18th Revolution

Quem nao tem visto Lisboa, noa tem know what beauty is.* --PORTUGUESE PROVEBB

Machine guns crackled last week in the tortuously inclined streets of Lisbon. The city, built like Imperial Rome on seven hills, was weathering the 18th Portuguese revolution since 1910./- Last week the struggle between the two factions of the military adventurers who now dominate Portugal became so furious that the U. S. Legation was hit by stray machine-gun fire, and U. S. Minister Fred Morris Dearing hastily decamped to the suburbs.

The fighting began when President-Dictator Prageso Carmona of Portugal left Lisbon at the head of 1,000 picked troops to put down a mutiny and insurrection at Oporto, famed port city of the region producing "Port Wine."

With Big Militarist Carmona away, the little militarists began to play with guns. For 56 hours these insurgents** at Lisbon skirmished with the Government troops, and at one time seized the Ministry of War. Then, their leader, Colonel Mendes Reis, was sniped, and the insurrection became disorganized.

When Dictator Carmona returned to Lisbon, after putting down the mutiny at Oporto, he arrived in an armored car, and well supported by airplanes and troops, which enabled him to resume with bomb and shot his despot's grip upon the capital.

Meanwhile the British cruiser Comics had steamed up the Rio Tejo (Tagus), and was keeping London and the world informed about events at Lisbon with her wireless. It appeared that for two days the Carmona Government had deliberately halted all the railways, posts and electric communications, lest uncensored news leak out of Portugal. When the situation cleared up it was found that the U, S. Consul at Oporto had been extremely lucky. Five minutes after he left his room in the Grande Hotel do Porto/-/- a bomb was light-heartedly tossed in at the window by a passing insurrectionist. Exploding, it wrought wreckage.

*Quem nao tern visto Lisbon, noa tern visto cousa boa.

/-In 1910, the Royal House of Braganza-Coburg was deposed in the person of King Manoel II. He now resides at Twickenham, near London, on his pleasant estate, Fulwell Park.

**Their political identity crystallized in cries of "Down with the Dictatorship! Long live the Constitution!" However, it is doubtful if they actually represented the republican or democratic spirit of the people, which has been shamefully played upon by all the militarists for their own ends.

/-/-Guidebooks list it as "claiming to be first class"; visitors seldom agree with the claim.