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Show STORIES OF LIFE IN VENEZUELA Incidents That Break the Monotony of Existence in the South Americaa Republic. Two members of parliament have quaint stories to tell of adventures in Venezuela in times past. An honorable baronet, while on a visit to the republic, had interviews with certain members of the government. govern-ment. He dined with them in the evening, and retired at a late hour. He was awakened from his sleep by a noise in his room, and saw, as he thought, one of his hosts disappear through the bedroom window leading to the veranda. Concluding that this was a polite custom of the country, the visitor returned re-turned to sleep, but in the morning he found his troupe1-? upon the floor, their pockets turned inside out. ' His c!d-fashioned, c!d-fashioned, highly decorated chain purse was gone, but its contents were on the ground. His gold-edged cigar case and some gold charms attached to his fob had also vanished. The Englishman went straight to the seat of government and complained to one of the ministers, who expressed his dismay, and was thereupon informed in-formed that the person seen in the room bore a resemblance to himself. "Very strange," replied the minister, minis-ter, "for there is no one alive who resembles re-sembles me." "In that case," rejoined the visitor dryly, "you should have no difficulty in securing the restoration of my property." prop-erty." ' Later in the day the Englishman dia4 covered an anonymous package upon! his room table. Opening the cover he found all the missing articles save the) gold-edged cigar case and one of the) charms a little goddess in diamondsj and emeralds. , Mr. Henry Labouchere went through) a revolution in Venezuela some yearsl ago. A battle took place on the Plaza one1 afternoon," said Mr. Labouchere In) telling his story, "and I watched itj from a grass hammock on the terraco in front of my hotel. The government " forces were put to flight, and I wa joined by my reyolutionasy -f.-iend- -keen from the fight. "Later one of the fallen ministers visited us and said he could show us where 250,000 silver dollars were hidden. hid-den. He was as good as his word, and) patriotism being sunk by my friends! in obedience to the comforting moral oi the place, 'Be kind to ourselves,' it was proposed to divide the swag. "I said, 'No, don't do that; it might, offend the people. Play for it!' Which was agreed to. The government man was allowed in, and we played and thei government man won it all to the last dollar. So after all no harm was done." London Mail. |
