Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1904-07-02

wages and working hours at Panama,
and have announced an intention to or
ganize the laborcrs there to this end.
But no sensible person can spend an
hour i'm the heat of the Culebra Cut
without coming to the conclusion that
this is not a white mans job. The
J French Canal Company is now paying
it's laborers $1.es per day, Columbian
silver, worth about forty-four cents
United States currency
Dr. Stephens says that it is IN error
to speak of any locality as in itself
"unhcalthfyl.' If disease is present it
has been brought there by men or ami
mails which have become infected else
| where No locality breeds new di-
scases. He wants the Government to
| establish Il school of tropical diseases
at Colon. The greatest variety of clini-
cal material would be- abundant. Canal
lahorers arriving from various points
IN the tropics Will afford excellent ma
tcrial for study, with the added adEan-
taSeS of observing the course of the di-
scascs in a tropical climate.
detention and observation for incoming
| laborers. In no other way can disease
| be prevented from gaining access to the
| labor camps along the line of the canal.
| Nor when forwarded from the camp of
| observation to the labor camps should
the executive guardianship over the la
| borer cease or be relaxed for moment.
| A single hole in ones mosquito net may
| let i'm the mosquito that will inoculate
| HIM with yellow fever or malaria; SO
| with u system of health protection for
| 10000 iaborcrs. At single weak point
| of the system an epidemic may enter;
the system must be precise, efficient at
all points and constantly operative. If
! the best economic results are to be OBJ
| tanned. the labor camps must be ell
| closed. porfccd and regulated, as il I'M
| der military discipline lie thinks it
would be found expedient to have a
| canteen at every camp, where tobacco,
| malt beverages and a limited quantity
of distilled liquors of STANDARD quality
could be purchased by the laborers.
This observers account of the Cha
gres River is interesting. He says the
| whole world mas heard of the Chagres
River but has heard no good of it. In
deed. the English. Frcnch and Spanish
languages have been literally cullcd for
condcmnatory adjcctivcs with which to
Stigmatize it. 1t is tho "torrcntiar"
Chagres, the deadly" ChagrcS, the
"miasmati3' ChaGrcS. the ''uncontrolt
BILE. ungovefpable" Chagres, the "ac-
cursed" Chaghes, that Internal rivcr.j
m h.,S, = Of Lot II ,,I, III
acter namedfafter it. Il
when ,syhe French canal officials
wished " find a scapegoat," adds I1r.
for their malfcasanceIi in
spending( or stealing. s25O,000,o00, Ind
not dig3 ing canal with it, they Ne
ecfed II 10 ChaSrcs River and attributed
5all tn, that. Ii washed back all TIE
artk . hich they dug out; il rendered.
tfde-Nater canal impossible II
brought malaria and death to their la
lorers; and, In fine, they would have
constructed the Panama Canal by 1872
but for that awful Chagres River! },
really expected to SEGA moral
srOnster of river there. ] was looking
pr something like the Styx-as de-
ribed by the classic poets. 1t Woull
have surprised mo greatly to see n
cam of miasmatic, green slime.
8auntcd by "CEagres fever" ghosts
a;tcad, what one sees is a pretty little
yer OF azure water purling gently
yer sandy bars. quite an ideal stream,
18th lovely gravels end pools beneath
Seen banks, the bare sight of which
hai<es one think of his fishhook and
kiine.
u but this was the Cry season. l be-
c.;an making careful inquiries as to the
wet season. Once, seventeen years ago.
| it did rise pretty high. At place
where the channel is much compressed
| at Las Cascades, it rose between thirty
and forty feet that year for a few hours.
found that at home. among it's neigh
bors, so to speak, the Chagres bore a
good enough reputation as rivers go.
In the matter of floods, the Chagres is
rot worse than the Big Sandy the
French Broad, or the Androscoggin in
our own country.
But for the Chagres an interoceanic
canal 4ePanama, during the next quar-
ter Of a century, would be a physical
| imposksibility. A tide-water canal at
Panama is impossible except at such
cost as to be practically useless to the
American people. 1t is just here that
the Chagres River comes in. BY build
ing a dam across it and across the ca
nal, at Bohio near sea level, on the At
lantic side, ali elevated inland lake may
be formed across the highest porSon OF
the Isthmus, extending through the
, Culebra Cut. BY using the ChagEes tC
form this lake, more than four f1fths~ o,