Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1873 — Apocryphal. [ARTICLE]

Apocryphal.

A delegation of Ute Indians, on their way to visit their Great Father at Washington, recently, stopped over in Chicago, and paid a visit to the Exposition. This is what befel them there according to the Chicago 1 Timet: After they had looked through the building, and had gazed upon the many attractive things on exhibition, they ascended to the music gallery. But not before they had bought a charm-bell. Iron Bull tried to buy one of the saleswomen for his squaw, but she declined. He then said he would tomahawk her, and she fainted. A vulgar man shouted, “Cut her corsets,” and she revived. When the Indians reached the gallery they sang several hymns, and danced war breakdowns till the arches trembled. Then they decended, and went to the north end to look at the machinery. There were several buzz-saws, large circular ones, revolving at the rate of ever so many thousand times in a minute or more. The Indians were deeply interested spectators, and a Milwaukeeman with a wooden leg noticed them. He had often read in his Sunday-school books that the North American Indian is a great imitator, and he determined to test the truth of the assertion. So what did this Milwaukee man do but stick his left timber before the saw, and in a twinkling the lower part, boot and all, was lying on the floor. To say that Thin Belly was astonished would be but a mild way of expressing his feelings. He looked at the boot, and he looked at the man. Then he tragically remarked in his own language, “It shall never be said that a pale face waa more heroic than an Indian chief.” He folded his blanket more closely about his body, gave a look of scorn at the surrounding whites, and then stuck one of his legs in front of the swift-revolving cutter. But no sooner had he done so than he was more astonished than ever. He gave a yell, and, frightened nearly to death, the attendant quickly shut off the steam, and the saw ceased its revolutions. Perhaps it was not demolished by the other Indians! There wasn’t left a piece big enough for a fine comb; and the attendant aforesaid narrowly escaped with his life. In the meantime the Milwaukee man had disappeared, and has not been seen since. As Blackfoot and his friends were leaving the hall, he was heard to say: “Osaw mileg oph,” which interpreted means that a resident of Milwaukee had better not go West.t