The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-05-08
FIESTA DE LOS ANGELES"

With an Estimate of the Length of the
Chinese Dragon, Description Of the
Masquerade Ball and Some Other
Matters and Things.
Pasadena, Cal, May l, 1897.
To the Editor of the Journal and Courier:
A city whose population has doubled
within the last seven years, and which
continues to flourish beyond compare,
may well afford to spend lot of mon
ey occasionally just for fun, and for
good natured foolery.
And so as the annual "Fiesta" comes
around again all the good people of the
good city of Angels proceed to enjoy
themselves to the utmost, decorate the
town with streamers and lanterns of
many colors, till the display becomes
Weariness to the eye, and allow bust
ness to have a rest. glad of an excuse to
cast cankering care to the winds.
One of the few remaining mission In
dams who with his fellows has been
here to help illuminate the parade, and
who had never before seen any city
shows, or even the ocean, albeit he is
more than a hundred years old, says
| that now he has seen a plenty and is
ready to die.
Most likely he will soon get over this
notion, for even a man of his age may
wish to add a few years or few score
of years to his record, but seeing so
many things at once, he was so much
dazed that the painted ornaments APP
peared likely to peel off his back.
| For he was shown newspaper offices
with all their apparatus and machine
ry; he was taken to the theater, where
he was especially charmed with the bal
| let; he was carried in swift elevators to
the top Of high buildings to view the
! surrounding country and the mighty
| Pacific ocean; he was talked to through
| the telephone, and himself answered to
! the familiar Hello" He saw wonders
that he had never dreamed of even at a
snake dance, and greatest delight of ALL
he was allowed to travel much around
town in those vehicles which the scrip
ture refers to as chariots of fire jostling
each other in the highways; in fact, a
special car was provided for these mis-
sion Indians, In which they cavorted
around, dressed in feathers and war
paint, till they We're dizzy and glad to
take the trail again, bound for their
own familiar deserts and mountains.
But it was not the Indians alone who
were new to the show and to other
things; such a lot of curious people
came from nobody knows where, and
| Of Go al1y
phisticated that it was wonderful to see
them just escape from total destruction,
and to wonder what they would or
could do next, or whether they might
not be swallowed bodily by the great
| Chinese dragon, which was far more
fearful of aspect than usual and so
much longer than ever before that the
city authorities felt obliged to annex
some neighboring territory on which to
rest its dreadful tail
The show began late at night with a
masquerade ball, and the tickets for
this ball were sold at bank of all
places, and at a bank, too, where, in or
binary time, 1t is difficult to get waited
on, because there is always such an I'M
| assorted crowd of customers who block
the space and passageways, and who
are of every nation under the sun, Mex
leans, Indians, South Sea Islanders,
Greeks, Turks, Japanese, Chinese, Par
sees, Hindoos, Jews from Jerusalem,
every kind of foreigners. together with
so-called natives, who are not natives
and never were.
Surely this was good place to sell
ball tickets, but they were sold just the
same, and the ball was worth the mon
ey
Here the queen was successfully
seated on her throne, with blare of
trumpets, genuflection of courteim
proclamations, delivery of city keys,
and such like mummery.
And while this amusement was in
progress the fifty mission Indians We're
engaged in their fire dance" There
are but few left of these Indians, and
only the older ones have preserved the
traditions and the methods of the old