The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-08-17
WASTE OF MACHINERY.

[Los Angeles (Cal) Cor. N. Y. Times.l
THE most woeful and reckless waste
of wealth in these modern days is that
of the costly machinery, enormous
dredges, steamboats,, locomotives, rail-
road tracks and cars on the isthmus
of Panama said ex-State Senator
Leonard E. Perkins the other day.
The senator has been in Colon and
Panama for several weeks this season
and he has had the opportunity to learn
many things about the great projected
canal of De I.esseps and the French in
Vestors across the isthmus- Fully $780,
100000 that came out of the proVerbial
stockings of the French peasantry." he
continued, lies rotting and rusting in
the mud and muck of the isthmus. 1t
is appalling to see the prodigality, the
shameful waste of French money ev-
erywhere apparent along the route of
the proposed canal from Colon to Pana-
ma City
1.-The wanton, pitiful waste of mil
lions of dollars by the De Lesseps Canal
company is in evidence from Colon
formerly Aspinwall after the late Will
liam H. Aspinwall the Pacific Mail
Steamship magnate) to Panama Bay.
The route of the canal is 46 miles south
west from Colon, and almost every mile
of the way is the scene of rotting and
rusting machinery, worth millions. The
ruin of the waste of several millions of
dollars may be seen in Colon alone. The
fine mansions there of NJ De Lesseps
himself and of his two sons have been
decaying for years They are disin-
y
The windows are burst out in some
places, the wood is falling away, and
the paint has nearly all peeled off, and
the plaster in the big salons and BAN
quet halls, where the most extraVagant
feaStS used to be held at night, is drop
ping. The magnificent offices of the
canal company there are dilapidated,
and the opera house, music halls, the
ball rooms are sinking into ruin in the
hot, miasmo atmosphere of the isthmuS.
There are four enormous dredges close
to the bay shore and fast in the mud.
Each cost over 100000. Thousands of
cubic feet of cut granite for damming
purposes at the Chagres river We're
dumped in the mud of Colon bay, and
have never been touched. 1t was
brought there from France Scows and
steam crafts which must have cost a
fortune are now so rotten that they are
useless.
.Along the shore are over 1000 iron
car wheels lying in the mud, where they
were placed when landed from English
ships in 1888, and close at hand are the
now rusted and worthless parts of steam
engines and locomotives. A dozen years
ago they and the car wheels were or
dered by some contractor for use on
the canal, and were never taken any
nearer the canal than Colon harbor- The
contractors who grew enormously rich
in q few years from their contracts
with the old Panama Canal company
sold millions of dollars worth of ma
chinery that could never be used. Why,
the shovel contract alone to a Sheffield
England) syndicate made over 500, 600
clear profit each for several men in one
year In the workyards and in the
abandoned shops of the old canal COM
pany one may see dozens of powerful
locomotives, once costing over $4,000
EACH now rusted and useless a mile
of construction or gravel cars, huge
derricks, so feet high, and steel cranes,
drums, and stacks of parts of machinery
lying everywhere in stupendous but dis
heartening array.
'-In the interior of the isthmus, along
the route of the canal, every mile is the
same scene of rotting, disintegrating,
rusting material 1t seems incredible,
but from Colon to Panama City there
are at least 500 miles of steel rails lying
in the soft earth and among the rank
vegeta ton. These rails were not only
used in the construction of a main track
and tangle of sidings and spurs, for
the carrying of supplies and material
to the is, 600 men once employed on the
canal but they We're brought in far
greater quantities than were needed
Steel rails from England are piled
yard high in some spots, just as they
were abandoned when the Panama col
lapse came Near Caliente station there
are IL great steel scoops, seven cranes
Quilt in England, two Belgian der
ricks and spools of over half a mile OF
the finest steel cables, ali sinking deep
None of these has ever been used, and
today this property, which cost the
French fully $500. 600, is practically
worthless. One great cause OF the
financial disaster which bore de Lesseps
to his grave. caused France to bow her
in thousands of homes, was that there
was too much plant-more machinery
than could be used"