The Buffalo Hunt Humbug

On Monday last, fifteen thousand people went down to the Queen city Course to see the “Buffalo Hunt.”  Almost every mode of conveyance was resorted to; steamboats and omnibuses, buggies and carriages, carts and drays, and Shank's mare [i.e. one's own two feet] were brought into requisition.  All sorts of people were there - church members and gamblers, loafers and ladies, the halt and lame, the young and old.  All expected to be humbugged, but all wanted to see how complete a humbug could be got up.  In this, nobody was disappointed!  The humbug was perfect! The buffalo wouldn't fight; wouldn't even run. An old cow would have made as good a fight.  The Indians shot a few arrows into the the poor brute and left.  The b'hoys [i.e. working class boys; apprentices] then took the animal in hand, and dispatched him with pistols, clubs and stones.

The cruelty of the sport, the folly of the people, and the swindling nature of the proceeding afford the theme for a paragraph, but what's the use?

from the Covington Journal, “A Newspaper Devoted to Politics, Literature, Agriculture, Education and the News,” Saturday, June 28, 1851.  You can read about another Buffalo hunt that took place, in Ludlow, here.