The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-01-17

- ANAAA.-we sat around little table in cafe
in old Panama and the slippered waiter
brought us wine OF Old vintage. and placed
beside US box of black, evf-lookng cigars,
the old resident told me stories Of the days when
French blood flowed 50 freely the isthmus, and
French gold so nimbiy through the fingers Of
proaigate promoters.
Upon my soul. senior, We OF Panama shan never see
such days again-such living and such dying Think
of it, The pay roll every fifteen days took Sio00oo0
WagonoaGs OF gold, taken from the stockings Of the
peasRntry Of far-away France. were scattered here
like chaf In the trenches S0o00 men toiled IN the
steaming heat, and none of them. from the director
general TO South African laboreT, tried 10 save
cent
In the gambling houses TIE play high. It was
unusual to coming and going with bags
OF gold beneath their arms And when they wont An.
senior! Believe me when / ten you that those French
men were high rollers, There Jean, who oabed
TO his sweetheart in Paris thousand kisses for YOU
my sweet one and franc for every kiss The
charges very high in those old times, but ne
counted the money the shelf at the cable Of
fee, and went away laughing a. the thought of how
surprised his sweetheart would be when she got his
message and the money, for he actually eaeied her
1000 francs.
DIvGLER KILLED HIS HORSES.
And there was Divgler the director of the works
such team of horses he brought here we shall
see again What is the word you Americans have for
il? Yes, that is it, they high steppers We.A
as was going TO say, the director and his family
they did have such splendid drives behind that fine
team until day the dreadful that the
mother and daughter and were all dead of the
fever II made all Panama sad to hear it, and DIX
ger-poor DivgIer-he shot the horses and went back
10 France a homeless broken hearted man. It would
have been mercy if the fever had taken him with
the others.
Money was so easy to get senior, that no one put
the proper value it. You had but ask your
price and it would be given A dollar for pink to
wear in your buttoahOle, Another dollar for pine
apple. Do you that house by the palm tree where
the little girl playing? Wen, that is my property.
IN the Old days I let it for $500 the month. When
Madame Sarah BernhaTdt came TO Panama to give
five performances, gave $3.50 for ticket.
thought / could afford it. but guess ! was fool,
for I get but $50 the month for my house Pinks
and pineappes be had for dime. DO you
think, senor that tbs Americans Will pay much
the French?
Il know now that we were all very extrayagant,
hut Of course none of US realized il then. We acted
like gold going through the canal instead
of water. High living of conta gion that
spread like the fever. The directors used much
champagne that it seemed they be washing their
faces in it, and the African labOrers got fastidous
that they wanted chicken every meal. Those poor
Africans. whom everybody thought would make such
good aborers the canal turned out to be gran
disappointment. They not good workers, and
they were always complaining about their food They
suffered terribly from the beri-beri which, If you
not know, makes the blood very thin and causes the
limbs TO swell There several shipoads of therr
sent here. but only few lived I speak the
truth when that hope their like viii rot pass
this way again
FRAUD AND SPECULATION
Fraud. did you say? Yes, young sir it was
dreadful In those times there were no agents at the
stations on the railroad and tickets we're sold to
passengers. The conductors collected the money and
they took it in they put part pocket for the
company and part in another pocket FOR themselves
They took great because there were four trains
each way every day, and many people Travelled upon
them all. When the company finally became srs-
pieiOUs and began investigate it develoDed that the
conductors had been going banks each dav with
TWO bags OF money to deposit one for the company