The Savannah morning news., 1901-09-22
CASTRO OF THE STEEL HOUSE.
VENEZUELA's PRESIDENT LIVES IN
BULLET PROOF APARTMENT.

| Knowing That 1t Is Only Question
of Time When His Country win
BE Too Hot to Hold Him, He Is
boarding Up Riches Abroad and
Collecting More by ExtOrtiOn-The
Shooting of AcOstR, and why 1t
Was Legal One Day, but Would
Have Been Illegal the Next-Tor-
turing Two Merchants for Their
Money-Castro's RetOrt TO the Uni
ted states Minister-Iis Personal
Traits.
Copyright 1901, by Gibson Willets.)
At this moment Cipriano Castro,
self-seated Presidetn of Venezuela, can
say. with more of truth than Louis
XIV of France said it, II am the
state" Castro is Venezuela. He has
seen no part of the world outside of
his own country; inside it he is abso-
Lutte. The worlds attention has been
attracted to this South American re-
public, not by the possibility of clash
of arms between Venezuela and Co
lombia, not by the so-called asphalt
war, not by the ION to Caracas" cry
of the revolutionists. but by the men
who is the cause of the noise which
his country is making-Castro.
The President, or, to use the only
title to which he yet has legal right,
the dictator, works as silently as a
servant in rubber shoes. He moves in
the darkness, stealthily, as one whose
sv.A- L. -.
bat among the people. His movements
have been reported to the nations, and
hence the world is watching him. Just
now he is preparing for the cry, Halt.
his preparations being made with a
view to at last seeing the world be-
yond Venezuela. For sooner or later
he must follow one or another of his
ecessors-Guzman Blanco, who
died wealthy in Paris; Crespo, who was
shot in battle; Andrade, who is now
working for his living in Trinidad. 1t
is not likely that he will depart as did
his immediate predecessor, Andrade,
who, having escaped through the back
door of the palace as Castro and his
soldiers crashed in at the front, fled
to Barbados on VeneZuelas only gun
boat, and then, with infinite courtesy,
sent the boat back to Castro with
note saying: 81 return you the navy;
you may need it yourself" Castro's
aspirations lean rather to the Blanco
method of exit and to a golden exile.
Traitors in his own house tell of fire.
quent shipments of gold sent abroad
by the thrifty President. So when the
people pounce upon him with a sight
draft, as it were, demanding that he
pay the penalty of his greed, he will
not have to stop to look for his pocket
book: his wealth will have gone be-
fore him and he can fly on the instant.
Castro rules not with tongue or pen
or sword, but with his thumb. AS he
moves that thumb, to the left, to the
right, so is the law; as Simon said:
Thumbs up, thumbs down." One day
last year, in the Prado, man named
Lopez fired a pistol point blank in
Castro's face. BY miracle the bullet
went astray. When the would-be as
sassin was brought before Castro, the
dictator jerked his thumb toward the
door, and Lopez was thrown into that
Black Hole of Caracas, the Rotunda.
Recently, when the Judge of the Su-
perior Court inspected the prison, none
of the prison authorities could remem-
Der having seen Lopez after the first
days of his incarceration. Escaped"
said the governor of the prison, but
offered no proofs. The verdict of Cara
Murdered and buried in the Jail" Per-
haps Castro had jerked him thumb
downward.
The dictator has the face of tired
man, eyes of the ferret, mouth of
cruelty. BY temperament he is
nervous, irritable, impatient, his
excitability finding expression prin-
cipally in his thumbs. or
government he has shown that he
knows as much as a chief of bandits.
BY some he is called the Clown of Mira
Flores, which needs explanation. In
the heart of the capital city there is a
palace which has an extension built
entirely of steel. The house is called
Mira Flores, and was the residence of
Crespo when that fighting general was
president The steel extension was
not built with the forethought of fire
it is earthquake proof. 1t has two
rooms, like compartments in a safe
deposit vault and in this strong box
of a place the Dictator spends most
of his time. Also the Sonora Castro.
They come naturally by their fear of
earthquakes. When the town of Gu
cuta, years ago. was shaken from the
map as a crumb from a tablecloth,
Senoro Castro was the only member
of his family to escape the devasta-
ton. Castro himself stood on a hill
outside the town and saw his abode
crumble like house of cards upon the
heads of those within. Again last Oc-
tober the great Caracas earthquake,
n m <~SA ~