Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium; Vol. 1 (of 2): being Notes of Eight Years' Travels and Residence in Europe with his North American Indian CollectionCatlin, George
History
Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway Indians in England, France, and Belgium; Vol. 1 (of 2): being Notes of Eight Years' Travels and Residence in Europe with his North American Indian Collection
Catlin, George
England -- Description and travel; France -- Description and travel; Indians of North America
I therefore advertised, as he had suggested, that the Indians could
only be seen in London that number of days; and from night to night
announced the same thing from the platform when giving my lecture;
and to the last day, at his request, stated that the Indians were
positively to leave London at that time. The next morning after we
had made this final close, and I had announced it as such to the
audience, advertisements appeared in the papers that "he had rented
the adjoining room to Mr. Catlin's, and on the same floor, for two
months--a much finer room, where ladies and others would be much better
accommodated; where the lectures in future would be given by Mr.
Rankin, _himself_, who had _lived all his life among the Indians_." And
in his advertisements, a few days after, he had the imprudence to state
that "_hereafter the beautiful and interesting bride of the 'Strong
Wind,' the interpreter, will make her appearance on the platform with
the Indians, and preside at the piano_."
This extraordinary advertisement, which of course was after the
consummation of the marriage, was inserted in all the London daily
journals, and was at once a key to all the absurd and disgusting
efforts that had been used to create an excitement on the occasion of
the wedding. It had been carefully announced that the wedding was to
take place at a certain hour in the day in St. Martin's church, that
ten thousand people might be waiting there for a chance to see the
novel spectacle of a beautiful London girl married to an Indian from
the wilds of America, and then to trumpet it through the city and
through the land where they were going, that the shillings might the
more abundantly pour in for a sight of the extraordinary pair that
were united in St. Martin's church in London, and the "beautiful and
interesting bride who was to preside at the piano" while the Indians
danced.
To make this affair more exciting, and its disgusting humbug more
complete, several omnibuses and coaches, drawn by four-in-hand,
were employed to convey the "beautiful and interesting bride" and
bridegroom, and Mr. Rankin and his attendants, through the streets
to and from the church where the ceremony took place. Each of these
splendid affairs was decorated with evergreens, ribands, &c.; and on
their tops, bands of music playing through the streets, and other
attendants, covered with belts and ribands, waving flags of various and
brilliant colours. These carriages were directed to be driven through
the principal thoroughfares of London, that the excitement and hubbub
might be the more complete, and that the greater number of shillings
might be turned into the exhibition-room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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