Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1870-06-17
The Buffalo.
BY THE "FAT CONTRIBUTOR"

TIE buftaloes live on the plains, and
they die there, too, as general thing.
They didn't always live on the plains
They once lived in city which they built
with their own earnings at the foot of
Lake Erie, and which they called il Buf.
falo. But David Gray aud 10. Larnard
came there and drove them away, the
whole drove of them, and now they are
compelled to roam. No one would Rome
or even Utica unless he was COM
PEELED to.
The buffalo is fond of plain food, which
accounts for his being on the plains so
usually travelling in herd. On a clear
day he can be heard travelling great dis
tance. His principal industry is the man
ufacture of buffalo robes, of which busi-
ness he enjoys monopoly subject only to
the revenue collector and the Constitu-
ton of the United States. He occasion
ally embsrks in the show business, and is
led around the ring with a ring in his
nose and as he struts and bellows (as
though some of natures journeymen had
made buffaloes and not made them welD,
he sends everybody away with ring in
the ear. 1t is an opera buffa low enough
for any one.
The buffalo isn't good thing to pas
ture. Put him into pasture and he will
pasture in every other pasture rather than
the pasture you want him to pasture in.
When DR.. Kerz's menagerie got reduced
down to one comparatively mild and in
offensive buffalo he put that buffalo out to
board with farmer in the country, stipu-
lating that he should have all the advan-
tsges of home, as he had been reared
tenderly. The buffalo would break into
the neighbors' lots, and the Doctor had to
stand lawsuit with every farmer for
miles around. He says it wouldn't have
cost him any more to pasture an entire
herd than it did that one buffalo. They
tried everything to stop his breaking out,
but even the Renovation, which cures al
most every other breaking out, wouldn't
cure that. The Doctor becoming exas-
perated, at length sold him to a side-show-
man, and he is now travelling around the
country running "case" when he might
have lived in luxurious ease if he had only
behaved himself But buffaloss don't
know when they are well off any more
than other folks.
People used to hunt the buffalo in the
vicinity of Cincinnati. They hunted the
buffalo for the last time about twenty
years ago, Just across the river. Mr..
Wood, OF Woods Theatre, did the wood
work for that hunt. He imported, at
great expense, buffalo from the plains
Just west of Lawrenceburg He was a
venerable buffalo-the first white buffalo,
we believe, born south of Marietta. He
had voted for all the Presidents from
Washington down, and remembered
when the Ohio was only little creek.
Although heavy in years, he was very
light in flesh, and so weak that Col. Wood
had to carry him into the ring in his
arms. He was paralyzed in all his legs, and
had fourteen different kinds of rheumatism.
The hunters, several hundred in number,
some mounted and some on foot and all
armed to the teeth with bows and arrows,
tomahawks, scalping knives and Winches-
ter repeating rifles, were drawn up on one
side ofthe ring, inpatient for the hunt to
begin.
But the buffalo refused to bulge He
was deaf alike to entreaty or remon-
STRANGE Col. Wood kicked him with a
pair of heavy solid boots until he was out
of breath, then jabbed him with a pitch.
! fork, and burned him with a red-hot
poker. The buffalo seemed to take mel
apcholy pleasure in the latter practice it
reminded him of the burning of Buffalo
by the British, an occurrence which he
distinctly remembered. They worried the
life out of the old fellow where he lay,
and it was the judgment of the Coroner's
jury that sat on his body that the treat
ment he received to make Queen City
holiday shortened his days and detracted
considerably from his nights. 1t is re
markable fact that although some thirty
thousand Cincinnatians participated in
that famous hunt, not one of them can
now be found. How soon we are forgot
ten when we are dead.
And how soon we forgot we ever went
to the buffalo ohunt.-Oincinndt Times.