The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1889-05-04

bubble which over clouds all France.
But like the worlds other most over
vaulting spirit, Bon aparte, his genius
has attempted that which only omnipo-
tent power could achieve:
ST. Louis Post-Dispateh.l
ii. b. Slayen, president of the Amer
lean Drcdgc Company, has recently
arrived in New York from Paris.
That corporation worked upon the
eastern end Of the Panama Canal Mr..
Slayen went to Paris TO meet the di-
rectors and stockholders Of the Pana-
ma Company, and Post-Dispatch
correspondent called upon him yester-
day to learn the exact status of DE
Lesseps' great ditch"
I'm order that you may understan d
how things are now,n said Mr.. Slaven,
''it is necessary to go into ancient his
tory little. Up to the present time,
the French have spent on the Panama
Canal something near $3.50, 100000.
For that they have fifteen miles on the
Colon side practically finished. That
is the portion which we had the con-
tract for, and at the present time the
canal exists there and Is thirty feet
deep tho whole way. II is not quite
completed because IN places the banks
have slipped, but II could be completed
in a month. From the end of our
contract to the beginning of the Guile
bra section could be finished in short
time, as the ground is easily worked
and at its highest point is only fifty
six feet above the level of the sea.
The Culebra cut is the sticking point.
Into ii the company have poured
money like water. There are no finer
engineers III the world than the French,
when you give them road TO make
or a bridge to build where they can
have the bureau system developed
to the utmost, and where there are
about seven chiefs and sub-chiefs TO
each man at work. They require, too,
a machine shop next door all the time.
But they can't work in this country,
or at least on the Isthmus. They are
stifled by their red tape. Where an
American cannot go straight he will
go round or climb over or crawl under
an obstacle. The Frenchman must go
through il, and that according to the
original plans assigned by the chief
engineer and fourteen subordinates.
Now the highest point Of the Culebra
Cut is over 800 feet above the level
Of the sea. Ifyou stood Trinity Church
steeple in 1t you would have to look
down about a hundred feet to see it.
"The French engineers calculated
the slope at which the cut ought to
stand firm, and they reckoned that l0,-
100000 cubic metres of the earth
would have to be taken out Unfor-
tunately for them, the earth refused to
stand at the angle they said II would.
In other words, they did not allow
enough slopes for the sides of the
great cut. In point of fact, there were
20,000,000 cubic metres of earth TO
take out in order to make that cut
stand and run tide-level canal
through. This, of course, conld be
done if there was money enough to
put up; 1t Is a question of money.
When was in Paris told the Direc-
tor General Of the enterprise that ]
would take the contract to furnish
tide-level canal across the Isthmus, and
that | thought il could be done for
$200,0O0,000more. refused, of course,
10 bind my company to do the work
for that, but | offered to take the con-
tract, and told him what | honestly
believed would be the cost. .,
"The money that has been spent on
the canal has not all gone into digging.
The waste down there has been some
thing perfectly frightful. There arc
literally acres of machinery rusting
away, much of it never having been
used. With our dredges we paid the
highest wages on the isthmus, we got
the best men we could get, and they
were generally Americans we worked
three gangs eight hours each !; we paid
the biggest prices for everything, and
we got the smallest price pei cubic
metre paid on the canal. Yet we made
money. Why? We did not waste
anything. We did not buy a pound
of stuff we did not need and did not
use. The French contractors seemed
TO throw money away for the pleasure
of seeing it go. The very friction of
their bureaus cost them hundreds of
thousands of dollars. With US if a
man couldn't do a thing one way and
could another we were satisfied; all
we wanted was TO have ii done. With
the French, If it could not be done
their way it need not be done at all.
"Now about the money. DE Lesseps
is all right. The French people have
not lost faith in him, was present
at meeting of 5000 subscribers to
the canal aud there was nothing heard
but Vive DE Lesseps.' The people