New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1886-08-29
THE PANAMA CANAL.


There gruesome sights sometimes in this
capital city of NJ. de Lesseps's Second Republic
Sitting your veranda late at night. you the
door of the little adobe house across the way open.
The woman of the house. VITO lodges two three
canal employees peers cautiously out Into the street.
re-enters the house, and when she comes ont again
drsgs something the threshold. across the
narrow sidewalk. and leaves it lying in the dirty
street. When sne closes the door again there is no
noise bue the plash of the tide on the shale. Soon
it grows lighter. buzzard drops lazily down
from the roof of the Cathedral and perehes the
something in the street. The outlines become
more distinct You walk down. drive away the
bird who dies suenly back to his watchtower
and stand looking in the quick dawn of the tropics
at what was yesterday a NINA week before a
strong mana month before a hopeful man. sailing
out OF Havre. He is dead of the yellow fever.
The woman with whom he lodged ght I've
sent him to the company's hospital true. but she
nd not know just what forms expenses that
might mean for her. She did what she could. as
she will tell the gossips. and doctor could do
more When the fey came il was Coils judgment
on these foreigners. He had but little IN her
house. aud what he had surely hers. 1t could
not he called his now. A man comes down the
narrow street. turns aside. avoids tie corpse and
goes on to his work. Bye-and-bye. when many
men lift down from it wretched broken coffin.
bound with knotted ropes. and roll the dead man
IN, face down as it happens They drive him to
the pauper battle-ground. leave him there. and
take the coniu OFT again. This is the seamy side of
lite in Panama
Que cannot but think. sometimes how strange a
spectacle the wreck left the Isthmus by the
attempt to build canal will present to the
Twentieth Century. Most of the machinery will lie
left. rs much OF it now lies. embedded in mud and
eucrusted with rust. Belgian locomotives,
Jesse lly useless and already abandoned lie cantcd
on broken tracks. With a shamefaced formalty
the Ell gineer in charge las brushed the brcht
work with some wbitewash But nothing could
make those locomotives look as if they ever to
lie used again. and as the moonlight falls on these
whitened outlines and fecks the vegetation grow
ing mp about them with grotesque shadows the
engines LOOK like wretched skeletons. One can
fancy the great clumsy dredges Iotting at their
mOOrlugs. and the victorious mud slowly covering
their tanklke hulls And when the jungle ha,
oblitcrated all the angles of NJ. de Lessepss little
scratch along the hilltops of the Isthmus the long
Of the excavators Will rise above tue tree-tops
like drowned mans hand above the water
Already one can see in some abandoned portions of
the work wondering lizards summing themselves
upon the deserted pan-cars and buzzards nesting
the derricks
The South Sea bubble Of our century will only
be remembered as people see its vestiges from
car windows Of the Panama Railroad. II the
birds of the air and the beasts of the forest
could laugh. how they would laugh as
they come back to the streams from which NJ de
Lesseps's miners frightened them away with
dynamite. Christophe Colon will be- perhaps. the
slrlD gest ruin of all. 1t is huge quay built out
between Old Colon and the little inlet which is
pOmpousy descrb bed AS " the portion of tue canal
already nav gable" Here arc tue Colon offices of
the company and the official residences, among
them great square house. built for the exclusive
use of His Exceency" the q Man Who Perccs
Continents' But the :" Man Who Pierccs Con-
tinonts" has so far spent only days in his
executive ma siOn
At the largest of the canteens at Cbristophc
Colon NAV be the minor officials in all their
the other a number of little tables and small but
Jealous orcbe,tr Here these men bring their
wives and dance with them night after night
under the eyes of the miscellaneous congregation
the tables: stokers from the steamers at the port
and mechanics in the company's employ : careering
about the room, caromiEg against tray-ladeu
walters and finally leading mesdamcs. their part
ners to the bar to quench tb-ir thirst. Ii is all
Innocent enough, clumsy bourgeois merry making
but it in part explains the laxity of discipline in
the company's service. Fancy the gentlemen in
charge of the work the Croton Aqueduct
taking their wives to a saloon frequented by tue
laborcrs, and dancing there
In sober truth, none of the resident employees
treat their work bona hde enterprise. Talk to
them about it. and they lash themselves into a
state of frenzed enthusiasm over their ehieftain,
lie Grand Francas." AMI over the project
ininitesmal possibilities their customary Incidence
and injurious spasms OF mis- ERECTED activity
daily decreasing. With great rafting OF glasses
they drink long life to tue company an
damnation to the scoundrel stock -j0bbers Who as
they try to make themselves believe. inspire the
criticisms which even the French Journals once
ardent LeS>eDaus, now direct upon the scheme.
Bat all this is mere rhodonOntade. Ii IS as idle as
the courtesles exchanged between two fever
patients, each assuring the other that he never
looked better, and that the doctors merceDary
slarmIsts and it has not the element of
pathOs. When the final crash does come-and even
If NJ. de Lesseps succeeds in his present maneuvres
IL must come before long these very men WI be
as loud i'll their excavations they are IN their
bOmbast and far more sincere One realizes here
the atmosphere of the canal interests how
terrible the results of this crash will be in Fran ce
and how grave an error the French Gov rnment
will tnd itself guilty of. These matters 10 is not
within nv province 10 discuss. but the results here
upon the Isthmus will in themselves aggregate one
OF the most disastrous calamities of the age One
cannot but foresee the call which will be made
upon the benevoence of the world for the relief of
the unhappy men. VINO, tempted TO curse the seein-
ing good fortune by which they survived tue
majority of their comrades. Will be left literally
destitute in foreign and 0es0late country.
Even now. the lsthmus is far from being the
Land of Promise il is supposed to have become.
city of refuge for the of Europe It certainly
is. But the outcasts find themselves in sorry plight.
Even q skilled meC hauic earns little mere than the
wages in London or Paris and not 50 much as the
wages in America. when the demand for his labor
is at an occasional maximum. At present me-
chanics wages only two Colombian sofas (Sl 20
u. ). gold day. And the class of adventures
who aresal Eays most numerOus-the men who RELY
upon their supposlttious Inteect rather tnan upon
their muscle are today to be for nd in Panama
and Colon literally starving. Most OF them are
swndlers or clerks. The former class unless they
are expert gamblers, lind little scope tor the
exercise of their talents and the latter osci ate
between feeble Ell brts to initiate the unremunera-
tive practices of the former and fruitless beggary
until they die IN the street or stow away on some
honevard bC II ld yessel.