Part 18

seldom more that one. This is the tallest structure in the city, having two full stories, with a wide balcony stretching around the interior walls. At one end is a lofty elliptical-shaped room, two hundred feet long, and from forty to one hundred in width, without a pillar. This is the place where official balls and receptions are held, and the Venezuelans are much given to that sort of thing. There is no carpet, the floor being of inlaid woods of different colors, and there has been no attempt at frescoing, and the walls and ceilings are of the most ghastly white, so that the furniture of gilt, and upholstered in the most gorgeous brocades and satins, has a somewhat startling effect. It is arranged, as all Venezuelan furniture is, in rows along the walls. This room is used as a national portrait-gallery also, and there is a collection of about sixty pieces, as good as one often finds and better than we have at Washington, representing the notable men in the history of the republic. On one side is a heroic portrait of Bolivar, and on the other one of Guzman Blanco, looking as grand and proud as if he had made the world. Guzman was the author and creator of this gorgeousness, and the people are not apt to forget it; but he was strictly impartial in making the collection of portraits, and if the men whose faces look down upon us were to meet in the room where their portraits face each other with fraternal cordiality, there would be such a carnival of blood and bruises as has never been seen since the celebrated encounter of the Kilkenny cats.

In one of the wings of the Palacio Federal sits the Supreme Court of the country, and in the other are the offices of the Interior and War Departments, while at the opposite end of the building are the halls of the National Legislature, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies--two lofty, barn-like rooms, each about sixty feet square, and entirely destitute of decoration, except the never-ending portraits of Bolivar and Guzman. The members sit in ordinary cane-seated office-chairs, without desks or tables, the presiding officers being placed in little coops perched very high up on the walls, with a shelf for the tribune on one side, and another for the clerk on the other.

Congress meets on the 20th of February of each year. The Upper House is composed of two senators from each State, elected by a direct vote of the people, and serving for four years. The Lower House has one representative for each twenty-five thousand population, elected for two years, also by a direct vote of the people. The first duty of Congress when it assembles is to elect from its own members a council of sixteen, and this council selects a President of the republic, with two Vice-Presidents from its members, by ballot. The Council is perpetual, and supposed to be always in session, their constitutional duty being to serve as a check upon the President. They can veto his acts, but he cannot veto theirs. They have power to enact legislation during the Congressional recess, which is known as Decrees of the Council, and is supposed to be reviewed by Congress at the following session. The Council elects the Federal judiciary and confirms the appointments of the President, thus sharing in the executive as well as the legislative power of the Government, and, to a certain extent, in the judicial, as they have the authority to remove as well as appoint judges.

Such is the constitutional form of government in Venezuela; but if common rumor is worthy of belief, its exercise is somewhat mythical. Guzman Blanco is supposed to carry Congress, Council, President, and courts all under his own hat. He nominates senators and members of Congress, and his candidates are invariably elected. He makes out a list of candidates for the Council, and they are chosen. Then the man whom he names is made President. There is a constitutional provision prohibiting the re-election of a President, so that Guzman can serve in that capacity every alternate two years, the intervening time being filled by some friend of his choice, who is said to be entirely subject to his will.

The official residence of the President faces the central plaza, or Plaza Bolivar, and is known as the Yellow House, but is not at present occupied, being too small to contain the family of General Crespo, who has seven children. Guzman Blanco never occupied it, for the same reason, as he has nine children. The Yellow House is a gaudy affair of two stories, with only twelve rooms, including four official parlors, a magnificent state dining-room, servants’ quarters, and all that sort of thing. Official dinners are given there nowadays, and occasionally the President receives foreign ambassadors in the parlors.

The city of Caracas is a Federal district, like the city of Washington, with a governor appointed by the President. His office is in a memorable room, corresponding to Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It was formerly the chapel of an old convent, confiscated like the rest, and the remainder of the building is used for the police headquarters, the municipal court, and other local authorities.

This narrow little room which the Governor occupies is the same in which the Declaration of Venezuelan Independence was signed, and upon its walls hangs a picture commemorating the event. Strangely enough, beside this painting of the decree of Liberty hangs a heavy gilt frame containing the banner Pizarro carried in the conquest of Peru--the rarest and most interesting relic in all South America. It is about four feet square, of heavy pink silk, faded almost to white, embroidered with gold by the fair hands of Queen Isabella herself, the design being the combined escutcheons of Aragon and Castile, and it is still in an excellent state of preservation. It is with the keenest irony of contrast that this age-begrimed banner should hang in the room where the first voice was raised against the tyranny it represented; here, beside the voice, scarcely legible now to the eye, but to the mind speaking with mighty force the long story of Spanish oppression, and illustrating the first feeble and unsuccessful protest. This banner was the emblem of cruelty, avarice, and lust, and under its dainty folds more crimes were committed in the name of Christ and civilization than an eternity of perdition could adequately punish.

Of equally striking significance in the room where this banner hangs exists a permanent rebuke and protest against the religion in whose name these crimes were committed. The Government refuses to recognize the authority of the Romish Church even in the sanctity of marriage, and a civil ceremony is essential to legitimate wedlock. The bride and groom may go to the church afterwards, but they must come here first, and in the presence of the civil magistrate make the vows to love, honor, and obey until death do them part, or their issue will have no right of inheritance. The Church has threatened to excommunicate, but the decree of Congress is inexorable, and the archbishop has finally yielded submission. When a couple want to be married, the groom goes to the Governor or his deputy and secures a license, notice of which is given for two weeks in a printed form, which is tacked upon a bulletin-board beside the entrance to the office. Banns are also required to be published for the same period in the official newspaper. Then, if no one appears with cause by which the two should not be united, the bridal-party comes to the office of the Governor, and there make their vows and sign the contract which makes them man and wife.

The following is the form of marriage contract:

“PARISH TRIBUNAL, Caracas, Ja. 18th, 1885.

“This day have appeared before me, presiding over this tribunal, Serapio Antonio Gutierez and Felipa Rivas, and declared that they are unmarried: that he is twenty-five years of age and that she is fifteen; that she is a resident of this parish, and that he is a resident also; that his occupation is that of a merchant, and that her occupation is that peculiar to the home. They declare that they have not changed their places of residence during the last six months, and that they desire to enter into marriage.

“In performance of the foregoing announcement, which has been advertised for fifteen days, as the law directs, in the most public places of this city, and no one having appeared to deny their right to become husband and wife, they therefore on this day agree to become such, and have taken upon them the vows required and recognized by the law. Therefore, this day, at seven o’clock in the evening, assembled with them in the municipal palace, I, General Basidio Gabante, President of the Eastern Federal District, by order of the Governor and President of the Municipal Council, in the presence of Felipe Aguerra, an engineer, citizen of this Republic, and Luis R. Tores, merchant and citizen of the Republic, have declared the evidence of their free will and right to matrimony sufficient under the law.

“Then was read to them, as above named, section thirteen of the law of the Republic, which explains and sets forth the reciprocal rights and duties of the husband and wife. Immediately thereafter I asked Serapio Antonio Gutierez the question, ‘Do you wish to take Felipa Rivas as your wife?’ who then answered in a distinct voice, ‘Yes; I want her, and take her thus.’ Then I asked Felipa Rivas, ‘Do you take Serapio Antonio Gutierez to be your husband?’ who in the same manner answered, ‘Yes; I want him, and take him thus.’

“Addressing myself to both, I said, ‘You are now joined in matrimony, perpetual and indissoluble, and you are required to support and assist each other, and provide each other, and the children that may be born to you, with the necessaries of the home, and be to each other a comfort and a blessing.

“The above, having been properly witnessed, was signed by the married couple in my presence, and immediately entered in the book of civil registry.

“SERAPIO ANTONIO GUTIEREZ. “FELIPA RIVAS.

“FELIPE AGUERRA, _Engineer_. } _Witnesses._ “LUIS R. TORES. }

“JULIO BAEZ PUMAR, _Clerk_. BASIDIO GABANTE, _Prefect_.”

Under a glass cylinder, on a stand beneath the banner of Pizarro, is a large book bound in scarlet plush, with heavy gold clasps and hinges, in which the contracts are kept and the record of Venezuelan wedlock preserved. All the Catholics go at once to the church from the municipal palace, and repeat their vows, with the benediction of the priest, but this is not essential. At this same office the record of births and deaths is also kept in the strictest manner. Formerly, as in Cuba, the legitimacy of a child and permission to bury the dead could be acknowledged by the Church alone, but the republic has confiscated all the cemeteries, and opened the gates to those of every faith, Jew or Gentile, Protestant or Catholic.

The Government is very exacting in many respects. One day a little boy was stolen. The only clew was given by some children, who saw their playmate seized by a man who drove away with him in a hack. Every hackman in the city was arrested and thrown into prison; every coach was seized, with its horses and harness, and notice given by the police authorities that not a wheel should be turned in the streets until the child was found. These summary measures made every coach-owner a detective, and finally the hackman who was engaged in the abduction confessed, and the child was recovered without the payment of the ransom demanded.

The police arrangements in Caracas are excellent; there are no robberies or murders, and one seldom sees an intoxicated man upon the streets. Liquor is sold at nearly all the groceries, or bodegas, as they are called, and the _aguardiente_ which the common people use is the most vicious sort of fire-water; but the punishment of offenders is extreme, and those who have not sufficient self-control to drink moderately are taken in charge by their friends at the first sign of intoxication. There are several street-car lines in Caracas, and the conductors carry a horn, which they blow upon approaching a street-crossing, as is the practice in Mexico. The cars are all open, and are small, being capable of holding not more than twelve or fourteen people.

The burial of prominent men is attended with great pomp and ceremony, and it is customary to have those who are present at the funeral sign a testimonial to the worth of the dead, or pass a series of resolutions setting forth their merits and distinguished traits. These tributes are placed in the coffin, in order that in case the remains should ever be disinterred, posterity would know the character of him whose bones they handled. When a member of the family dies, it is customary to drape the furniture and pictures of the parlor in mourning, and to let it remain so for a full year.

The etiquette governing the habits of the ladies is the same that exists in Mexico and other Spanish-American countries, it not being proper for them to appear alone upon the streetsor in public places. They go to mass accompanied by a colored woman as a duenna, who carries a chair for her mistress to sit upon during service, there being no seats or pews in the churches. In the evening women are seen in large numbers upon the streets, and at the plaza where the band plays they swarm in gayly dressed crowds. The ladies of Venezuela are said by travellers to rank next to those of Peru for beauty, although it would be as much as a man’s life is worth to intimate such a thing to the brothers and lovers of Caracas, who very naturally and properly concede nothing in this respect to “the daughters of the sun,” as the Peruvians are called. The Venezuela girl has more animation, more vivacity than her sister across the Cordilleras, and perhaps more intelligence, for she possesses more liberty of thought and action than the ladies in other countries of Spanish America, and more attention is paid to her education. The climate of Caracas is similar to that of Lima, and although the city is almost under the equator, it has an altitude of eight thousand feet, and is surrounded by snow-clad mountains which temper the heat of the tropics and make a temperature like that of June the whole year round. The ladies have therefore the same clear, rich complexion of an olive tint, and the same great “melting eyes.” Their features are usually of artistic perfection and their figures Venus-like. They have no national costume, but dress in the latest Paris styles. The milliners and modistes of Caracas go to Paris twice a year, and the wives and daughters of the rich men of the country order their dresses there. There is more society than in Peru, and during the winter season Caracas is very gay. At the opera the boxes are invariably filled with ladies as handsomely dressed and as highly bejewelled as can be seen at the Metropolitan Opera House or the Academy of Music in New York.

There are a large number of American families in Caracas, and several Venezuelan gentlemen have married in the United States. One of the loveliest girls in Venezuela is the granddaughter of “Josh Billings”--the late Henry W. Shaw. Twenty years ago or more a merchant at Caracas named Señor Don Santana sent his son to Poughkeepsie to be educated, and while he was there he met and married the daughter of Mr. Shaw. The young man has succeeded to the business of his father, and is now at the head of one of the largest mercantile houses in the republic.

Mrs. Guzman Blanco is the handsomest woman in the

country. She is a tall, slender brunette, with brilliant eyes and complexion and a sylph-like figure. Her husband worships her, and she is said to be the only person in the land to whom the Dictator’s iron will has ever yielded. She is quite as famous for her loveliness of disposition as for her personal attractions, and her charity and generosity are proverbial. Every artist in Venezuela has painted her portrait a number of times, and in the room which Guzman Blanco uses as an office there are seven pictures of her, in various costumes and attitudes, and two busts in marble. Mrs. Guzman Blanco is the leader in fashion as well as society, and all her dresses are made by Worth. Each spring and fall, when they are received from Paris, the ladies of Caracas are invited to examine them. In a room adjoining the chamber are a number of large glass-cases, like those in a modiste’s shop, in which her treasures always hang; and whenever a reception is given by the Dictator this wardrobe is open to visitors--a new and novel idea, but one which gives the ladies of Venezuela great pleasure. Mrs. Guzman Blanco was in New York with her husband a couple of years ago, where her beauty attracted much attention.

The Venezuelans are the most courteous people that can be imagined. Impoliteness is unpardonable. The clerk with whom you deal over his counter expresses his wish that you may live long and prosper, and thanks you gratefully for giving him the pleasure of showing his goods, whether you purchase anything or not. When a gentleman meets a lady, be she his sweetheart or his grandmother, he always says he “is lying at her feet,” and he would rather be shot than pass before her. They are not the semi-barbarians some people in the northern continent suppose. They have accomplishments which ought to make the rest of America ashamed. Usually they are able to speak three or four different languages, have refined tastes in art and music, and, while they lack ingenuity, and usually do things in the hardest way, are nevertheless possessed of the keenest perceptive faculties, and seem almost to read your thoughts. It is not difficult to make known your wants, even if you cannot understand a word of their language. They do not allow smoking in the street-cars and public places, as in Mexico and Havana, and although it is the privilege of the masculine gender to stare at the feminine with all the eyes they have, the men are never rude, and ask the pardon of a beggar when they refuse to give him alms.

But the people always put the locks upon the wrong door, and wrong side up. When they build a house, it seems as if they studied the most difficult mode of construction. They erect solid walls first, and then chisel out cavities for the timbers to rest in. There are no stoves or chimneys, and charcoal is the only fuel. Gas is produced at four dollars and a half per thousand feet, from American coal which costs twenty dollars a ton. There is no glass in the windows, but a grating of iron bars keeps out intruders, and heavy wooden shutters shut out the air and light. Such blinds as are common in North America would be the most admirable protection, but no one has ever introduced them, and the people will continue to swelter behind solid shutters until the end of time.

The rooms of houses are not plastered, but the joists are all exposed. The floors are of tile, and paper is pasted upon the walls, which are of cement and stone. In the court of every house are the most beautiful flowers. Tuberoses grow on great trees, and the oleander is as common as the lilac in New England. The parks look like the botanical gardens of the North, and in the evening are always thronged with gentlemen and ladies until a late hour.

Guzman Blanco, the uncrowned king of Venezuela, the man whose authority is more absolute in this republic than is that of any king in Europe in his own dominions, is a native of Caracas, where he was born fifty-five years ago. His father was the private secretary of Bolivar, and at one time a member of his cabinet. He died only a short time since, and his funeral was a pageant which was surpassed in the history of the country only by the demonstration at the removal of Bolivar’s remains. He was active in the affairs of State almost until his death; now an exile, now a minister, vibrating between the extremes of power and poverty, as the party to which he was attached was up or down; and under this confusion, in the atmosphere of revolution, young Guzman was educated. He added the name of Blanco--that of his mother--to his baptismal name, to distinguish him from his father, and became Guzman Blanco; but he is more often called General Guzman by the people nowadays. When a mere boy he became a soldier, and had his ups and downs until the year 1874, when he led a successful revolution against the existing authority and became President. Since that year several attempts have been made to overturn him, but none has succeeded, and being a man to win friends as well as to acquire power, his political strength has grown with years until his authority is now absolute.

There is, and always will be, a difference in opinion as to his personal character and motives. That he is vain and imperious is admitted, and that many of his acts would not be tolerated by such a people as those who live in the United States cannot be questioned; but, conceding everything his enemies may say as true, it is nevertheless a fact that since Guzman Blanco has been ruler over this republic it has prospered and had peace--something it never had before. There have been varied and extensive improvements; the people have made rapid strides in progress; they have been given free schools and released from the bondage of the Church; the credit of the Government has been improved, its debts reduced, and the interest to its creditors is for the first time in history paid promptly, in full and in advance. The moral as well as the mental and commercial improvement of the people has been the result of his acts, and as long as he lives their lives and property will be safe.

A man under whose influence such progress has been made can be pardoned for the delinquencies of which Guzman Blanco is accused; and while his vanity is amusing, it nevertheless, in the forms it takes, illustrates the pride he feels in his achievements, and the realization of the importance of his career in the history of his republic.

Upon the pedestal of one of the five statues he has erected to his own memory appear the words:

TO THAT ILLUSTRIOUS AMERICAN,

THE PACIFICATOR AND REGENERATOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF VENEZUELA,

=GENERAL ANTONIO GUZMAN BLANCO.=

In these words the purpose and ambition of the man appear. To be the “Pacificator and Regenerator” where Bolivar was the Liberator is worthy the ambition of any man; and he who will erect a statue of Washington as the ideal his people should carry in their minds cannot be without a good motive somewhere in his consciousness. Future historians, when they look back upon the career of Guzman Blanco, will be more generous than contemporaneous critics, and will forget that he erected these statues to himself.

There are three statues to Guzman now standing in Caracas, but nobody would believe it if the number of tablets erected in his honor were told. You can scarcely look in any direction without being officially informed in letters carved in enduring marble that this, that, or the other thing was done by the order of, or under the administration of, that illustrious American, etc.

One night all these statues and many of the tablets were pulled down. It is a curious story, and the United States has what the play-bills call a contemporaneous human interest in the affair, for the _casus belli_ was a Boston girl.