Photographing on the Wane — Or Maybe Not

1910

Photographing on the Wane

It Is Reported That Amateurs Are Showing Decreased Interest in Societies and at Exhibitions

Complaints are rife of decreased interest in photographic societies and in photographic exhibitions. There are certainly fewer of the latter than there were six or eight years ago, and societies, if not actually less numerous, are on the whole weaker both in numbers and in enthusiasm.

In the United States their numbers have decreased 50 or 60 per cent, at least. It is easy to deduce from this a decay of interest in photography and a lessening of the number of amateur photographers, and, indeed, this easy operation has been performed.

Simple deductions on complex questions should always be regarded with suspicion, and in this case suspicion develops into incredulity when it is found that side by side with the degeneration of the photographic society an increased and ever-increasing business is being done in plates, films and papers.

Cardiff Giant To Be Exhibited Again

1900

THE BIG FAKE

Cardiff Giant is to be Placed on Exhibition Again

History of the Famous Fake From Fort Dodge.

P. T. Barnum Once Offered Sixty Thousand Dollars for It

Dubuque, Jan. 1. — All the older residents of Webster county and the country in general are on familiar terms with the history of the celebrated Cardiff Giant, that made a fortune for its owners in a few weeks and startled the whole scientific world. Had it not been for the shrewdness of Prof. Marsh of Yale, who refused to be gulled into the commonly accepted belief as to the genuineness of the image the public might have been humbugged indefinitely and the coffers of the owners of the Giant filled to overflowing.

The true birth of the Cardiff Giant was in the brain of George Hull, a Connecticut Yankee, who had the huge block of stone mined near Fort Dodge and transported with infinite difficulty to Boone, where it was shipped to Chicago, where the giant was chiseled out and treated with the proper acids to give the discoloration of age. It was then shipped to Union, New York, and, reshipped to Cortland, and thence carried during the night to the farm of "Stubb" Newell, in Cardiff, and duly buried by moonlight. That was in 1868.

A year later Newell "happened" to be digging a well and "much to his surprise" came across a strange image. The news spread about the unearthing of a fossil man of gigantic stature and thousands of people were soon flocking to see the "discovery." Over seven thousand dollars were made before it was removed from the hole where it was buried. It was then placed on exhibition and shipped about the country, no one daring to doubt its genuineness. Finally "Tamus" became so popular that P. T. Barnum offered sixty thousand dollars for his services for three months, and thereupon a number of other pieces of stone about the country were "discovered" and were claimed to be "original Tamuses." It is even now said that the giant of the world's fair was not the original "Tamus, God of Gods." Thousands thought that they were gazing on the biggest humbug on earth, when they were told that Tamus was the original Cardiff Giant. It is said that all this while the great original was slumbering peacefully in the freight office of the New York Central at Syracuse.

By some odd way the stone found its way to Syracuse, was stored away in the freight office and relic hunters left him unmolested. The road kept a bill on file in its archives for freight due from someone, who could not be found.

And now, it is said, after his retirement of fifteen to twenty years, the Cardiff Giant, dug from the gypsum beds of Fort Dodge, is to be again placed on exhibition, this time advertised as the biggest fake of the century.

—Waterloo Semi Weekly Courier, Waterloo, Iowa, Jan. 2, 1900, p. 1.

Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Exhibition Tomorrow

Syracuse, New York, 1902

THE WILD WEST

Buffalo Bill's Show to Appear To-morrow.

END OF EXHIBITION IN SIGHT

It Pictures a Period Which Is Fast Passing Away and Soon None Will Be Alive to Participate in It — Many Realistic Scenes Are Displayed — Exhibition Will Give Two Performances Beside a Street Parade in the Morning.

The Wild West will be here to-morrow. The American, German and English cavalry, the cowboys, Indians, vaqueros and gauchos, the Cossacks, Arabs, Bedouins and other wild horsemen, the Roosevelt Rough Riders, Cuban insurgents and the Baden-Powell South African troopers will give their stirring exhibition. For over twenty years this assemblage of savage and civilized horsemen have wandered throughout the United States and over the continent of Europe.

But the end is near, for fate is overtaking both the red and white man, entirely changing conditions. In a few years the painted war Indian will belong to the past and with him will disappear the rider of the plains, the cowboy herder. Then there will be no Wild West, for its present charm and value lie in its integrity and faithful adherence to historical accuracy.

Colonel Cody found fame and fortune by reproducing types of Western characters as they really existed in the olden days. He now looks forward to the day when the exhibition must cease to exist for lack of material.

General "Tecumseh" Sherman witnessed a performance of the Wild West before it had been brought to its present perfection and at the close said to Colonel Cody (Buffalo Bill):

"Billy, for my children and grandchildren, who can never see these things as we saw them, I thank you."

How the Indians Worked.

Among the numerous, almost painfully realistic scenes illustrative of pioneer life on the Western border is one showing the manner of approach and attack by the stealthy and cunning red savages upon a settler's cabin. As here enacted, a band of pioneers, men who ride fast and shoot straight, come to the rescue in good time and leave a satisfying sufficiency of Indians effectively reformed from their evil ways. But Western men who lived on the frontier in the days when such incidents were common, recall bitterly and sadly, too many occasions when the rescuers did not come in time.

The "breeches-buoy" operated by the Atlantic coastguard life-savers has been the means of saving over a hundred lives from vessels wrecked on the Eastern coast in the terrific gales of last winter. A crew of experienced life-savers — on furlough from Government service — show in the arena of the Wild West how communication with a wreck is established and the breeches-buoy worked. It is an exhibit of thrilling interest.

Other popular features of this famous exhibition, such as the big battle scenes, he wonderful lassoing of the Mexicans, the daring riding of the bucking bronchos by the cowboys, cavalry and artillery drills by United States soldiers, Indian war dances and the wonderful shooting of Colonel Cody (Buffalo Bill) and Johnny Baker, will be seen at Kirk Park at two performances to-morrow. The mounted parade, which will pass through the principal streets in the morning, will give the spectators a good idea of the magnitude and interesting character of the exhibition.

—The Post-Standard, Syracuse, New York, June 29, 1902, page 10.