Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-31

Written for The Evening Star by William Thorp.
No other people take so many holidays
as the Latin-Americans, but to them New
Year eve is 1.-The maddest, merriest day of
all the gladstone year" If peon has only
a single bolivar in the world, he will spend
every centavo of it on that greatest of all
'fiestas." Every man in the country from
the president in his palace to the beggar
in the streets, has very large and splendid
time seeing the old year out and the new
year in.
1 happened to be in Caracas the capital
of Venezuela at the close of 1902. A cou-
pie of days after Christmas I asked an at
tache of the American legation:
do these people celebrate the New Year
much?"
"Celebrate?' he said. We'll, L should
say so, Imagine the Fourth of July, cleo
ton night, Thanksgiving day and an Eng
lish 'Mafeking night all rolled into one,
and you will have some faint indea OF a
Venezuelan New Year fiesta "
There are so many BANKED festas' in
this blankety- blankety- blank country that
a man can never get his work done" added
an American coffee planter. who was talk
ing with u.s. when l first came here my
laborers used to take off two or three days
q week for holidays. If 1t wasn't some
saints day, it was the anniversary OF tne
victory of CarobObo or of the plrtn VI
Bolivar They didn't seem to want TO earn
money. If they could just get enough
money to buy food and cigarettes and lit
tie 'aguadiente' they were satisfied
Most Important of All.
IL have stirred up their ambition bit,
made them cut out a good many OF the
sfestas' but there are some holidays winch
YOU dare not say anything against in Latln-
America, and the chief of them is the New
Year My men won't work on new 1ear
day or the next day. and it Will probably
take them all the week to get ut Tor work
again.
Ii is impossible to sleep late on the morn
ing of the 31st of December in any South
American CITY, l was awakened soon a1ter
dawn by the changing of a hundreo Deils.
In Caracas there is an ancient church On
nearly every street corner. All oI ,nS is a. &C
cracked When New Year eve daWns tnose
bells are rung with vigor that threatens
to wreck the crazy steeple, and tneir ahius-
ing discords effectually murder sleep.
had hardly finished dressing when there
was a tremendous pounding on the door OF
my hotel bed room. Opening IT, ADMIT
ted a swarthy, eXcitable little venezuelan
dressed in a military uniform of blue, gold,
silver. red and most of the other colors
of the rainbow. He was Gen. Ramon MO
reno, one of President Cipriano castro
most trusted officers, guerrilla leader,
who ranked at that time as the De wet
of Venezuela.
Ready for the Celebration.
"Ah my friendr' he exclaimed. There
is a cocktail waiting for you on the piazza
there are two cocktails-three cocktails
Several cocktails, 1t is the New Year we
are about to celebrate!'
''You look a bit off color, general re-
marked ''You must have got up rather
early"
mo, my friend" the warrior replied: Il
did not go to bed last night We were be-
ginning to celebrate it. What is 1t that
YOU say in your great and glorious coun-
try-.painting the town red? Yes, that Is
what we did"
The general, as knew very well. had TIC
lead his troops out to battle against the
revolutionists. There are always revoiu-
tionists in Venezuela. 1t had been ex'
pected that his invincible army would adj
vance to victory two or three days before
but all the members of that army, from
the general down to the drummer boy, felt
that 1t was necessarily to walt until the
New Year fiesta" was over.
Most generals under such circumstances
would have been exceedingly anxious. They
would have burned the midnight oil over
maps and reports, considering their plan OF
campaign. Not so my friend Ramon Mo
reno He had been busy inaugurating the
New Year festivities. 1t was with diff
Guilty that / had managed to escape from
him the previous evening, and after my
base desertion he had gone the rounds OF
the gambling rooms and dancing halls until