Birmingham state herald., 1895-10-16
THE WILD WEST COMING.
Colonel Cody and All of the Show Coming. The Biggest Thing Birmingham Has
 Ever Witnessed.

Mir. John M. Burke, general manager of Buffalo Bilrs Wild West show, was a pleasant caller at the State Herald of flee last night. MT. Burke is an inter esting talker and a very pleasant gentle man. His travels and experiences, like those of Buffalo Bill, have furn, shed a subject for the historian and the novelist alike.
 MT. Burke, like the great show that he is managing. Is original and unique He is the best informed and most interesting character travelling today on the road in America Since 1872 he has been with Colonel Cody in all parts of the civilized globe
 A State Herald reporter spent most pleasant hour in conversation with the major. Birmingham will see," said the major, "on the 23d the largest, most comprehensive and instructive exhibition that has ever been given in the south It is not a circus, for 1t it too large for one. TO give our performance as com plete as it was given in Chicago we re- quire an auxiliary corps of 400 employees, besides 400 arena performers-S00 in all There are 225 draught horses, which are used to haul the paraphernalia exclusive ly. We have seating capacity of over 15,000. The entertainment is given in an open arena. The seats are arranged in nOTSe-SnOe IOrm, BlVlnS eVeFyDOOy a Iull and perfect view of the arena, and every one is protected from the sun and rain.
 "The unofficial recognition of eight governments is enough to secure the diff ferent classes of horsemen who compose the human interest of the show. There are Russian Cossacks and Indians and Arabs and South American gauchos and cowboys and plainsmen, of whom Colonel Cody is the type, and Mexican Rurralie from old Mexico, headed by the truly wonderful Signor Oropeza, and Texas Vaqueros Spanish Americana, thus in- cluding all the primitive men who are horsemen, and in conjunction with them cavalry from the United States, England, France and Germany, representing the four greatest cavalry nations of the world.
 AS to the entertainment, with one ex- ceptional point, that, too, can be left to the decision of the Spectator-that point is the natural incredulity that marks casual glance and places all exhibitions as generally an limitation of facts In this case 1t is truth, and original facts that are presented in the actual persons, characters and races connected with the animated tableaux representing phases in their home life and everyday exist ence. The management desires it inn pressed upon all that the features are genuine, and the interest lies in the con- gregating1 for the first time in the history E, ing and exercising in one spot-the Ital- fans from the Rockies; the Cossacks from the Caucasus; the intervening riders of the English, Irish, French and German cavalry; the Bedoun Arab of the desert; the cowboy of the American plains; the cavalryman of the great republic, and the Gaucho from the foothills of the An des (Argentine), meeting for the first time and forming an ethnological and equestrian amalgamation in one field never witnessed before in the history of the world. In this line the instructive qualities of the exhibition as regards horsemanship; different methods of equa- .tion, equipment and style; competing in friendship and leaving the on-lookers to judge by the eye that which description would fail to convey.
 Buffalo Bill will ride the horse that General Miles rode in his last campaign, and the horse that will carry the flag is the horse Sitting Bull rode and which Buffalo Bill purchased from him. This Is an event for the citizens of this city and vicinity to see something never be- fore, and perhaps never again The get ting together of this immense exhibition was only accomplished after years of trouble and toll. In few hours we show to the public that which would take years of travel to see.