The Republican journal., 1902-10-23

much better. | COuGhed until commenced spit
| ting blood. but now l feel much stronger and
| entirely well. D1. Pierce's Golden Medical
!, Discovery is the best medicine have ever taken
7 My home is i'll Williamsburg, Virginia"
Il DR.. Pierce's Pleasant Pellets are a la
Sdies laxative No other medicine equals
them for gentleness and thoroughness.
pen to a deposed Dictator is Danish
! ment from the country, and leaders of
revolutions are rarely executed. The
jails are full of them as well as "the
woods" In these parts, a revolution
is accepted as fair expression of vox
popull, and there are thousands of pro-
fesSlonal revolutionSts in the country,
ready at any minute to espouse the
cause of any body who is able to pay
them for it. The revolutionary leader
has little to lose and a big possibility of
substantial gain. A bran new revolu-
tion is conceived and born in an hour
and full grown within few days, and
the people would be disappointed if an
election went off without the eclat of
a revolution. preparation is needed
! in organizing the fighting force like
! that which delayed the United States
at the beginning of the Spanish A meri-
| sary department, no hospital arrange
! ments, no provisions for paying the
men and no bother about arms-for if
guns are lacking, clubs, cane-cutters, or
any other old thing that can be used as
a weapon answers as well. The regular
army consists of about seven thousand
men, mostly officers. When a revolution
1 starts, the poems ignorant farm labor
ers are promptly dstfted into one army
OF the other. and upon the first victory
! they as promptly 60 over to the winning
side Armed with bludgeons or cane
cutters, similar to the Cuban machete,
! they are not bad fighters. being utterly
| reckless of their lives When good
/ Y eneZuelan has q grudge against hlS
neighbor, he usually says nothing about
it until the next inevitable revolution
i comes along and then he can easily set
! tie it with compound interest. The
! maximum penalty for the most afro
clouS crime is eleven years impris0u-
ment. This period is usually given for
| stealing, and therefore very few thetts
are committed. You may leave doors
and windows open and valuables LAYING
! about loose, almost anywhere in Vene
/ zuela with perfect safety. while your
I precious life might not be worth brass
i farthlng. y murderer is generally SEN
! fenced to imprisonment for year or
| two; and ne takes his punishment
cheerfully knowing that revolution
| is sure to occur in a month or SO, when
the prison doors will be opened for re-
cruits, by the faction which can soon
est get to them.
The governor of the Federal District,
who is appointed by the President, of
course resides in Caracas where he oc-
cupies the chapel of an ancient convent,
which was long ago confScated for sec
ular purposes. Its narrow hall is mem
orable, being the same in which the
! declaration of Venezuelan indepen-
dence was signed. Upon one of its
walls hangs a crude painting represent
ing that event and called the Decree
of Liberty" while on the other side
appears the most interesting relic in all
South America-noth less than the
blood-stained banner which Francisco
Pizarro bore in his conquest of Peru
1t is about four feet square, of faded
pink silk, embroidered in gold by Queen
Isabella herself, the design being the
combined escutchion of Arragon and
Castile the whole enclosed within a
heavy gilt frame. 1t seem speculiarly
appropriate that this ancient emblem
of avarice, cruelty and lust should
moulder to dust i'll the room where was
uttered the first feeble protest against
! Spanish oppression.
Venezuela's S commerce which is nat
/ urally bound up with agricultural in
dustry, has more than doubled itself
within the last twenty years. Fore
|
coffee, the yearly product averaging
eight hundred thousand pounds. There
ought to be a great deal more to it, and
would be but for the coffee panic of
1877, when the bean became so cheap
! in all markets, less than four cents
per pound when delivered at La Guaira)
that hundreds of planters pulled up
their coffee bushes and replaced them
with cocoa trees. The plantations Of
coffee and cocoa ("quintaz," they are
called, extend from the coast way up
into the mountains. The best coffee
grows in what is known as the ITEM
perate" belt, that is at an elevation be-
tween three and five thousand feet.
Higher than this the air is too chilly
for best results, and lower down the
coffee bushes must be shaded by large
trees to protect them from the scorch-