The Plymouth Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1869-1941, 1870-06-16
The Buffalo.
BY TIE "FAT CONTRIBUTION" "

TIE bulfaloes live on the plains, ant
they die there, too, as general thing
| They didn't always live on the plains
They once lived in a city which they bull
with their own earnings at the foot o
Lake Erie, and which they called it Buf
falo. But David Gray aud 10. LarnarC
came there and drove them away, the
whole drove of them, and now they arc
compelled to roam. No one would Rome
or even Utica unless be was com
PEELED to-
The buffalo is fond of plain food, which
accounts for his being on the plains Sc
much. He is migratory in his habits
usually travelling in a herd On a clear
day he can he heard travelling a great dis
tance. His principal industry is the man
ufacture of buffalo robes, Of which bust
ness he enjoys monopoly subject only to
the revenue collector and the COnstitu-
ton of the United States. He occasion
ally embarks in the show business, and is
led around the ring with a ring in his
nose; and as he struts and bellows Gas
though some of nature's journeymen had
made buffalOes and not made them wel),
he sends everybody away with ring in
the ear 1t is an opera bufla-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 ont to
board with a farmer in the country, stipu-
lating that he should have all the advan-
tages of home, as he had been reared
tenderly. The buffalo would break into
the neighbors' lots, and the Doctor had to
stand a lawsuit with every farmer for
miles around He says it wouldn't have
cost HIM any more To pasture an entire
herd than i: did that one buffalo. They
tried everything to stop his breaking out,
but even the Renovator, which cures al
most every other breaking out, wouldn't
cure that. The Doctor becoming cXas-
perated, at length sold him To a sldeshow-
man, and he is now travelling around the
country running tease when he might
have lived in luxurious case if he had only
behaved himself But butfaioes don't
know when they are well of 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. lie imported, at
great expense, buffalo from the plains
just west of Lawrenceburg. He was a
venerable butlalo-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 anu arrows,
tomahawks, scalping knives and Winches-
ter repeating rifles, were drawn up on one
side OF the ring, impatient for the hunt to
begin.
But the buffalo refused to bulge. He
was deaf alike To cntreaty or remon-
STRANGE Col Wood kicked him with a
pair of heavy solid boots until he was out
of breath, then jabbcd him with pitch,
fork, and burned him with a red hot
poker. The buffalo seemed to take mel
anch0ly 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 lav,
and it WAS the judgment OF the Coroner's
jury that sat on his body that the treat
ment he received to make "a Queen City
holiday shortened his days and deiracted
considerably trom 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 hunt-ClnciRndti Times.