Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1904-07-06

aud have them sleep in day time.
THE SANITARY PROBLEM.
His account Of the sanitary prob.
lem is even more impressive: "The
French exercised little or no sanitary
contfol over tneir canal laborers.
They built little villages of wood and
galvanized iron for the men to live
iD, but in most cases prosided neither
water nor drains. Ii they fell i'll in
camp and did not die at once, they
We're transported after day or two
TO the hospitals at Colon or Panama.
That was about as far as the French
medical care or control extended
from 1880 onward. AS a result they
lost great number of employees
some say $4,000. The, construction
gangs were often crippled and inef-
fective. Excavators, locomotives
and other machines stood idle for
weeks, because the men or the fore
men were i'll or dead. The losses of
time and money from this course
were enormous. Work was stopped
from time to time, and often did not
begin again for month, pay being
drawn all the time for the entire
gang! The direct loss from this
cause alone is believed to have ex-
ceeded seventy million francs2 The
indirect loss from delay and demorali-
zation can never be determined.
"Labor unions in the United
States have already debated the
regulation of wages and working
hours at Panama, and have an
nounced an intention to organize the
laborers there to this end. But no
sensible person can spend an hour in
the heat of the Culebra cut without
coming to the conclusion that this is
not a white mans job. The French
Canal Company is now paying its
laborers $1.08 a day, Colombia silver,
worth about "A cents in United
States currency"
DR.. Stephens says that it is an
error to speak of any locality as in
itself "unhealthful." If disease is
present it has been brought there by
the men or animals which have be-
come infected elsewhere. No locality
breeds new disease. He wants the
government to establish school of
tropical diseases at Colon. The
greatest variety Of clinical material
would be abundant. Canal laborers
arriving from various points in the
tropics will afford excellent material
for study, with the added advantages
OF observing the course of q disease
in tropical climate.
DR.. Stephens also favors camp OF
detention and observation for incom-
ing laborers. In no other way can
disease be prevented from gaining
access to the labor camps along the
line of the canal. Nor when for
warded from the camp of observa-
tion to labor camps should The ex.
ecutive guardianship over the la
borers cease or be relaxed for mo-
ment. A single hole in ones mos
quito net lets in the mosquito that
will inoculute him with yellow fever
or malaria; so with system OF
health protection for 10000 laborers
AT single weak point of the sys-
tenn an epidemic may enter; the sys-
TEN must be precise, efficient at all
points and constantly operative. If
the best economic results are to be
obtained the labor camps must be in
closed, policed and regulated as if
under military discipline. lie thinks
it would be found expedient to have
canteen at every camp, whore to-
| haPnn malt hnuprn,rnS onl l,,,,,t Il
quantity of distilled liquors of stand
ard quality could be purchased by
the laborers.
GOOD WORDS FOR CIIAGREs RIVER.
This Observers account of the
Chagres river is interesting. The
whole world has heard of the Cha
gres river, but heard no good of it,
Indeed, the English, French and
Spanish languages have heen ran
sacked for terms with whichto stig-
Matte it. 1t ID the "torrentlal''
Chagres, the "deadly" Chagres, the
"miasmatic" Chagres, the "uncon-
trollable, ungovernable" Chagres, the
"accursed" Chagres, "that Internal
river" 1t has even had fever of
lethal character named after it.
"When the French Canal officials
wished to find scapegoat," says DR..
Stephens, "for their .malfeasance in
spending, or stealing, $2O,OOO,OOO,
and not digging canal with it, they
selected the Chagres river and at
tributed everything bad to that. 1t
washed back all the earth which they
dug out; it rendered a tide water
canal impossible it brought malaria
and death to their laborers in fine,
they would have constructed the
Panama canal by 1892 but for that
awful Chagres river
"I really expected to see moral
monster of river there. | was
looking for something like the Styx,
as described by the classic poets. 1t
would not have surprised me greatly
to see stream of miasmatic, green
slime, haunted by Chagres fever
ghosts. Instead, what one sees is a
pretty little river of azure water,
purling gently over sandy bars-quite
an ideal stream, with lovely gravels
and pools beneath green banks, the
bare sight of which makes one think
of his fish hook and line.
"But this was the dry season.
began 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 few hours. | found that
at home-among it's ncighhrs, SO to
speak-the Chagres bore good
enough reputation as rivers go. In
the matter of floods the Chagres is
no worse than the Big Sandy, the
Fraurh Rood or tho A ,lro,n.,e.:..