The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-03-23

time, owing to the schedule arrangements,
although the trip could have been made in
six or seven days,) we arrived at Aspinwall,
the Atlantic terminus of the canal.
I had been in Aspinwall but a fsw hours
when I met Jack Gardiner. nn old New
York friend whom I had lost sight Of about
ono year before.
"What brought me to the .Isthmus?'' hs
repeatedSin answer to M question Tho
sa1ns reason that caused other men to come
here-the search for gold. In New York !
onJy earned $12 a week kaeping books in a
pert in my business. Here | am getting
$3.50 a month, in.a simply clerical position
in the Panama Railroad company's offices.
OF course I take the chances at
being CARED out to Monky NIL
cemetery within a few hours, or
fever, which the, natives call labla, mea ming
knock you down SO sudden is it in its at
tack. are respecters OF persons, and enagTes
fever, though slower in its effects. is almost
as deadly.
the dead train This consists OF three or
four ordinary box cars and a locomotive be-
longing to the railroad company. You may
sec thert train standing on the track behind
the c~ompany's hotel each day, waiting fcr
its load of dead men who have died IN the
preceding twenty-four hours. Every after
noon at four o'clock the train starts for
the. cemetery. at Monkey Hill. Unless the
deceased is a person of some Importance
the burial only takes a few minutes. The
grave diggers know in advance how many
Rrayes to have ready. They don't lose
muuh time in making them extra deep
either. About three feet is the usual depth,
andNNhen the heavy rains come pouring
down the sides Of the cemetery hill the
earth is often washed away and portions OF
the body exposed. In the case of common
people who die, their bodies are not
buried in collins, for whent they are inferred
at the city's expense the native
authorities do the job as cheaply as
possible. You will see in many places
throughout Aspinwall, especially in small
side streets and alleys, plain rough-ooard
collins stood up on end against the SIDES OF
houses. When an unknown man dies Oh
the street, the native policemen merely go
for the nearest public coffin, put the body
in it, and place it on one of the railroad
box cars. where it remains until taken out
to the cemetery in the afternoon. Then
the corpse Is dumped into the grave, dressed
as it was when our on the street or else
where, and the coffin brought back to town
for further use.
..It's a common thing to find men, princi-
pally poor negroes OF natives, lying dead on
the sidewalk or under the stoop or porches
Oh uOuS6S, Ill bI0 uOILllk. WACI0 oAoJ A1aSO
laid down to die of fever during the night.
No man living knows just how many people
are buried in Monkey Hill cemetery. The
railroad hospital authorities, of course, keep
a record of the number of deaths in their
institution, but the native city authorities
keep no m%ortuary statistics whatever, and
of the hundreds of men who die here every
year and are buried by the city no record
whatever of the burial is kept.
But the ground about Aspinwall only
holds a small percentage of the men who
have died on the isthmus. The city of
number of burials. but l can say without
exaggeration that the entire line of the
RAILROAD and canal, from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. is a continuous graveyard. At
Matoehin alone over $500 Cinnamon met
their death,in one day. That was twenty
railroad was being built, and long before
work on the canal was begun. Ten thou
sand Chinamen had been brought from
China to work on the canal. Over one-half
of them we're camped at what is now Mato-
chin. Smallpox broke out among them
ssnd the mortality became SO great that the
Cinnamon, always easily excited, became
panic stricken and preferring to die by
drowning, ran down the steep sides of the
hills near their camp and threw themselves
into the Chagres river. AS / have
said, $500 of them drowned. 1t was
because of this fact that the name of the
camp was changed to Muertechino, muerte
meaning dead in Spanish and Chino, sig
nifyinp Chinaman. The name has since
become perverted to Matochin. 1t is q
common saying, believed by many on the
Isthmus, that every tie on the Panama rail-
road represents a dead man."
From speaking about death our CONVERSE
tien turned to %swindling and money max
ing on the Isthnaus. Gardiner continued:
''It is a very easy matter for a sharp,
clever, but dishonest man to make thou
sands of dollars on the Isthmus in as short
a time as it would take him to make hun
dreds in the United States. The Panama
railroad employs only white Americans as
engineers and conductors who have pre-
viously been railroad men in the United
States. For many years, up to a short time
ago, the passenger fare from Aspin-
wall to Panama, a distance of only forty
five miles, was S25 American gold. No
tickets We're sold at way stations, passen-
gers paying the conductors on the train.
This they 'Eually did in Colombian silver.
When the conductors arrived at Aspinwall
or Panama in the evening they would bring
in the money received for the fares on the
trip in large canvas sacks, and if traffic had
beentrather heavy that day the conductor
would need help in c~arryiny the silver from
the train to the company'so Office. 1t was not
thought at all unusual for a conductor to
knock dow 500 q day. Half of this he
would have to divide with the engineer of
his train. The company closed it's eyes to
this barefaced robbery for several reasons,
among them being the fact that it was q
difficult matter to obtain experienced rail
rond men to take positions on the Isthmus,
while another reason WAS that the COM
pany was making SO much money
that the %stealings were considered too
trifing TO notice. why, the compan
charged Ave cents per pound for carrying
freight from Aspinwall to Panama. forty
Rvo ypitaa or mrCh nn-a than il pncf IN
bring freight from France to Aspinwali
Hundreds of thousands of pounds of fseRh,
were going over the line daily. and hun
dreds of passengers. At that time the Pan
anna railroad was the best paying piece OF
railroad property in the world, considering
the amount invested. A few years ago the
canal company bought it for Il good many
millions. have forgotten for the momen'
just how many. bot the investment proved
TO be such e. gold mine that il has supplied
the canal company with al immens'
amount of ready money"