‘PORTRAITS IN THE HOUSE’, BY ‘A YOUNG PARLIAMENTARY HAND’ (ABRIDGED), UNITED IRELAND, 3 MARCH 1888, P. 6

From the beginning Cunninghame Graham was regarded as one of the most remarkable men in the new Parliament. His appearance alone was eminently calculated to single him out from the ordinary run and ruck of new members who huddled (timidly) together in the lobbies of Westminster after a general election. Some of those who first stared in amazement at the stranger – slight, slim, aquiline, eager, with keen bright eyes, a head of curling hair, and a pointed beard of the kind the Valois loved.

If Mr. Cunninghame Graham only carried himself a little less erectly, if his closely-knit frame had been a little less sinewy, and his movements less limber, he might very well have passed muster as the representative of a certain school of art. But anyone who carried investigation beyond the cursory glance soon noticed muscularity in the body which never came from wielding a paint-brush, a tan upon the firm flesh which never was due to the cool light and shade of stuccoed studios. In fact, the critical observer noted something about Cunninghame Graham that was of a soldierly smack, but not quite soldierly either. That the man was a mighty rider was obvious to the experienced eye in a little, but his movements were not that of a cavalryman: they were freer, less stiff, simpler.

London, more eager than Athens of old for something new, was pleased, at the time, to take a great deal of interest in and manifest a vast amount of enthusiasm for that curious production of American frontier life, the Cow-boy. Buffalo Bill and his merry men were the heroes of the hour, and in certain circles, while the craze lasted, little was talked or thought but the Cow-boy … The Cow-boy fever ran its course and died away as all such frenzies do in a great capital where people hunger and thirst after any new excitement.

If Cunninghame Graham had been content to call himself ‘Mexican Jack’ and to sport a sombrero, he would have obtained what the French call a succès fou, but he was a man with a mission, and languid London does not love men with missions.