Wichita eagle., 1888-04-12
TIE PANAMA CANAL
A RESIDENT LOCKER ON TALKS
OF THE SITUATION.

a11lEons OF Dollars InrOEu away ana
Other Millions LavishIy Squandered.
Funeral Ceremcnies-At the Hospital.
Building n Dau-Colon.
TO the weary and seasick traveller no more
enchanting scene can be viewed from the
sea than the city of Colon, with its surround
ings of tall palm trees waving in the breeze.
1t seems ike a glimpse of fairyiand; but let
the tourist once land and he Is soon GlseIs-
chanted. The air seems to be full OF pesti-
lence, and if Cologne is said to have had
seventy distinct stinks," l am sure Colon
has at the least three times as many. In fact
1t is wonder that the inhabitants have not
all OF them turned up noses. The front street
has planked over sidewalk under which the
water stands and putrefies after a rainfall.
The back streets of the city are mud holes,
and a green scum is their principal decora-
Gon- The majority Of the houses are built
upon sticks, with bed of steaming mud be-
meath to add to their sanitary advantages.
Generally the Panama Railroad company
run two funeral trains daily out to the cent
etery at Monkey Hill, and carry lots Of
'deadheadsn
The funeral ceremonies are conducted On a
most economical plan. A poor man dies IN
the street. A box is brought and he is tum-
bled into it and whirled away to the place OF
sepulture. On arrival the body is pitched
into hole. When there are four or five
bodies In this hole it is closed up. The boxes
are, however, always brought back for fur
Their use There is 70 hospital or aid for the
sick and destitute. For the sick man there is
no aid, for the dead no religious services. 1t
is said that all are not dead who are thrown
into these pits. This is in1naterial, of course,
as they soon die after the red mud is shoveled
IN upon them. There are hospitals, of course.
in Colon, both American and French, the
latter under the auspices of the canal COM
pany, whose head is d de Lesseps. l have
personally given the French hospital trial
of nearly year, and cannot recommend it
as a first class hotel. Poor coffee and tough
beef are not, in my estimation, the most
nourishing food for an invalid. These hos
pitfalls are under the control of my distin-
guished friend, NJ. de Lesseps, but he never
boards at them when he chances to be in
Colon. The Sisters of Charity-noble women
and a staff of some educated doctors of
French extraction have the management of
affairs. The principal medicines used are
compound cathsrtic pills and quinine, varied
occasionally by fly blister or an enema
This treatment is an eminently successful
one, as is evidenced by the collins going out
every day. In the hospitals, as in everything
else, the French have the preference, except
in graveyard privileges. They get chicken,
etc, when an American or Englishman is
given tough beef-the meat cut out between
the horns of bullocks whose ancestry dates
back beyond the reign of William the Con-
Queror, who himself is old enough to be his
own grandfather
LENGTH WHEN COMPLETED.
The Panama canal, or rather ''The Inter
oceanique," will be, when corRpleted, about
flfty-five miles long So far about eighteen
miles have been dredged out on the Chagres
and a portion of the mountain at Culebra has
been blasted out This is all the work of con-
tractors not of the French The American
Dredging company have done their work
nobly, while the French dredges have lain
idle and rusted along the shores of the
Chagres. The chief aim of French employe
seems to be to drink absinthe, cognac and
claret, and wear cork hat and top boots.
They are extremely clannish, and view Amer
leans as an inferior race of animals. The
canal company purpose building dam
across between two mountains near Gamboa.
THIS they calculate will give them a lake Of
some marvellous capacity, SO if the Atlantic
and Pacific oceans ever dry up they can turn
on faucet and fill the canal without soiling
their kid gloves. This is all very fine in the
DRY Ode Lesseps), but the Chagres river rises
sometimes tsventy-seven feet in twenty-four
hours, and should it take notion to do so
after this mythical lake is completed it would
soon show that Gamboa was not worth dam.
Noprofanity intended. Il. de Lesseps is an I'M
aginative man; he is a man of great ideas,
but he did not look before he leaped judy
ing by present prospects the canal may be
completed by the year 1876, when the second
centennial Of this grand republic will be ceie-
brated. Surprising, for example only, that
the canal could be completed by the French
company IN ten years, an investor in its
bonds would be a centenarian before he re-
ceived decent return on his investment, pro-
vided he was u years of age today. By
cooking up favorable reports on gas stove
the French management have bagged mill
Go11s of dollars, but the game is nearly
played out.
u. de Lesseps has built q town on a negro
graveyard at Colon, which he calls Cristoval
Colon. He has taken possession Of the bronze
statue of Christopher Columbus, which was
presented by Empress Eugene, of France, to
Colon itself as being one Of the first places
visited in the new world by the great dis
coverer. This he has erected in front of his
palace, facing seward, SO as to welcome him
when he sees fit to cross the waters. Here,
at Christoval Colon, are collected his faith
frrl g 4lza
lilies as they grow; they neither TIL, nor do
they spin" yet they use up lots 81 brandy,
yermOuth end gin. As an Old resident on
the Isthnlus of Panama, and q locker on at
ell the doings of thes called canal company,
do not hesitate to stiGmatize the thing it
self, so far, as deceit and g. snare. Doubt
less the company hope to complete the canal
at some future day by aid of the rainy
seasons" but that viii take some centuries.
What is required is cool American brains,
American energy. American capital and the
thing will bt q success, a thing Of today, not
as it promises now, to be regarded in years
to come rs a failure and fossil enterprise
Colon Cor New Orleans Times-Demoerat.
Dragging Up the Resort.
ais this lake that your company advertises
SO extensively n pretty nice summer resort"
inquired passenger OF the conductor.
YES; very good sort Of place. The hotel
l. . ryO0g5a-, S.ruo-r-ra four stories hicn wifi,