The Savannah morning news., 1901-09-22

in the dead of night, threw Castro
from his bed. Then in his fright he
jumped through a window TO paved
court and broke his leg. The next day
| he moved from the Yellow House. the
| White House of Venezuela, to Mira
| Flores. And there, in the wing, where
walls, floor and ceiling are all of steel,
the Castros eat and sleep. Inciden-
tally the man who published the verses
in which the Dictator was christened
| Clown of Mira Flores. one DR.. Pedro
| Mlgares, is at this moment langulshing
| in the Rotunda, having been confined
| there since last April, when his poem
| first appeared-all this without trial
| and by the simple mandate of Castro's
| thumb.
| That the steel house is bullet proof
| is an added point of merit in the Die
| tator's eyes. That which Castro most
fears is not earthquake, not nature,
but human kind. Were he to camp on
the summit of Vesuvius. the uncer-
| tainty of the prolongation of his career
| could not be greater than it, is as the
| Dictator of Venezuela. The country
| over which he rules is volcano, and
| Caracas is its crater. And when
| comes the eruption the first victim will
| be Castro. A revolutionary army is
| mobilizing in the field. Colombian
| revolutionists are pouring over the
| border to lend a hand to their Vene
| zulan brothers, with the understanding
| that the attention will be reciprocated
| when Castro is overthrown and Co
| lombia becomes the seat of war
| That Venezuela has a revolutionary
| party is, of course, not remarkable.
| The conservative element of one ad-
| ministration invariably becomes the
| revolutionary element of the next adj
| ministration. But the particular dis
| contented party which is now in the
| field has special grudge against
| Castro. The Dictator shot the revo-
| lutionist's leader. General Acosta.
| Now, in that country, where such
| leaders are as thick as tramps along
| a railroad, never before has one been
| punished by death. But Castro said:
''If evr my soldiers capture Acosta he
| shall be shot" So last February,
when the revolutionist was taken In
his lair. the Dictator sent an order for
his captors to get Acosta into Caracas
before the Goth, that he, Castro, might
have the pleasure of supervising the
| execution. Failing this the order was
| to shoot Acosta on the 18th wherever
! he might be. When came the 18th the
| prisoner was still two hundred miles
| by horse from the capital-and so
| Acosta, one of the brightest intellects
and bravest soldiers in Venezuela was
| made to kneeI in the middle OF the
road, with his back to the firing squad,
and thus was carried out another SEN
! tence pronounced by Castro's thumb.
| To appreciate the Importance of the
| date of this occurrence it is necessary
to state that February 20 was the day
| on which Castro called his congress
! together, changed the constitution to
| suit his own purposes, and declared
| himself no longer Dictator, but Con-
stitutional President. The constitution
| forbids capital punishment. AS Die
| tator, Castro might shoot Acostas by
! the score and his legal right to do so
! would only be a matter of dispute.
! But once he became the chief executive
under the constitution such an act
| would be Illegal beyond question, and
| Castro, Immune as Dictator, would be
/ subject to consequences as President.
/ Castro's own soldiers love him not.
! He took away our thin uniforms"
! they say, land dressed US up in cloth
uniforms and caps, like French SOL
diers. Besides, he seldom pays us. So
he is glad when we desert, simply put
ting new men in our places" The Off
GERS of Castro's army, however. make
no complaint. For every time the Die
tator uses the military as the instru-
/ ment for making a golden haul the
officers get the drippings. To IL
/ lustrate: Last fall the soldiers
reported that three rich Cara
cas- merchants were boarding
gold within their homes The Dictator
ordered that each0, of these men be
taxed sixty thousand dollars for the
support of the government" The mer-
| chants refused to pay. Castro turned
/ them over to certain army officers,
who. having made them prisoners, kept
them tied to stakes facing the sun all
/ day, and facing an electric light as
| fiercely bright as the sun all night.
/ Half blinded and almost crazed by
/ their sufferings, they at last yielded
| and paid the tax" 19f-sE3
! Another case was not quite so profit
/ able, either to Castro or his military
staff. A German merchant arrived in
! Caracas and proceeded to collect bills
payable to the amount of twelve thou
sand dollars in cash. Castro not only
forbade the German to take the money
/ out of the country, but demanded that
it be paid over for government sup
port" The man was arrested and tor
tured until he understood that it was
his money or his life, and so led the
soldiers to the place where the treas
= ure was hidden. A few weeks later
one of the Kaiser's cruisers put in at
La Guayra, the captain hurried over
to Caracas and demanded not only the
twelve thousand dollars, but the pun
ishment of the officers who had mall
treated German subject. Castro, livid
of face liquidated on the spot, and the
guilty members of his staff are still in
! Maracaibo prison. e
Castro has not a single friend among
the foreign representatives in Caracas.