Ostentatious Humor of the Day

1896

Little Brother — "Do you know what 'ostentation' means?" Little Sister — "The way other people show off. — Puck.

The sun never sets on the British dominions, and it rises occasionally in London. — Puck.

The great grief at forty is the discovery that eye-glasses are not becoming. — Atchison Globe.

An egg and an office-boy differ in that one is best when it's fresh and the other isn't. — Philadelphia Record.

Border — "I never eat shad." Wyld — "Why?" Border — "It always reminds me of boneless codfish." — Puck.

The Professor (awakening) — "Is there anybody in this room?" The Burglar — "No, sir." The Professor — "Oh, I thought there was." (Falls asleep again.) — Life.

"Fannie, I have told you time and again not to speak when other persons were talking, but wait until they stop." "I've tried that already mamma. They never stop." — Texas Sifter.

First Woman — "I was suffering untold agony." Second Woman — "Dear me! What did you do?" First Woman — "Oh, a neighbor happened in just in the nick of time and I told her." — Detroit Tribune.

She — "I hope, dear, you were not thinking of business in church this morning. You know your thoughts should be of higher things?" He — "Well, I was thinking of that $22 bonnet of yours. Is that high enough, think you?" — Statesman.

Absent-minded Professor — "I don't know what's the matter with me, doctor, I am perpetually limping to-day. Is it locomotor ataxy, I wonder?" Doctor — "Why, professor, you are walking with one foot on the curbstone and the other in the gutter."

Romantic Miss — "Have there not been moments in your experience when life seemed full of unsatisfied wants?" Mr. Hardhead — "Y-e-s, that's so." "At such times I always fly to music for relief. What do you do, Mr. Hardhead?" "I advertise." — Spare Moments.

"Some folks think this Venezuelan affair will be settled without trouble, but I'll dogon if I do," said Mr. Janson, as the crowd about the grocery store made room for the old man. "I never see one of these here line fence quarrels yit that didn't wind up in a fight!" — Indianapolis Journal.

"I don't know," muttered Rivers, picking himself up from the sidewalk and moving on with a perceptible limp, "whether there is any such thing as a bicycle face or not, but I am thoroughly convinced of the existence of the phenomenon known as the banana skin." — Chicago Tribune.

A Glimpse of Caracas

1896

What Correspondent Saw in Venezuela's Capital

Comparatively few of the men here ever venture into the street unarmed, writes a Caracas correspondent of the New York Herald. There are laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons, but they are never observed. One of the professors in the university here assures me that he is convinced that every one of the students who attends his lectures has a revolver in his hip pocket. Weapons are often worn as much for ornaments as for protection or aggression. The caballero with silver spurs and gay trappings who prances about on a frisky mule or Peruvian horse is not fully equipped without a brace of revolvers. The humbler fellows who trudge the country lanes afoot or on burros' backs take special pride in the knives they carry in fancy sheaths at their waists, and which are equally available for cutting food or enemies. The far-famed machete is so long that the most convenient way to carry it is in the hand. It is the most terrible weapon in war and is used for every possible purpose in times of peace, opening virgin forests, cutting down trees, digging and building.

Human life is held very cheap in Venezuela, except by the law of the land in dealing with murderers. There is no capital punishment here, and a man who is caught red-handed in crime knows that the heaviest sentence that could be imposed on him is ten years' imprisonment. The worst cases, I am told, are sent to a prison in the marshy districts near the western frontier, where the man who survives his term is a phenomenon, and where two years is as much as most men can endure. Stabbing and shooting affrays are very common and rarely receive more attention than half a dozen lines in the local papers, in which sympathy is expressed for the relatives of the deceased.

The proportion of men that one sees in the streets of Caracas who are minus an arm or a leg is greater by far than it was in the United States at the close of the Civil War. Comparatively few of the cripples here were maimed in battle during the revolutions, most of them having been hurt in private brawls.

The Vargas Hospital, in Caracas, is a large institution, admirably located on a hillside and excellently managed. No public building in Venezuela is complete without a statue, and as one enters the main door of the hospital one sees in the central patio a statue of Vargas, who was, I believe, President of the Republic at the time the hospital was founded. There are ten wards for women, all opening on a long courtyard to the left of the entrance, and as many for men on the other side.

The tiny hack horses of Caracas are mainly skin and bones, and the drivers, like their prototypes all over the world, show them very little consideration. Besides the little native horses one sees in the streets many Peruvian horses, which are one size larger and are excellent for riding, and big American horses in swell carriages. Burros far outnumber the horses, and mules are very common.

Teams of oxen are used to haul the heavy wagons, and cows are driven by milkmen from door to door with their calves by their sides. Most of the calves have their muzzles tied in rags to prevent them from getting any milk before all the customers have been supplied. It is also a common thing to see a boy driving a flock of turkeys through the main streets, usually in the direction of the markets. In the corrals are usually many live animals that have been brought in from the country and left for sale — deer and wild pigs, with bristles like porcupines, predominating.

About the market place are kept the skins of huge snakes and wild animals, for which fancy prices are asked if they are in reasonably good condition. The prettiest fur is that of the leopard-tigre they call it here. The tigre is very ferocious and is dreaded by all who have occasion to travel. The puma, which is dignified by the name of lion, is far less common, and about equally dangerous to meet.

I fancy that the supply of dogs has always been large in Caracas, as the Cathedral here has an odd functionary called a perero, or dog boy. The office dogs bark to the colonial dogs, and the present occupant is an urchin with a black face, very bright eyes and a beautiful set of teeth. In the street he looks like any other little fellow who does not keep his face particularly clean, but in the Cathedral he is quite imposing in his long gown of dark purplish blue and his big white collar. He carries in his hand a stout whip, with a long, knotted lash, and he walks about with all the pride of a recruit in the army carrying a gun for the first time. He is quite expert, and loud yelps occasionally prove that his whip hurts.

An Asphalt Lake In Venezuela

1901

Huge Deposit of Pitch — Foreigners Not Welcome

To the people of Venezuela this great deposit of asphalt is known as Largo la Brea, or the Lake of Pitch, says the Chicago News.

The aborigines used its output for pitching the seams of their canoes and a variety of other purposes, but it was comparatively unknown to the outside world until about 20 years ago, and no attempt was ever made to develop its resources until some 13 years ago, when the New York and Bermudez company purchased a concession covering a part of this valuable deposit from Horatio R. Hamilton, an American citizen then residing in Venezuela, and by marriage related to the late President Guzman Blanco.

After years of toil this American company succeeded in establishing a small plant at a place now called Guanoco, where a little pile wharf was built and subsequently an insignificant industrial railway was constructed which connected it with the pitch lake. The settlement of Guanoco, the headquarters of the New York and Bermudez company, is a little over 100 miles to the westward of Port of Spain, on the Island of Trinidad.

A narrow-gauge railroad, with 22-pound rails, connects the settlement of Guanoco with the asphalt lake, a scant six miles north. This railway, dignified by the name of the Guanoco & La Brea railway, passes through a virgin forest which has grown up on top of an unfathomable morass of swamp, and is constantly being reballasted to keep the rails in sight above the mud.

There are a few native huts at the lake, and the ordinary plant for asphalt mining. The lake stretches out for a distance of about five miles, and, say, three miles in width; but is divided by a narrow ridge of dry land with a few stunted trees on it.

The asphalt from the wonderful lake is the finest and purest in the world. The refining of this class of asphalt is simply heating it until the water is evaporated, for there is no scum, dirt or foreign matter in it. The supply is practically inexhaustible, and should last until the end of the world or the bottom drops out of it.

At certain seasons of the year this vast deposit is covered with a tall grass often six or eight feet high, and when it takes fire, as it often does, owing to the Indians being careless with their camp-fires, the grass will burn for days at a time, and when burned over leaves no mark save crusting the asphalt for perhaps an inch in thickness.

Very few white men have ever visited this wonderful lake, as it has always been the policy of the resident manager to keep his treasure-trove a sealed book. It is doubtful if one hundred foreigners, outside of the employes of the company and the poor Indians who trail across the great deposit, have ever set foot upon it.

It is impossible to estimate its actual value as a merchantable commodity, and to say at hazard that it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars is not putting the figures too high. It is a huge black sea of wealth, stretching out as far as the eye can reach, and dig and dig all the year around, the excavations fill up as rapidly as the workmen leave them. No amount of reasonable work in taking out asphalt can produce a visible diminution of the supply. It is a well of wealth that never overflows and is always filled to the brim. Never, under the broiling sun of the dry season or the teeming torrents of the rainy season, is its character or chemical properties changed or its commercial value altered. Its upcoming is wrapped in mystery, its birth time is unknown, nor can any man in the present time tell what its future will be for the use of mankind.

Although located in a swamp and only some four or five feet above sea level, it has proved to have been a very healthy locality. Death is practically unknown among the workmen at these mines. In 12 years only two graves are in the burying ground of the company. With the amateur doctors at headquarters the "sick list" seldom exceeds 4 per cent, and comprises for the most part mild intermittent fevers, easily cared for with mild cathartics and quinine.

The natives are gentle, kind hearted and most hospitable, are quick to learn, especially fond of mechanical work and are good, faithful workers. They are not inclined to be fractious or quarrelsome, and with a kindly disposed superintendent no trouble is ever experienced in working them in large gangs.