The Savannah morning news., 1903-11-08
IN THE CITY OF PANAMA
People and Things in the Capital of the
Seeding State

The city Of Panama, the present CEN
ter of the movement for independence
in the state of that name, is irregu-
lar and rather we'll built. On three
sides the sea washes the foot of
wall erected many years ago. To-day
this wall still stands, though there are
picturesque breaches in it, but a land
wall is either down or has been in
corporated into some building, for the
town has overlooked it's old boundaries
and it is difficult to trace them. These
walls may have seemed impregnable
to the Panamaians of the sixteenth
century, but modern gunnery would
make a before breakfast job of their
total destruction.
The important business of the day
is done in the morning. BY II o'clock
everyone has gone to breakfast. The
stores are closed, the streets are desert
ed, and it is o'clock in the after
noon before there are any signs of re-
newed life. The railroad employees and
the foreign element make a pretense
OF longer hours, but it is merely a
pretense after all, for business pro-
ceeds but slowly. Toward evening the
scene becomes quite animated, says
the Baltimore Sun. The parks and
plazas are filled with children and
their nurses. Well dressed men and
women saunter about. Groups of men
talk business and politics, largely the
latter. -. =.
The streets of Panama are narrow
and crooked. Business is done on the
ground floor of the houses, but every
one who can live upstairs. Many
churches are filled with worshipers on
Sunday and on feast days. Many
more churches are in ruins from the eff
fects of fire or the attacks of time upon
the soft rock walls and arches.
Early on Sunday morning the
church bells begin to ring and the peo-
pie are coming and going from pray
ers the whole day long. Before break
fast, before the revolution began. the
Colombian army, in full dress, which
means with their boots on, went to
church accompanied by the military
brass band. The band took it's station
In the gallery and the 600 or more SOL
dlers, in two columns, entered on eth
er side of the church. The band fur
nlshed the music. and it was not bad
out was far from the character which
might be expected of the occasion
Prayers were said to the liveliest airs
from "O1ivette," "Fatinitza" and other
and novel, but not inspiring of great
awe and reverence. The soldiers re-
NAMED in the church about half hour
and then returned to the barracks. The
several hundred people who were in
the church also left. They were most
~ women, and as they left the cathe-
dral and crossed the piazza they were
met by large crowd of young men,
who lined the walks of the park and
stood ready to fiirt If given the slightest
encouragement. The Panama girls use
their eyes very skillfully.
The soldiers OF the army of the
United States of Colombia are fairly
hkely-looking lot of men. but as they
are nearly all conscripts, there is lit
tie esprit du corps. The officers are
young men kept out of political mis-
chief by commissions in the army The
police Of Panama are uniformed like
the New York finest. An ex-police
captain from New York was employed
at handsome salary to instruct and
drill them in modern police ways, and
he seems to have succeeded fairly we'll.
as the Panama policeman, while slight
OF physique, presents outWardly a. neat
appearance and is onto every device
known to the New York force for ex-
tracing alleged blackmail from a VIC
tim. A reform mayor was recently ap-
pointed in Panama, and his economies
were so vigorous that the entire police
force went on strike, and the city was
temporarily without protection An
appeal was made to the Governor and
the soldiers were promptly organized
into a police patrol and scattered about