find these
bull rings, the people seem to partake of the savagery
they suggest. Only a short time before we were there
the audience tore up and set fire to the benches be-
cause the management refused to kill another bull,
after already killing six, the advertised number. After
a bull fight the carcasses are cut up and sold to the
people for food. Is it any wonder that such people
are savage?
October 23 we were on the shores of the Mediter-
ranean, at Sète. The Hooligan element was very much
in evidence there, reminding one of the early days in

14. Hector Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac, a seventeenth-century French dramatist and

noted duelist, is now better known on account of the literary character loosely based on
his life in the 1897 play, Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 87

21. The Tragedie des Chevaux (top), and a sad farewell.
America, when the “bad” element of a section regarded
the advent of a circus as an intrusion or menace, and
would attack the show people for no other reason
than that they were strangers. One of their favorite
pastimes on this occasion was throwing stones at the
drivers, out of the darkness. Finally it became neces-
sary to charge them on horseback, and they proved
to be a bunch of arrant cowards, as is usual in such
cases. At least a dozen of them will never forget the
Wild West. Sète is a city of 35,000 population and a
fortress of the première classe.
October 27 found us at the ancient city of Nîmes,
rich in Roman antiquities. When Colonel Cody and the
Wild West were here in 188915 they exhibited a month
in the old stone arena, which is almost as ancient as
the Colosseum at Rome, and built on the same lines.
Several of “our boys” had their pictures taken there.
Considering its great age, it is still in a good state of
preservation, being in use now as a bull ring.
October 30 we exhibited at Arles, another old Ro-
man town much frequented by tourists. The arena
here, which is still used as a bull ring, was built in
the year 400 B.C.
November 1 we arrived at Marseille, our goal. We
closed the season of 1905 November 12, at which time
an audience of 15,000 people assembled to see the
farewell performance. The season was a most arduous

15. Griffin is mistaken here. The Wild West did not appear in Nîmes in 1889. The show’s
1889 dates in France were: Paris (May 18 to November 14); Lyon (November 17 to No-
vember 28); and Marseille (December 1 to December 16).

four years in europe with buffalo bill 89

one, seven and one-half months’ continuous show-
ing without a Sunday’s rest to break the monotony.
Besides the ordinary trials of a showman’s life we
had opposition with another big American institution,
McCaddon’s International Shows,16 featuring a Wild
West, and, worst of all,

La Tragedie des Chevaux.

Shortly after leaving Paris glanders broke out among

the broncos, and government veterinaries were placed
with us to combat the dread disease. Forty-two horses
were taken out and shot in one day.
When we closed the season at Marseille we only
had about one hundred broncos left to give the per-
formance, two hundred having been killed during the
season.
Our magnificent draught stock, which was under
the care of Jake Posey, of Cincinnati, never came in
contact with the broncos, so they did not become
contaminated. When the show was finally put away in
Winter quarters, Mr. Bailey and Colonel Cody, equal
owners of the Wild West, held a consultation, and it

16. Polacsek (1982) gives an account of McCaddon’s ill-fated 1905 International Show.
Joseph Terry McCaddon was a crucial figure in turn of the century American circus. He
began his career as manager of the Adam Forepaugh Circus and was later the business
manager of his brother-in-law’s troupe, the James A. Bailey’s Barnum and Bailey Circus
(McCaddon’s sister, Ruth McCaddon, was Bailey’s wife). He represented Bailey in many
business matters, including correspondence with Cody regarding the acquisition of the
Wild West Show. Many of McCaddon’s papers are held as the McCaddon Collection
at Princeton University Library. Scrapbook 14 and Boxes 41 and 42 are of particular
relevance for his dealings with Cody.

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was decided to kill the remaining hundred broncos
and burn all the trappings, that being the only way of
stamping out the plague, and importing new broncos
and trappings from America for the next season. After
the first batch of forty-two horses were taken out and
shot I took a long article, written for the American
press, to Fred. B. Hutchinson,17 the manager, asking
for his approval. He read it carefully, knit his brows a
little and handed it back to me, saying, “Charlie, the
least said about this the better;” hence the story has
never been publicly told until now.

17. Fred Bailey Hutchinson, a long-standing director of the Barnum and Bailey Circus,
acted as a manager with the Wild West for several seasons and went on to work with
the Sells-Floto Show.

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 ch apt er v i i— w i n t er 1 905– 1 906
Marseille, the Gateway to the Orient—Wintering Under
Canvas—More Observations of French Manners and Customs

From November, 1905, until March, 1906, we wintered

under canvas at Marseille, the semi-tropical climate of
that latitude rendering such a heretofore unheard of
proposition possible. When Manager Fred Hutchinson
first spoke of doing this, the old boys shook their heads,
but Colonel Cody, having full confidence in his young
manager, after pulling us safely through one of the
most strenuous seasons ever experienced by any show,
thought “Freddy” knew best—and “Freddy” did know
best. “All’s well that ends well,” and Mr. Hutchinson
received great credit from everyone for his forethought
in saving the firm a lot of trouble and expense.
Marseille is the most important seaport of France,
having one of the finest harbors in the world and a
population of 500,000. You get an excellent vue d’oiseau1
of the city from L’Eglise Notre-Dame de la Garde,2 which
is situated on a rocky promontory 500 feet above the
sea. The chapel is surmounted by a steeple 150 feet

1. French for “bird’s-eye view.”

2. The Neo-Byzantine Basilica de Notre-Dame de la Garde stands on a limestone prom-
ontory to the south of Marseille harbor and does afford excellent panoramic views over
the city referred to by Griffin.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 93

 22. A Visit to the Chateau d’If—Monte Cristo Island. 1—The starting
point, Old Harbor, Marseilles. 2—A view of the island from a distance.
3—Looking through prison bars toward Marseilles.

high, supporting a huge bronze statue of the Madonna,

which is out of all proportion to the size of the main
structure, which gives it a peculiarly odd appearance.
There is also in the same enclosure a battery of artillery,
soldiers’ barracks, a government signal station and a
café restaurant. On the occasion of my visit services
were being held, and the music from the splendid choir
and big organ was particularly impressive.
On the North from Notre Dame, extending in a
semi-circle around the city, are the Maritime Alps,
while on the South you have a fine view of the Medi-
terranean and the extensive harbor, filled with ships
of every nationality, all of which is set off by several
rocky islets, on the smallest of which is that famous
fortress, the Chateau d’If,3 from whence the great
3. The island of If is the smallest island in the Frioul Archipelago in the bay of Mar-
seille and the sixteenth-century chateau there, which was later used as a prison, is as
described by Griffin. It is still visited by tourists, mainly due to its association with the
1844 adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo.

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Dumas took his inimitable character of Monte Cristo.
For one franc you can visit this island in a comfort-
able steam launch, see the ancient prisons and the
dungeon where Edmund Dantès was imprisoned, and
at the same time get a sensation of mal de mer4 if you
are not a good sailor.
Leaving Notre Dame by winding stone steps, we go
down through Pharo Park, where the Pasteur Institute,
Medical College and Morgue are situated, also getting
a closer view of the dock and the Transborder Bridge.
Then we come to the Cannebière, the literal meaning
of which is a tub of beer. This is the main “stem” of
the city from which all the principal rues radiate, and
is a busy place at all times. This is the particular pride
of the Marseillian, who says: “Paris would be a very
nice place if they only had la Cannebière.”
I never saw so much bad coin in my life as in France,
and particularly Marseille. It is not considered bad
form to pass out a counterfeit piece if you have been
unwise enough to accept one. The government does
not seem to make any effort to keep bad money out of
circulation. If you tender a bad coin at the post office
or bank, they merely hand it back, saying “Pas bon.”5
Everyone in France has a little money—even the
beggars have money in bank usually, because they
make a business of it.
A golden rule in French pronunciation is, pronounce
a word any old way except the way that it is spelled.
4. French for “seasickness.”
5. French for “not good.”

four years in europe with buffalo bill 95

 23. In Winter Quarters, Marseille, France, 1905–6.

The respect shown the dead by the French people

is commendable. No matter what a person has been or
done in life, all is forgotten in death. When a funeral
cortege passes through the street everybody stops
and uncovers his head. The cemeteries are carefully
attended and are a thing of beauty. The première classe
(there are eight classes of funerals) are placed in vaults
underground, surmounted by a small chapel containing
a shrine, with photographs of the dead all beautifully
decorated with flowers, real or artificial. Bread is their
staff of life, and wine is cheap. Their bread is the best
in the world and costs about 20 centimes, or 4 cents
per demi kilo (one pound), for the best quality. When
the Germans invaded France in 1870–71 the soldiers
wrote back home: “This is a great country; the people

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 24. Working under the Southern Sun, December, 1905.

eat cake all the time,” their bread being so different

from the black or brown bread which they were ac-
customed to at home. A cheaper quality of bread is
baked in huge loaves as large as a washtub. One cent’s
worth of this bread and a half litre of cheap, sour wine,
which costs one cent, will make a substantial meal
for a working man. Almost every other food is dearer
there than here or England. Good bacon costs forty
cents a pound; sugar, seven cents; milk, eight cents;
ham, $1.00.
There is not the same standard of home life in
France as we have in America or England, as is attested
by the cafés and restaurants everywhere. They will eat
bread and drink a little wine three or four times a day
at home and all go out to a restaurant for dinner. You

four years in europe with buffalo bill 97

can get a fair six course dinner there, including tea,
coffee, milk or wine, for thirty cents, or by purchas-
ing ten tickets you may have it for twenty-five cents
a meal. Day board, by the month, $12.00. I never had
as good a French dinner in all France as I used to get
for fifty cents at a French restaurant in Twenty-eighth
Street, New York, kept by one “Spanish John,” who,
by the way, happened to be an Italian.
An ordinary shave costs you three cents, and hair-
cutting is four cents. After le barbier has lathered and
shaved you, it is your turn to go to the wash bowl,
wash the lather off, return to the chair and he finishes
the job.
The South of France is much like parts of our own
South, primitive and behind the times. Their patois
is a mixture of French, Spanish and Italian. They are
very excitable and passionate. They work milk cows
like oxen, and their horses, which are very small, are
yoked together.

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25. Winter quarters at Marseille, France (1905)
26. The staff in winter quarters, and Cody’s two favorite horses.
27. The office at winter quarters in Marseille, and
F. B. Hutchinson having a go at lawn tennis.
 c ha p t er v i i i —1 906
Opening of the Season at Marseille—Tour of Italy,
Austria-Hungary, Germany and Belgium

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West inaugurated their twenty-

fourth annual tour at Marseille, France, March 4, 1906,
on the same grounds where we closed our 1905 tour,
and where the show was wintered.
The first week out, beginning at Marseille, March
4, and ending at Nice, March 10, was the biggest open-
ing week, financially, in the history of the show. While
we were at Nice everybody had the Monte Carlo fever,
and the boys tell some amusing tales of “how they
did not break the bank.”
March 13 was cut out to make the run from Nice
to Genoa, Italy, which, to my notion, was the most
beautiful route ever traversed by a show train. On one
side of us was the blue Mediterranean, and on the
other were high mountains, full of snow. The almond
trees were full of fragrant blossoms.
During the run Colonel Cody sat on the observa-
tion platform of his private car and received a perfect
ovation from immense throngs of people at every stazi-
one. The formalities of the customs were all arranged
in advance by General Agent Clarence L. Dean,1 so
1. Clarence L. Dean had been advance agent for Barnum and Bailey’s earlier tour of
Europe and joined the Wild West in the same capacity for the 1902–1906 tours.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 103

 28. Street Scene, Genoa, Italy, March, 1906.

we experienced no delay on that score. We were in

four sections, the last one arriving at Genoa at two
p.m., or, according to the Italian system of reckon-
ing time, fourteen o’clock (twenty-four o’clock being
midnight).
Our first performance was given at Genoa, after-
noon of 14, and thousands of people were turned away,
and the side show—well, many circuses would be
“tickled to death” to do the business that our side
show did. Morning of 15 two new 60 feet middle pieces
were put up, thus adding considerably to our seat-
ing capacity, and yet thousands were unable to gain
admission. It is my humble opinion that we should
have remained at Genoa at least a week.

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 Genoa, the birthplace of Columbus, is one of the
most beautiful cities I have visited anywhere. The
English fleet was at anchor while we were there. Lord
Charles Beresford2 and about 2,000 jackies3 attended
the performance, night of 16.
La Spezia, March 17, was one day only, and then
we filled our immense amphitheatre for two perform-
ances with country people whose enthusiastic applause
seemed to have no bound.
Livorno, 18, 19, 20, during the celebration of the
three hundredth anniversary of the city government,
was to big business at every performance. Evening of
19 a strong wind came up at about six o’clock, and the
night show had to be abandoned, which gave many of
us an opportunity of witnessing a magnificent display
of fireworks by the city.
March 21 we made the run from Livorno to Rome,
a distance of 334 kilometres (205¾ miles). The last
section left Livorno at five o’clock a.m., crossed the
Tiber at seventeen-thirty, and entered the capital city
at eighteen o’clock, according to Roman time.
Never in the twenty-four years’ history of the Wild
West was there such a crowd of people to welcome its
arrival. The streets were blocked and traffic suspended
in the vicinity of the station. The police reserves were

2. Charles William de la Poer Beresford, First Baron Beresford, known at the time as
Lord Charles Beresford, was admiral in command of the British Mediterranean Fleet
in 1906. Prominent both as a naval commander and politician, his autobiography is
available online at www.archive.org.
3. The term “jackies” was used colloquially to mean British sailors.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 105

called out, and they finally cleared the way for us to
the Piazza d’Armi, where we were to exhibit.
Sunday, March 25, the Wild West was honored by a
visit from the King and Queen of Italy,4 Count of Turin,
Count and Countess Guicciardini, and the members of
the court. After witnessing the spectacle throughout,
King Victor Emanuel commanded a private perform-
ance for the following day. Punctually at ten o’clock
their majesties arrived, accompanied by their children
and suite. The royal audience heartily applauded the
performance, and Colonel Cody received the personal
congratulations of the king, also a gold cigarette case,
with the royal monogram and crest, studded with
diamonds, and a beautifully worded letter, thanking
him for both performances.
Morning of March 27 Press Agent Frank A. Small,
who, by the way, is the biggest Small you ever saw,
standing nearly seven feet tall, received the follow-
ing characteristic telegram from George Ade5: “Six
hungry Yanks will be on the lot at noon; notify the
cook tent.”
The party included George Ade, the Sultan of Sulu;
Booth Tarkington, the Gentleman from Indiana; Mr.
4. The Italian monarchs who visited the Wild West were Victor Emmanuel III, King of
Italy from 1900 to 1947 and his wife, Queen Helen of Montenegro. The Count of Turin
was the king’s nephew, Victor Emmanuel of Savoia-Aosta and Count Francesco Guic-
ciardini was his Minister of Foreign Affairs at that time and his wife was Maria Luisa,
Countess Bombicci Pontelli. Cody’s own more extensive account of the Italian Royal
visit was published in the Philadelphia Press Sunday Magazine, May 12, 1907, p. 8.
5. George Ade was a leading newspaper columnist who went on to distinction as an es-
sayist, humorist, and playwright. In The Sultan of Sulu, first produced in 1902, he satirized
the figure of an American abroad.

106 four years in europe with buffalo bill

Thompson, Mr. Sweet, et al.6 They were not only after
something to eat, but were in search of material for
their literary work, and I guess they got it. Anyway,
they had the run of the show and seemed to be hav-
ing a jolly good time. Mr. Ade presented the snake
charmer in the Side Show with a box of bon bons.
“The bravest little lady in the land” untied the string,
and—had a snake fit. Instead of bon bons the pack-
age contained a large spiral spring snake, about nine
feet long. Ade was very industrious all day trying to
spend an American paper dollar among the privilege
people. Frank S. Griffin7 was the first one to turn it
down; Frank remembered him from the Ringling Show
when Ade was a regular trouper. But I think the sight
of that dollar bill made Frank homesick, as he left a
“good thing” and returned to the States a few days
later. Hall Caine8 was also among our distinguished
guests at Rome.
Rome has a population of 500,000, and is the most
interesting city, historically, in all Europe. Whole librar-
ies of books are published descriptive of its wonders,
and as every encyclopedia tells of its past glories, I
will not attempt to describe with my feeble powers

6. Newton Booth Tarkington was a prominent writer who won the Pulitzer Prize for his
novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams.
It has not been possible to identify the other two Americans named by Griffin. In
Cody’s own account of the incident (from the Philadelphia Press Sunday Magazine, May 12,
1907, p. 7), other members of the party were simply “American tourists.”
7. The author’s brother.
8. Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine was one of the leading English novelists of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 107

 29. Opening day in Rome, March 22, 1906.

of description its manifold wonders. Suffice to say we

visited the Colosseum, Pantheon, Quirinal, etc., and
were not disappointed.
All through April the weather was abnormally
warm, even for Italy. Many attributed this to the
eruptions of Vesuvius.9 We were never nearer than
two hundred miles to the active volcano, but we had
several scares and everything was made ship-shape
as for a big storm, which turned out to be clouds of
red dust, while the supposed lightning was also from
old Vesuvius.
All kinds of bad things were predicted for us in
Italy, and many of us had it down as a land of anar-
chists, with bombs and stilettos, but we found the
9. The volcano Vesuvius, which overlooks the Bay of Naples in southern Italy.

108 four years in europe with buffalo bill

people the most peaceable and more subject to police
control than any country we visited outside of Eng-
land. The police, too, are a fine looking and efficient
body of men.
We bade farewell to sunny Italy with many regrets,
and crossed over into Austria, at Trieste,10 May 12,
where we remained for four days to capacity busi-
ness. Trieste has a population of about 40,000, and
is a seaport of considerable importance. It formerly
belonged to Italy, and two-thirds of the population are
Italians. Although German is the official language, the
people will not stand for the Austrian flag or speak
the German language.
May 17 and 18 found us in the quaint city of Agram,11
capital of Croatia. Although they have their own lan-
guage, parliament, government officials and revenues,
they are under the protection of Austria. In 1886 Agram
was totally destroyed by an earthquake, but now it is
a very beautiful and substantial city of 20,000 happy
and contented inhabitants. The State Theatre, which
is maintained by the government for the perpetuation
of the Croatian language, is a particularly attractive
structure, almost on a par with the Grand Opera House
at Paris.
From Agram we went up through the picturesque
Austrian Tyrol to Vienna (1,800,000 population) on
10. Trieste is now part of Italy and has been since the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. A detailed
account (in Italian) of the Wild West’s time in the city can be found in Stern (1994).
11. Currently Zagreb, Croatia. The appendix to this volume gives the current names
and national affiliations of all of the venues in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire
visited by the Wild West in 1906.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 109

30. A bunch of the Wild West taken in the old Colosseum, Rome.

the Danube. We played a most successful three weeks’

engagement on the Prater,12 at the very doors of the
Great Rotunda, a relic of the Exposition of 1878. There
was scarcely one out of the forty days at Vienna that
we did not entertain royalty. Doubtless we could have
remained there all Summer and made money.
When Colonel Cody visited Vienna in 1900, the
Grand Duke Frederick13 was skeptical about the genu-
ineness of the wild horses in the bucking act, and be-
ing a gruff old fellow, was not backward at all about
saying so, whereupon the Colonel invited him to a
12. The Wiener Prater is a large public park in Vienna and the site of the famous Wur-
stelprater amusement park.
13. Archduke Frederick Maria Albrecht, Duke of Teschen, was a prominent member of the
Austrian Imperial House of Habsburg-Lorraine. He went on to be appointed commander
in chief of the Austro-Hungarian Army at the outbreak of World War I.

110 four years in europe with buffalo bill

special exhibition the next morning. His Highness
arrived somewhat in advance of Colonel Cody, and
when they brought the buckers into the arena he in-
sisted on remaining there also. The first mount made
a dash directly toward His Highness, and but for the
fact that Bill Langdon risked his own life by jumping
in and pulling the duke out of the way, he doubtless
would have been killed. This same old grand duke
visited with Colonel Cody several times while we were
in Vienna. He recalled the above circumstance of his
former visit, adding that he was a skeptic no longer.
The Prater, where our tents were pitched in Vi-
enna, is the playground of the big city—a veritable
Coney Island. There were parks, gardens, theatres,
circuses—in fact, everything in the way of Summer
amusement, in full blast.
Within two minutes from our main entrance you
could take a trip to heaven, hell, the North Pole, or
any old place, for four cents. As ours was the “big
show,” everything was proclaimed American. There
was even “American sourkrout” and “American beer.”
But the funniest, or rather most ridiculous thing I
saw there, was an alleged American flag displayed at
one of these “joints.” It had four white and brownish-
red stripes, with seven eight-pointed white stars on
a green field.
June 15 we made a run South, of one hundred and
seventy-five miles, to Budapest, capital of Hungary, a
fine city of 800,000, on the Danube. The city takes its
name from Buda and Pest, which are now united by

four years in europe with buffalo bill 111

 31. The Royal Family’s Visit to the Wild West at Rome, Italy, 1906.

ten of the handsomest bridges in the world. Hungary

is noted for its carriage and racing horses, and Buda-
pest is one of the greatest horse markets in Europe.
It was therefore but natural that the people should
take a great interest in the Wild West, and, although
every stitch of canvas was spread and every inch of
seat plank in place, our enormous seating capacity was
taxed to the utmost. While the entire programme was
well received, Colonel Cody’s shooting on horseback,
the bucking horses, Johnny Baker’s shooting act, the
“Horse Fair,” introducing our 200 magnificent draught
horses; the Devlin Zouaves and the Arab Troupe met
with special favor. Eight days were not long enough
for Budapest, as thousands of people, many coming

112 four years in europe with buffalo bill

from a distance, were unable to gain admission.
From Budapest we made a month of one day stands
in Hungary. I am sorry to say that business was not up
to our former standard. Hungary is purely an agricul-
tural country, their methods of harvesting primitive,
and a majority of the population, both men and women,
were in the fields at the time we were there.
At Bekesaba,14 July 2, the order of “Tigers” visited
the grave of Henry Clark,15 who was buried there in
May, 1901, by the “Tigers” of the Barnum & Bailey
Show. Speeches were made, and Prof. Sweeney’s Cow-
boy Band rendered appropriate selections. To illustrate
the friendly feelings that the Hungarians entertain
for a stranger, I will mention the fact that Mr. Clark
died just before the show’s departure, and one man
was left behind to attend the burial. He was assisted
in every way by the natives, and five hundred school
children followed poor Clark’s body to its last resting
place. The burial lot was purchased by the “Tigers,”
who also placed an appropriate monument over the
grave.
We celebrated our fourth Fourth of July in foreign
lands at Szeged, Hungary. The front of the show was ar-
tistically decorated in red, white and blue, Caterer Bal-
lard gave us a fine dinner, the bands rendered good old
Yankee airs, and we almost felt as if we were at home
rather than on the frontier of Europe and Asia.

14. Currently Békéscsaba, Hungary.

15. Henry Clark was a member of the Railway Department of Barnum and Bailey’s Circus.
He died in an accident during the company’s European tour.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 113

 We showed all the outposts of Eastern Europe
along the borders of Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia
and Russia. We certainly had our troubles with inter-
preters. Some towns would be about equally divided
between four or five nationalities, and, although they
all understood German, the official language, each
would insist on being addressed in his native language.
We think we have a race problem in America, but it
is more complicated and acute in Eastern Europe,
and it is not a matter of color, either. The majority
of the peasantry are on a par, educationally, with the
negroes of our Southern States, and the poor Jew is
far more persecuted. The stores and shops illustrate
their wares on their signboards, because the majority
of the population cannot read. Krakau,16 Lemberg17
and all towns along the Russian border were particu-
larly lawless. They seemed to be a lot of natural born
agitators.
Our first stand in the great German Empire was
at Zitau, Saxony, August 15. For the three months
preceding this date we had a multiplicity of languages
to contend with, viz.: Hungarian, German, Slavonic,
Romanian, Czech, Serbian, Polish, etc., and it certainly
seemed good to get into a country where a universal
language was spoken.
We played an unusually successful four days’ en-
gagement at Dresden, the capital of Saxony. Although
we had rain every day, we turned people away at every
16. Currently Kraków, Poland, which the Wild West visited on August 4–5, 1906.
17. Currently Lviv, Ukraine, which the Wild West visited on July 28–30, 1906.

114 four years in europe with buffalo bill

performance except one. I never saw so many people
on a show ground in my life as there were at Dresden,
Sunday afternoon, August 19. Although our seating
capacity was about 17,000 people, we could not accom-
modate half of those who desired admission. There is
a large colony of English and Americans at Dresden,
who support a very respectable English daily newspa-
per. Governor Francis18 and family, of Missouri, visited
with Colonel Cody while we were at Dresden.
About this time our closing date, September 21,
was announced, and we all began to prepare for it. The
Indians were particularly active in buying clothes and
valises—made in Germany. The cow punchers also put
on European “togs,” which so changed their personal
appearance that one scarcely knew the other, and we
all had to get acquainted over again.
We were at Plauen August 24, where we encoun-
tered regulation German business—the very best.
At Weimar, August 26, Colonel Cody received a
telegram from the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar,19 who
regretted his absence from home, and his consequent
inability to visit the Wild West, but the following day
His Highness and party came over from Weisbaden

18. Democrat David Rowland Francis had served as mayor of St. Louis from 1885 to
1889 and as governor of Missouri from 1889 to 1893. Francis went on to be the last U.S.
Ambassador to the Russian Empire (1916–1917). On Francis’s fascinating political career
see Barnes (2001).
19. William Ernest Charles Alexander Frederick Henry Bernard Albert George Her-
man was Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach from 1901 until the dissolution of the
German monarchies at the end of the World War I in 1918. He was therefore the last
holder of the title.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 115

 32. The sideshow, 1906.

in motor cars. Colonel Cody also received royalty at

Gera.20
United States Consul Harris,21 at Chemnitz, was
born in the same county in Iowa where Colonel Cody
first saw the light of day, and he and his family were made
a part of our troupe while we were at Chemnitz.
At Eisenach, August 27, the home of Martin Luther,
the Reformer, the citadel was visited by a number of
our boys.
Fulda, Prussia, where we stopped August 28, is
only a small town of 20,000 population, but we had
a fair afternoon and good night attendance.

20. Prince Heinrich XXIV of Reuss and his family attended the Wild West’s performance
in Gera on August 25, 1906.
21. Ernest Lloyd Harris was the U.S. Consul based at Chemnitz in 1905 and 1906.

116 four years in europe with buffalo bill

 At Hanau, August 29, we exhibited on one of Na-
poleon’s historic battlefields.22
We had our first view of the Rhine at Worms.
While it is a magnificent stream, it does not, in my
opinion, possess the natural beauty of our great Mis-
sissippi or Hudson Rivers. While the Germans take
every advantage of their natural resources, we, as a
nation, have been sadly neglectful of them, especially
as to our inland waterways.
August 31 found us at Saarbrucken, a city of 244,000
population, on the Saar River, with the city of St. Jo-
hann, 440,000, on the other side.
September 1 and 2 we had four big houses at Metz,
Alsace-Lorraine (58,000 population), which was sur-
rendered to Germany by the French in 1871. Although
under the German government, it is still a French city,
to all outward appearances.23
September 3 we were at the little principality of
Luxembourg, where four kinds of money circulate,
viz.: Luxembourg, German, French and Belgian.
At Bonn, September 6, we were visited by the Prin-
cess Victoria of Prussia,24 youngest sister of the Kaiser,
and a niece of King Edward VII of England. During

22. The French Army of Emperor Napoleon I (Bonaparte) defeated an Austrian and Bavar-
ian force commanded by Karl Philipp von Wrede on October 30–31, 1813, at Hanau.
23. Metz was returned to France by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.
24. Princess Victoria of Prussia was the daughter of Frederick III of Germany and thereby
the sister of the reigning kaiser in 1906, Wilhelm II, and the granddaughter of Queen
Victoria, her mother having been Victoria’s eldest daughter, the Princess Victoria. Prin-
cess Victoria was therefore the niece of the reigning British monarch, Edward VII, as
described by Griffin.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 117

33. Sioux Indians, and Johnny Baker
and Dollie, the Laughing horse.
the morning she paid a personal visit to Colonel Cody,
who gallantly escorted her through the camp.
We made our last stand in the great German Empire
at Munich-Gladbach,25 September 8 and 9, to capacity
business at every performance. We found Germany to
be a well governed country, and well disposed towards
the big American show.
We jumped into Belgium at Verviers, September
10, where our reception was all that could be desired,
from every standpoint. In fact, it seemed like home
to get back where French was spoken. I believe this
is the only country, except China, where the “coin of
the realm” has a hole in it. Their one and two cent
nickel pieces have a round hole through the centre.
Belgium is the most densely populated country in all
Europe. Area, 11,373 square miles; population, six and
one-half millions.
At Namur, September 11, we did a fine day’s busi-
ness on a very dusty lot.
Charleroi, where we exhibited September 12, is a
big iron and steel town much like our own Charleroi
in Pennsylvania. It was a “cracker jack,” to use one of
Colonel Cody’s expressions—one of the banner stands
of the season. The police were mounted on horseback,
and had to keep on the move around the tents to keep
the disappointed thousands, unable to gain admission
at the doors, from going under the side walls.
We stopped one day at Mons, September 13, to
good business.

25. Currently Mönchengladbach.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 119

34. Opening day in Genoa (top) and double-
deck tramcar used in England.
 September 14 we invaded Brussels, the Belgian capi-
tal, for a four days’ stay, and, although it rained torrents
every day, we did capacity business with a full spread
of canvas and all the seats up. Bruxelles (French) is
a bright and gay cosmopolitan city of 531,000 people,
aptly named “Petite Paris,” as it seems to be entirely
given up to pleasure. Everybody was apparently having
a good time there. The cafés are as popular there as in
Paris, the men being especially fond of them, and sit
for hours at the little round tables drinking absinthe,
wine, coffee or cognac. They spend their time at these
cafés instead of being at work, and allow their poor,
hard-working little wives to slave their lives away in
keeping a grocery, or a laundry, or some such place.
From Brussels we went to Antwerp (Anvers), the
business metropolis of Belgium, where we remained
two days, September 18, 19. We had fine weather and
did a big business both days. It was amusing to see
the beggars of Antwerp make a dash for us when we
left the cars, but they soon awoke to the fact that we
were not tourists. The red guide-book seems to be a
signal to the beggars for an onslaught, and they will
follow the poor inoffensive tourists about, weeping
and wailing, until they are literally forced to give them
a few sous26 in sheer desperation. It is said there are
more street beggars in Antwerp than in any European
city, outside of Spain and Italy.
From Antwerp we moved to the old fashioned

26. The sou was a low-value copper coin.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 121

town of Ghent, in Flanders (population, 180,000). We
gave two performances there September 20, and one
performance afternoon of 21, which closed the season
of 1906. While we had many struggles and hardships
during the season, all obstacles were overcome by
Manager Fred B. Hutchinson and his efficient staff.
Take it all in all, the tour was a most successful one,
both financially and artistically.
Colonel Cody, Jule Keene and family, Major John
M. Burke and the Indians sailed for America on the
S. S. Zealand, from Antwerp, September 22. Bill Mc-
Cune, the Mexicans, Prof. Sweeney’s Cowboy Band,
and the balance of the American contingent sailed
from Southampton, England, on the Philadelphia, the
same date. All of the broncos, except the buckers and
a few culled from the draught stock, were sold in a
bunch to a Brussels firm, who sold them at auction
in Ghent. The cars and wagons were shipped to the
Barnum & Bailey27 Winter quarters at Stoke-on-Trent,
and the balance of the stock and Wild West parapher-
nalia were shipped by the Atlantic Transport Line to
New York.

27. [Griffin note] In December, 1907, the Ringling Bros. acquired, by purchase, all the
rights, titles and interests of the Barnum & Bailey, Ltd., which was an English syndi-
cate. This makes the five Ringlings, viz., Al., Otto, John, Charlie and Alf. T., the most
extensive owners of show property in the world—the Ringling Bros.’ World’s Greatest
Shows, Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth and the Adam Forepaugh & Sells
Bros.’ Combined Shows, comprising the three biggest shows in the world, excepting,
of course, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.

122 four years in europe with buffalo bill

 c ha p t er i x—1 906– 1 907
Closing of the Tour—Departure for and Arrival at New York—
Impressions of New York After Four Years Abroad

The last of our four years abroad (1906), during which

we encountered sixteen different languages, was a
particularly trying one. When we closed our season
at Ghent, Belgium, afternoon of September 21, I felt
as though I was on the verge of nervous prostration,
having been at a high nervous tension all Summer, as
a result of the constant effort to understand and make
myself understood in so many foreign lands.
As soon as the strain was off it seemed as though I
would collapse if I did not get away from it. Therefore
I hied myself to London as soon as possible.
After listening to polyglot languages for two years,
it seemed so strange to hear nothing but our native
tongue.
While walking in the streets of London we would
involuntarily turn around and stare at people merely
because they were talking English.
On October 13 we embarked on the good ship Lu-
cania, Cunard Line, for America, and after a pleasant
voyage of six days and a few hours, landed at New
York October 20.
I had heard so much of the exactions of the American

four years in europe with buffalo bill 123

custom officials, that I felt greatly relieved when the
ordeal was over. For my part I cannot see where they
are any more severe than in other countries.
In “little old New York” once more, I could quickly
see a change in the conditions of four years ago. In the
first place I never saw the streets in such bad condi-
tion as they are now—a result of the great activity in
building. The Flatiron and Times Building were new
to me, and it made my neck stiff trying to look up to
the top. A trip down lower Broadway, among the sky-
scrapers, reminded me of going up the Royal Gorge
towards Leadville. The subway had been completed
during my absence, and after riding in the old District
Underground Railway and “Tuppenny Tube” of London,
and the Metropolitan Underground Railway of Paris,
I unhesitatingly pronounce the New York subway the
most perfect in the world, with the “Tuppenny Tube,”
of Central London, a close second.
The great bandwagon-like touring cars, or rubber-
neck wagons, were also something I had never seen
before, and it struck me as being a cheap and efficient
way of seeing the sights of the city. They start from
most of the prominent hotels every hour, with a guide
who points out the principal objects of interest on the
route, and the fare is only one dollar for the trip.
When I left America, four years ago, the souvenir
postcard craze had not yet struck New York, but upon
my arrival in England, I found it was all the rage there.
Upon my return to New York I found the disease, after
a careful diagnosis, to be far more acute than it ever
was in Europe.

124 four years in europe with buffalo bill

 During my absence abroad I had heard and read
a great deal about the New York Hippodrome, and
while its immense proportions came up to my ex-
pectations, I was disappointed in the spectacle, “A
Society Circus.” I have since seen at this establish-
ment two grand bills—“Pioneer Days” and “Neptune’s
Daughter,” and “Sporting Days” and “The Battle of
the Skies”—which, for general grandeur, mysterious
effects, feminine beauty and scenic splendor, excel
anything of the kind that I saw in all Europe.
The songs were all new and the vaudeville situation
revolutionized, inasmuch as most of the vaudeville
theatres had been doing their own booking, while
now the bookings are in the hands of the agents, this
custom prevailing also in Europe—Tony Pastor1 being
a notable exception to the above rule.
The numerous penny arcades and moving picture
shows scattered all over the city were another new
wrinkle in American showmanship, and the great busi-
ness they were all doing demonstrated that it was
indeed a long felt want—cheap, popular and innocent
amusement for the masses.
The people are more polite in Europe than in
America. In England everything is “‘if you please”;
France, “s’il vous plait”2; Germany and Austria, “bitte
1. Tony Pastor was a former circus ringmaster who moved into theater management in
the 1880s in New York. His introduction of polite variety programs is generally recog-
nized as being a crucial step in the development of vaudeville. Pastor’s reminiscences
on the early days of vaudeville were published in an interview in the New York Times
on April 21, 1907.
2. French for “please.”

four years in europe with buffalo bill 125

schön”3; Hungary, “Tessék”4; Italy, “grazie”5; etc.—all
very polite. Well, you know how it is here; there is at
least room for improvement.
I also noticed what I never knew before—that
Americans are more given to the use of slang than
any other nation in the world, and that the slang ex-
pressions most in vogue four years ago are now almost
obsolete, while other bon mots6 have been coined to
take their place.
“Benzine buggy,”7 “skidoo,”8 “twenty-three”9 and
“lemon”10 were all as incomprehensible to me as so
much Chinese.
But these were only impressions of New York City,
which is not America any more than London is Eng-
land or Paris is France.
The End

3. German for “you’re welcome.”

4. A Hungarian word for “please” when offering something.
5. Italian for “thank you.”
6. French for “good words” used here in the sense of “turns of phrase.”
7. An automobile.
8. A variation of “skedaddle,” meaning to go away.
9. A term for a telegraph message of extreme urgency.
10. A flop or failure.

126 four years in europe with buffalo bill

 offici a l roster of buffa l o
bil l’s w il d w est
Season of 1907

U. S. A .
Cody & Bailey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Owners
Fred Bailey Hutchinson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Manager
Louis E. Cook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . General Agent
M. Coyle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .R. R. Contractor
Major John M. Burke. . . . . . . . . . Press Agent in Advance
Walter K. Hill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Press Agent in Advance
S. H. (Pop) Semon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contracting Agent
D. F. Lynch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contracting Agent
E. H. Wood . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Agent Advertising Car No. 1
D. De Baugh . . . . . . . . . . . . Agent Advertising Car No. 2
W. Ford. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Agent Advertising Car No. 3
Chas. Meredith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Special Agent
Thomas Clare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Twenty-four Hour Agent
S. H. Fielder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Twenty-four Hour Agent
L. Monterey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Inspector of Advertising
F. W. Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Press Agent With Show
T. L. Evans . . . . . . . . . . . .Head of Financial Department
Joe Bailey Harper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Treasurer
Reginald Whitehead . . . . . . . . . . . Chartered Accountant
Charles Mercer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Secretary
Johnny Baker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arenic Director

four years in europe with buffalo bill 127

Matt Sanders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Master of Properties
Cy Compton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chief of Cowboys
Thomas Rankine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Principal Announcer
Wm. Sweeney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bandmaster
Jacob Posey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Master of Stock
Jacob Platt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Superintendent of Canvas
D. Ballard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Caterer
Thomas Tune . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chef
Peter Halstead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Master Mechanic
Col. Chas. Seely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Legal Adjuster
R. P. Murphy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Master Transportation
John Eberle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . General Superintendent
tick e t sel l er s
White Wagon, Reserves—O. S. Demske and John Hammel;
Red Wagon, General Admission—Ben (Blondy) Powell and
Karl E. Grigsby; Blue Wagon, General Admission—Nate Da-
vis and Bill Cloud.
tick e t ta k er s
Carlo Ratte, Robert Coverdale, Frank Quinn, Wm. Boyd,
Frank McKay.
side show
Chas. E. Griffin, Manager; Paul J. Staunton, Principal Ora-
tor; Fred I. Griffin, Assistant Orator and Ticket Seller; C. F.
Mack, Ticket Seller and Punch and Judy; John Lovely and
H. E. Tudor, Ticket Takers; Octavia, Snake Charmer; Grif-
fin, the Yankee Yogi, conjuror; Fred Walters, Blue Man; Len-
tini, Three-Legged Man; Jessica, Moss Haired Lady; Har-
ry Wilson and Harry Keigel, Tattooed Men; Grace Gilbert,
Auburn Bearded Venus; Marvelous Mandy, Man With Iron

128 four years in europe with buffalo bill

Skull; Miss Anna, Physical Culture Girl; Sig. Sagatta’s Bel-
gian Hare Band; J. D. Cramer, Elastic Skin and Giraffe Neck;
Julia Griffin, Mind Reader; C. A. Bonney, Scotch Piper and
Polyphonist; Mlle. Equinas, Parisian Horse Lady; Balbroma,
High Priest of the Fire Worshippers; Prof. James T. Jukes,
one of the Original P. T. Barnum Bohemian Glass Blowers;
Tito Altobelli’s Italian Band; Monroe Sisters, Musical Art-
ists; Horace E. Tudor, Master of Side Show Canvas.
c oncert
Chas. E. Griffin, Manager; Togo and Sarbro, Japanese Jug-
glers; Clymer, Allen and Monroe Sisters, Musical Act; Julia
Arcaris, Song and Dance; James and Celia Welch, Come-
dy Sketch Artists; Major Kelleher, Drum Major; Miss Daly,
Vocalist; Boyd and Lovely, Eccentric Comedians; James Ru-
therford, Monologue.
c a n dy s ta n ds
Walter Beckwith, Superintendent; C. Zelno, “Babe” Ram-
say, Assistants.
pro gr a ms
Joseph Meyer, 27 East Twenty-second Street, New York,
Lessee; Tom Burke, in Charge.
m y t hopl a sm
(mov i ng pic t ur e show in bl ack ten t)
Al. Conlon, Manager; Clarence Wright, Electrician.
l ig h ts ( b ol te & w e y e r s y s t e m )
Pete Walker, Superintendent.
pinke rton d e te c t i v e
J. Garner.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 129

 ch ie f u sh e r s
Wm. McCune and Archie Daly.
ch ie f por t e r
Charles Carroll.

130 four years in europe with buffalo bill

 p r o gr a m m e o f b u ff al o b i l l ’s
w i l d w est

Season of 1907

u.s.a.
1. overture. “Star Spangled Banner”—Cowboy Band,
Wm. Sweeney, Leader.
2. grand review. Introducing Rough Riders of the
World, genuine Sioux and Cheyenne Indians, Cowboys,
Cossacks, Mexicans, Scouts and Guides, veteran members
of the United States Cavalry, a group of Western Girl Rough
Riders, and a detachment of colorguards, soldiers of the
armies of America, England, Germany, Japan, Russia, Ara-
bia and Mexico.
3. race of races. Race between a Cowboy, Cossack,
Mexican, Arab and Indian, on Mexican, Bronco, Indian and
Arabian horses. Attention is directed to the different seats
in saddle by the various riders.
4. u.s. artillery drill. Showing the old muzzle-load-
ing methods. The guns used are relics of the Civil War.
5. pony express. A former Pony Express rider will show
how telegrams of the Republic were distributed and carried
across the continent previous to the building of telegraphs
and railways.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 131

6. emigrant train. Illustrating a prairie Emigrant Train
crossing the plains. It is attacked by marauding Indians,
and they are repulsed by the scouts and cowboys. While
in camp there will be a quadrille on horseback, and other
camp-fire amusements.
7. arabs and japanese. In various feats of agility.
8. an attack on the deadwood stagecoach by
indians. Repulse of the Indians and rescue of the stage,
passengers and mail, by cowboys and scouts.
9. col. w. f. cody. The original Buffalo Bill, the last
of the great scouts; the first to conceive, originate and
produce this class of realistic entertainment. He will give
an exhibition of expert shooting from horseback, while
galloping around the arena.
10. the battle of summit springs. One of the
deciding conflicts in Indian warfare was fought on July
11, 1869, in Eastern Colorado, near the border line of Ne-
braska. The command was composed of the Fifth United
States Cavalry and Pawnee scouts, under the command
of Gen. E. A. Carr, of the United States Army. Buffalo Bill
was chief of General Carr’s scouts and guides. The Indians
were renegades from the tribes of Sioux, Cheyennes and
Arapahoes, banded together under the leadership of Tall
Bull, and were known as “The Dog Soldiers.” These Indians
had been murdering and committing depredations on the
borders of Kansas and Nebraska, and this command had
been sent to discover and annihilate them if possible. After
several days’ scouting, Buffalo Bill found the Indian trail,
which the command at once followed, and after continuing

132 four years in europe with buffalo bill

for more than two hundred miles, Buffalo Bill located the
Indian camp, and in a spirited assault the forces under
General Carr completely routed Tall Bull and his “Dog
Soldiers,” capturing the entire village, killing many of the
warriors and capturing the Indian women and children.
They also rescued two white women which the Indians
held as prisoners. During the engagement Buffalo Bill shot
and killed the Indian chief, Tall Bull.
11. devlin zouaves. In manual of arms, lightning drills,
finishing with an exhibition of wall-scaling, showing the
adaptability of citizen-soldiery in warfare.
12. a group of americans from Old Mexico, Illustrat-
ing the use of the lasso.
13. veterans from the sixth United States Cavalry
in military exercises and exhibitions of athletic sports and
horsemanship on Western range horses.
14. johnny baker. The celebrated American Marks-
man.
15. the great train hold-up and bandit hunt-
ers of the union pacific will be a scene represent-
ing a train hold-up in the Western wilds. The bandits stop
the train, uncouple the engine from the coaches, rob the
express car and blow open the safe. Meanwhile the pas-
sengers are lined up and despoiled of their valuables. The
scene ends with the arrival of the Bandit Hunters of the
Union Pacific, who capture or kill the robbers.
16. indian boys’ race. Racing by Indian boys on bare-
back ponies.

four years in europe with buffalo bill 133

17. cowboys’ fun. Picking objects from the ground,
lassoing, and riding wild horses.
18. cossacks from the caucasus of russia In
feats of horsemanship.
19. a holiday at “t-e” ranch in wyoming. The
final number on our programme will be a holiday at “T-E”
Ranch, the home of Buffalo Bill. The frontiersmen and
cowboys have assembled for an afternoon of pleasure. The
arrival of the mail-carrier, which is always an important
event, and a troop of range horses in high school acts. The
festivities are interrupted by an attack on the ranch by a
band of Indians, and they are repulsed by the cowboys, the
scene of present happy ranch home life is transposed into
one of the old, strenuous days by dramatic license, to form
a climax to the ending of the exhibition, permitting the red
and the white men to line up in compact, friendly mass, to
effectively give the audience a final salute.

134 four years in europe with buffalo bill

 appendix
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in Europe, 1902–1906

1902
December 6–31, 1902 London, England
1903
January 1, 1903–April 4, 1903 London, England
April 13, 1903–May 2, 1903 Manchester, England
May 5–23, 1903 Liverpool, England
May 25, 1903 Warrington, England
May 26, 1903 Birkenhead, England
May 27, 1903 Rhyl, Wales
May 28, 1903 Bangor, Wales
May 29, 1903 Ruabon, Wales
May 30, 1903 Shrewsbury, England
June 1–13, 1903 Birmingham, England
June 15, 1903 Worcester, England
June 16, 1903 Kidderminster, England
June 17, 1903 Dudley, England
June 18, 1903 Wolverhampton, England
June 19, 1903 Stafford, England
June 20, 1903 Coventry, England
June 22, 1903 Rugby, England
June 23, 1903 Leamington, England
 June 24, 1903 Banbury, England
June 25, 1903 Oxford, England
June 26–27, 1903 Reading, England
June 29, 1903 Swindon, England
June 30, 1903 Cheltenham, England
July 1, 1903 Gloucester, England
July 2, 1903 Hereford, England
July 3, 1903 Abergavenny, Wales
July 6–11, 1903 Cardiff, Wales
July 13, 1903 Llanelli, Wales
July 14–15, 1903 Swansea, Wales
July 16, 1903 Newport, Wales
July 17, 1903 Bath, England
July 18, 1903 Weston-super-Mare, England
July 20–23, 1903 Bristol, England
July 24, 1903 Westbury, England
July 25, 1903 Yeovil, England
July 27, 1903 Barnstaple, England
July 28, 1903 Exeter, England
July 29, 1903 Newton Abbot, England
July 30, 1903–August 1, 1903 Plymouth, England
August 3, 1903 Taunton, England
August 4, 1903 Weymouth, England
August 5, 1903 Bournemouth, England
August 6, 1903 Salisbury, England
August 7–8, 1903 Southampton, England
August 10–12, 1903 Portsmouth, England
August 13–15, 1903 Brighton, England
August 17, 1903 Guildford, England
August 18, 1903 Tunbridge Wells, England

138 appendix
 August 19, 1903 Eastbourne, England
August 20, 1903 Hastings, England
August 21, 1903 Ashford, England
August 22, 1903 Folkestone, England
August 24, 1903 Ramsgate, England
August 25, 1903 Margate, England
August 26, 1903 Canterbury, England
August 27, 1903 Maidstone, England
August 28, 1903 Chatham, England
August 29, 1903 Croydon, England
August 31, 1903 Watford, England
September 1, 1903 Luton, England
September 2, 1903 Leyton, England
September 3, 1903 Southend, England
September 4, 1903 Colchester, England
September 5, 1903 Bury St. Edmonds, England
September 7, 1903 Ipswich, England
September 8, 1903 Lowestoft, England
September 9, 1903 Great Yarmouth, England
September 10, 1903 Norwich, England
September 11, 1903 King’s Lynn, England
September 12, 1903 Wisbech, England
September 14, 1903 Peterborough, England
September 15, 1903 Ely, England
September 16, 1903 Bedford, England
September 17, 1903 Northampton, England
September 18, 1903 Wellingborough, England
September 19, 1903 Kettering, England
September 21–22, 1903 Leicester, England
September 23, 1903 Spalding, England

appendix 139
 September 24, 1903 Boston, England
September 25, 1903 Grantham, England
September 26, 1903 Lincoln, England
September 28, 1903–October 3, 1903 Leeds, England
October 5–6, 1903 Bradford, England
October 7, 1903 Keighley, England
October 8, 1903 Halifax, England
October 9, 1903 Wakefield, England
October 10, 1903 Doncaster, England
October 12–15, 1903 Sheffield, England
October 16–17, 1903 Chesterfield, England
October 19–20, 1903 Nottingham, England
October 21, 1903 Loughborough, England
October 22, 1903 Derby, England
October 23, 1903 Burton, England
1904
April 25, 1904 Stoke-on-Trent, England
April 26, 1904 Nuneaton, England
April 27, 1904 Walsall, England
April 28, 1904 Stourbridge, England
April 29, 1904 Wellington, England
April 30, 1904 Crewe, England
May 2, 1904 Llandudno, Wales
May 3, 1904 Holyhead, Wales
May 4, 1904 Carnarvon, Wales
May 5, 1904 Portmadoc, Wales
May 6, 1904 Dolgelly, Wales
May 7, 1904 Aberystwyth, Wales
May 9, 1904 Chester, England

140 appendix
 May 10, 1904 Wrexham, Wales
May11, 1904 Oswestry, Wales
May 12, 1904 Builth Wells, Wales
May 13, 1904 Carmarthen, Wales
May 14, 1904 Pembroke Dock, Wales
May 16, 1904 Llanelli, Wales
May 17, 1904 Neath, Wales
May 18, 1904 Bridgend, Wales
May 19, 1904 Barry Dock, Wales
May 20–21, 1904 Cardiff, Wales
May 23, 1904 Stroud, England
May 24, 1904 Trowbridge, England
May 25, 1904 Wells, Somerset, England
May 26 1904 Bridgewater, England
May 27, 1904 Exmouth, England
May 28, 1904 Torquay, England
May 30, 1904 Penzance, England
May 31, 1904 Cambourne, England
June 1, 1904 Truro, England
June 2, 1904 Bodmin, England
June 3, 1904 Plymouth, England
June 4, 1904 Taunton, England
June 6, 1904 Dorchester, England
June 7, 1904 Poole, England
June 8, 1904 Southampton, England
June 9, 1904 Winchester, England
June 10, 1904 Newbury, England
June 11, 1904 High Wycombe, England
June 13, 1904 Windsor, England
June 14, 1904 Aldershot, England

appendix 141
 June 15, 1904 Horsham, England
June 16, 1904 Lewes, Sussex, England
June 17, 1904 Redhill, Surrey, England
June 18, 1904 Wimbledon, England
June 20, 1904 Chelmsford, England
June 21, 1904 Ilford, England
June 22, 1904 St. Albans, England
June 23, 1904 Hitchin, England
June 24, 1904 Cambridge, England
June 25, 1904 Ilkeston, England
June 27, 1904 Mansfield, England
June 28, 1904 Rotherham, England
June 29, 1904 Gainsborough, England
June 30, 1904 Great Grimsby, England
July 1–2, 1904 Hull, England
July 4, 1904 York, England
July 5, 1904 Scarborough, England
July 6, 1904 Darlington, England
July 7, 1904 Stockton-on-Tees, England
July 8, 1904 Middlesbrough, England
July 9, 1904 West Hartlepool, England
July 11–16, 1904 Newcastle-on-Tyne, England
July 18–19, 1904 Sunderland, England
July 20, 1904 Durham, England
July 21, 1904 South Shields, England
July 22, 1904 Hexham, England
July 23, 1904 North Shields, England
July 25, 1904 Berwick-upon-Tweed, England
July 26, 1904 Hawick, Scotland
July 27, 1904 Galashiels, Scotland

142 appendix
 July 28, 1904 Motherwell, Scotland
July 29, 1904 Coatbridge, Scotland
July 30, 1904 Dumbarton, Scotland
August 1–6, 1904 Glasgow, Scotland
August 8–13, 1904 Edinburgh, Scotland
August 15, 1904 Falkirk, Scotland
August 16, 1904 Dunfermline, Scotland
August 17, 1904 Kirkcaldy, Scotland
August 18–20, 1904 Dundee, Scotland
August 22, 1904 Arbroath, Scotland
August 23, 1904 Forfar, Scotland
August 24, 1904 Montrose, Scotland
August 25–27, 1904 Aberdeen, Scotland
August 29, 1904 Peterhead, Scotland
August 30, 1904 Fraserburgh, Scotland
August 31, 1904 Huntly, Scotland
September 1, 1904 Elgin, Scotland
September 2–3, 1904 Inverness, Scotland
September 5, 1904 Perth, Scotland
September 6, 1904 Stirling, Scotland
September 7, 1904 Paisley, Scotland
September 8, 1904 Greenock, Scotland
September 9, 1904 Saltcoats, Scotland
September 10, 1904 Kilmarnock, Scotland
September 12, 1904 Ayr, Scotland
September 13, 1904 Stranraer, Scotland
September 14, 1904 Dumfries, Scotland
September 15, 1904 Carlisle, England
September 16, 1904 Penrith, England
September 17, 1904 Maryport, England

appendix 143
 September 19, 1904 Wokingham, England
September 20, 1904 Whitehaven, England
September 21, 1904 Barrow-in-Furness, England
September 22, 1904 Kendal, England
September 23, 1904 Lancaster, England
September 24, 1904 Blackpool, England
September 26, 1904 Preston, England
September 27, 1904 Blackburn, England
September 28, 1904 Chorley, England
September 29, 1904 Wigan, England
September 30, 1904 Southport, England
October 1, 1904 St. Helens, England
October 2, 1904 Leigh, England
October 4, 1904 Bolton, England
October 5, 1904 Bury, England
October 6, 1904 Rochdale, England
October 7, 1904 Oldham, England
October 8, 1904 Burnley, England
October 10, 1904 Skipton, England
October 11, 1904 Harrogate, England
October 12, 1904 Castleford, England
October 13, 1904 Barnsley, England
October 14, 1904 Huddersfield, England
October 15, 1904 Ashton-under-Lyne, England
October 17, 1904 Glossop, England
October 18, 1904 Stockport, England
October 19, 1904 Northwick, England
October 20, 1904 Macclesfield, England
October 21, 1904 Hanley, England

144 appendix
 1905
April 2, 1905–June 4, 1905 Paris, France
June 5, 1905 Chartres, France
June 6, 1905 Alençon, France
June 7, 1905 Fleurs, France
June 8, 1905 Saint-Lô, France
June 9, 1905 Cherbourg, France
June 10–11, 1905 Caen, France
June 12, 1905 Lisieux, France
June 13, 1905 Evreux, France
June 14, 1905 Elbeuf, France
June 15–16, 1905 Rouen, France
June 17–18, 1905 Le Havre, France
June 19, 1905 Dieppe, France
June 20, 1905 Abbeville, France
June 21–22, 1905 Amiens, France
June 23, 1905 Arras, France
June 24, 1905 Douai, France
June 25, 1905 Dunkirk, France
June 26, 1905 Calais, France
June 27, 1905 Boulogne, France
June 28, 1905 Armentières, France
June 29–30, 1905 Roubaix, France
July 1–4, 1905 Lille, France
July 5, 1905 Valenciennes, France
July 6, 1905 Maubeuge, France
July 7, 1905 Cambrai, France
July 8, 1905 Saint-Quentin, France
July 9, 1905 Compiègne, France
July 10, 1905 Laon, France

appendix 145
 July 11–13, 1905 Reims, France
July 14, 1905 Mézières-Charleville, France
July 15, 1905 Sedan, France
July 16, 1905 Verdun, France
July 17, 1905 Chalon-sur-Marne, France
July 18, 1905 Bar-le-Duc, France
July 19–20, 1905 Nancy, France
July 21, 1905 Lunéville, France
July 22, 1905 Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, France
July 23, 1905 Epinal, France
July 24, 1905 Belfort, France
July 25, 1905 Vesoul, France
July 26, 1905 Chaumont, France
July 27, 1905 Troyes, France
July 28, 1905 Sens, France
July 29, 1905 Auxerre, France
July 30–31, 1905 Dijon, France
August 1, 1905 Besançon, France
August 2, 1905 Lons-le-Saunier, France
August 3, 1905 Bourg, France
August 4–13, 1905 Lyon, France
August 14, 1905 Mâcon, France
August 15, 1905 Chalon-sur-Saône, France
August 16, 1905 Le Creusot, France
August 17, 1905 Nevers, France
August 18, 1905 Moulins-sur-Allier, France
August 19, 1905 Roanne, France
August 20, 1905 Vichy, France
August 21, 1905 Riom, France
August 22, 1905 Montluçon, France

146 appendix
 August 23, 1905 Bourges, France
August 24–25, 1905 Orléans, France
August 26, 1905 Saumur, France
August 27, 1905 Angers, France
August 29, 1905 Cholet, France
August 30, 1905 Thouars, France
August 31, 1905 Châtellerault, France
September 1, 1905 Poitiers, France
September 2, 1905 Angoulême, France
September 3, 1905 Saintes, France
September 4, 1905 Rochefort, France
September 5, 1905 La Rochelle, France
September 6, 1905 Niort, France
September 7, 1905 La-Roche-sur-Yon, France
September 8, 1905 Saint-Nazaire, France
September 9, 1905 Vannes, France
September 10, 1905 Lorient, France
September 11, 1905 Quimper, France
September 12, 1905 Brest, France
September 13, 1905 Saint-Brieuc, France
September 14, 1905 Saint-Malo, France
September 15, 1905 Rennes, France
September 16, 1905 Laval, France
September 17, 1905 Le Mans, France
September 18, 1905 Tours, France
September 19, 1905 Châteauroux, France
September 20, 1905 Limoges, France
September 21, 1905 Périgueux, France
September 22, 1905-October 1, 1905 Bordeaux, France
October 2, 1905 Dax, France

appendix 147
 October 3, 1905 Bayonne, France
October 4, 1905 Pau, France
October 5, 1905 Tarbes, France
October 6, 1905 Mont-de-Marsan, France
October 7, 1905 Agen, France
October 8, 1905 Villeneuve-sur-Lot, France
October 9, 1905 Bergerac, France
October 10, 1905 Brive-la-Gaillarde, France
October 11, 1905 Cahors, France
October 12, 1905 Montauban, France
October 13–15, 1905 Toulouse, France
October 16, 1905 Albi, France
October 17, 1905 Castres, France
October 18, 1905 Carcassonne, France
October 19, 1905 Narbonne, France
October 20, 1905 Perpignan, France
October 21–22, 1905 Béziers, France
October 23, 1905 Sète, France
October 24–25, 1905 Montpellier, France
October 26, 1905 Alès, France
October 27–28, 1905 Nîmes, France
October 29, 1905 Avignon, France
October 30, 1905 Arles, France
October 31, 1905 Aix, France
November 1, 1905–December 11, 1905 Marseille, France
1906
March 4–5, 1906 Marseille, France
March 6–7, 1906 Toulon, France
March 8, 1906 Draguignan, France

148 appendix
 March 9–12, 1906 Nice, France
March 14–16, 1906 Genoa, Italy
March 17, 1906 La Spezia, Italy
March 18–20, 1906 Livorno, Italy
March 22–28, 1906 Rome, Italy
March 29, 1906 Terni, Italy
March 30, 1906 Perugia, Italy
March 31, 1906 Arezzo, Italy
April 1–3, 1906 Florence, Italy
April 4, 1906 Pisa, Italy
April 5, 1906 Parma, Italy
April 6–7, 1906 Modena, Italy
April 8, 1906 Bologna, Italy
April 9, 1906 Forlì, Italy
April 10, 1906 Ancona, Italy
April 11, 1906 Rimini, Italy
April 12, 1906 Ravenna, Italy
April 13, 1906 Ferrara, Italy
April 14, 1906 Padua, Italy
April 15–16, 1906 Verona, Italy
April 17, 1906 Mantua, Italy
April 18, 1906 Cremona, Italy
April 19, 1906 Piacenza, Italy
April 20, 1906 Pavia, Italy
April 21, 1906 Alessandria, Italy
April 22–26, 1906 Turin, Italy
April 27, 1906 Asti, Italy
April 28, 1906 Novara, Italy
April 29, 1906 Como, Italy
April 30, 1906–May 5, 1906 Milan, Italy

appendix 149
 May 7, 1906 Bergamo, Italy
May 8, 1906 Brescia, Italy
May 9, 1906 Vicenza, Italy
May 10, 1906 Treviso, Italy
May 11, 1906 Udine, Italy
May 13–15, 1906 Trieste, Italy1
May 16, 1906 Ljubljana,2 Slovenia
May 17–18, 1906 Zagreb,3 Croatia
May 19, 1906 Maribor,4 Slovenia
May 20, 1906 Klagenfurt, Austria
May 21–22, 1906 Graz, Austria
May 23, 1906 Lechen, Austria
May 24, 1906 Linz, Austria
May 26, 1906–June 14, 1906 Vienna, Austria
June 16–24, 1906 Budapest, Hungary
June 25, 1906 Miskolc, Hungary
June 26, 1906 Kosice,5 Slovakia
June 27, 1906 Uzhhorod,6 Ukraine
June 28, 1906 Mukacheve,7 Ukraine
June 29, 1906 Nyíregyháza, Hungary
June 30, 1906–July 1, 1906 Debrecen, Hungary
July 2, 1906 Békéscsaba, Hungary
July 3, 1906 Szentes, Hungary
July 4, 1906 Szeged, Hungary
July 5, 1906 Kikinda,8 Serbia
July 6, 1906 Zrenjanin,9 Serbia
July 7, 1906 Pančevo,10 Serbia
July 8, 1906 Vršac,11 Serbia
July 9, 1906 Timişoara,12 Romania
July 10–11, 1906 Arad, Romania

150 appendix
 July 12, 1906 Alba Lulia,13 Romania
July 13, 1906 Sibiu,14 Romania
July 14–15, 1906 Braşov,15 Romania
July 16, 1906 Sighişoara,16 Romania
July 17, 1906 Târgu Mureş,17 Romania
July 18–19, 1906 Cluj-Napoca,18 Romania
July 20, 1906 Oradea,19 Romania
July 21, 1906 Satu Mare,20 Romania
July 22, 1906 Sighetu Marmaţiei,21 Romania
July 23, 1906 Kolomyia, Ukraine
July 24–25, 1906 Chernovtsys,22 Ukraine
July 26, 1906 Luano-Frankivsk,23 Ukraine
July 27, 1906 Ternopil, Ukraine
July 28–30, 1906 Lviv,24 Ukraine
August 1, 1906 Przemyśl, Poland
August 2, 1906 Rzeszów, Poland
August 3, 1906 Tarnów, Poland
August 4–5, 1906 Kraków, Poland
August 6, 1906 Bielsko-Biała,25 Poland
August 7, 1906 Cieszyn,26 Poland
August 8, 1906 Ostrava,27 Czech Republic
August 9, 1906 Opava,28 Czech Republic
August 10, 1906 Přerov,29 Czech Republic
August 11–12, 1906 Brno,30 Czech Republic
August 13, 1906 Jihlava,31 Czech Republic
August 15, 1906 Zittau, Germany
August 16, 1906 Bautzen, Germany
August 17–20, 1906 Dresden, Germany
August 21–22, 1906 Chemnitz, Germany
August 23, 1906 Zwickau, Germany

appendix 151
 August 24, 1906 Plauen, Germany
August 25, 1906 Gera, Germany
August 26, 1906 Weimar, Germany
August 27, 1906 Eisenach, Germany
August 28, 1906 Fulda, Germany
August 29, 1906 Hanau, Germany
August 30, 1906 Worms, Germany
August 31, 1906 Saarbrucken, Germany
September 1–2, 1906 Metz,32 France
September 3, 1906 Luxemburg, Luxemburg
September 4, 1906 Trier, Germany
September 5, 1906 Coblenz, Germany
September 6, 1906 Bonn, Germany
September 7, 1906 Duren, Germany
September 8–9, 1906 Mönchengladbach, Germany
September 10, 1906 Verviers, Belgium
September 11, 1906 Namur, Belgium
September 12, 1906 Charleroi, Belgium
September 13, 1906 Mons, Belgium
September 14–17, 1906 Brussels, Belgium
September 18–19, 1906 Antwerp, Belgium
September 20–21, 1906 Ghent, Belgium

Notes
1. Between May 13 and August 13, 1906, the Wild West toured in
what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Current spellings
of town names and states names are given. When substantial
differences exist for the place names used at the time of the tour,
the former names are given as notes.
2. Formerly Laibach.
3. Formerly Agram.

152 appendix
4. Formerly Marburg.
5. Formerly Kassa.
6. Formerly Ungvar.
7. Formerly Munkacs.
8. Formerly Nagy-Kikinda.
9. Formerly Nagy-Becskerck.
10. Formerly Pancsova.
11. Formerly Versecz.
12. Formerly Temesvar.
13. Formerly Gyula-Fehervar.
14. Formerly Nagyszeben.
15. Formerly Brasso.
16. Formerly Segesvar.
17. Formerly Mar-Vasarhely.
18. Formerly Kolozsvar.
19. Formerly Nagyvárad.
20. Formerly Szatamar-Nemeti.
21. Formerly Maramar-Sziget.
22. Formerly Czernowitz.
23. Formerly Stanislau.
24. Formerly Lemberg.
25. Formerly Biala.
26. Formerly Teschen.
27. Formerly Mahr-Ostrau.
28. Formerly Troppau.
29. Formerly Prerau.
30. Formerly Brunn.
31. Formerly Iglau.
32. In 1906 Metz was part of Germany.

appendix 153
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In the Papers of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody series

Four Years in Europe with Buffalo Bill

By Charles Eldrige Griffin
Edited and with an introduction by Chris Dixon