The William F. Cody Archive: Documenting the life and times of Buffalo Bill

Buffalo Bill in London.

Although Mr. Cody has not been in London over a month he is today as well known to the masses of this great city of 5,000,000 as is the queen. You could not pick up in the most obscure quarter of London any one so ignorant as not to know who and what he is. His name is on every wall. His picture is in nearly every window. The wonder of this lies in the fact that the London public is strangley dull and unimaginative. The people of one quarter are often as ignorant of a neighborhood within a stone's throw of them as if it were in Central Africa. You find constantly the proof of this in inquiring your way about town. The policemen never know where particular streets or buildings outside of their beats are located.

An Englishman who has lived in London for a quarter of a century tells me that no one but an American would think of asking a London policeman for anything in the way of information. London policemen are often placed on guard in front of English officials' houses where they are absolutely ignorant of the name of the occupant. It is a genuine and not an affected ignorance. I have asked higher police officials about this and they say that the men very often do not know and do not care. I saw some twenty policemen guarding one day the house of the prime minister. I asked several of the men on guard if they knew whose house they were guarding. They all replied in the most courteous negative. Finally, one of them referred me to an older constable who had been on the beat in that neighborhood for some years, and he was able to give me the information. Imagine a set of New York policemen guarding any prominent official's house in New York without their knowing just what they were doing, and particularly if it were the house of the chief officer of our government.--T. C. Crawford [1] in New York World.