The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-08-12

They have to run SlOWIy because they've got no way of stopping the freight cars except sticking a piece of iron between the sp0kes of the wheels, for the Wke5ls are all spoked. And when the engine is running too fast for that. there's nothing to do but to let them go to smash. They go smash. They go to smash on the sides of the fountain a dozen times a day. Whsn you leave in the morning you never know when you will get back, because you have to stay by your train until it is put back on the rails again. You may have to wait until three in the morn ing, but you have to go to work again at half-past six just the same. Cold Cold nights and days hot and sticky, the worst climate in the world. That's IPanama!"
 Mir. McEneaney used to be employed lby Representative Manney at his plumbing shop, where he is now work ing again, but let there year or so ago to become a brakeman on the Consolidated road. He was braking when he saw the advertisement of the Isthmian Canal Commission for brake AAlCl4 anu dAAoh EAGA A4G %AA NAeAA they sent him were full of details of what ha might expect, but omitted de- tails of many things he actually ex- peienced. At first he was offered $75 a month he says, a wage with which he was perfectly satisfied. But close after this offer came another of S83 a month, and, of course, he accepted that.
 He sailed fro New York on the Steamer Finance, of the Panama Rail- way Steamship Company, March 10. passage paid by the Canal Commission, and lived we'll on the trip, the men there were seventy-four of the them on the boat-having everything they needed.
 Seven day later we landed at Colon' he said, 'gettin in at 3:3O in the after noon. We were told to go to Cristo- bal to meet Chief Engineer Wallace for instructions. But when we got there Wallace was not there-we found i later he only came about one week ] to see some of the head men, ask them how theings were going, take their word for 1t, and go along. We tried to find someone who could tell us where we were going. Finally, a clerk said some of us were for Culsbra. But that was after the last train of the day had left for there. Some of the party had no money and had to borrow from others in order to stay in town that night We put up in the Central Ho- tsl on Front Street, the only street ir the place-it fronts on the harbor. We took train for Culebra at S:30 in the morning, and when we got there found we had to look around for ourselves to find places to put up, although we had been told that the Government would provide all this.
 We went to the transportation of- flee, but they could do nothing for us, and we finally found places with an American woman from, Georgia, namedy Mrs. Chapman, who agreed to board dozen of us for $25 month; she was running mess. Then we had to- look around for place to sleep, and finally got tents, which were pretty thin protection for such cold nights as they have on the coast there. We had no bedding, because We had been told at, Washington. that wei- would have everything provided for us. The com missary's clerk at Cristobal told us We would get everything at Culebra, and ! at Culebra, they said we should have | got it all at CFistobal. We had to sleep with our clothes on, and with our shoes under our heads for pillows. The nights are damp, and our clothes were wet all the time. It's fine place, is Panama! We had to buy our own bed ding.
 'The next day we were ordered to | ride around on trains, to get familiar with the yards. Four of the men were plumbers, and they were promis- ed forty-ffve cents an hour, and were worked for ten hours a day, from 6:30 A. M. to 53O P. M. They wsre docked for loss of time when they ran out of stock, and had to wait for it, and they were out of stock most of the time down ther. It took the two weeks to put two soil pipe stacks at the new hotel, and it was all rough work, too, But they had to string it out like that to make their expenses and their pay. They didn't make so much as they sould have made right here in Rhode Island, where plumbers get forty three and three-quarter cents an hour for an eight-hour day. The job ought to have taken them not more than two days, and they could have done it in a day They told me they intended to stay to the end of the month, to get a full months pay, and then quit.
 Well, I put in day riding about the yards, and then was put in charge of dump train, hauling dirt from the canal and dumping 1t further back. ! had two negro brakemen, Jamaica but cars had no brakes, no grab handles i to get on the top of them with, the couplings were all pin and and link, the old-fashioned kind, and the wheel of the cars were spok wheels. When the train came too fast down the side of the mountain and could not be stopped by poking the iron rails in be- tween the spokes, the cars dumped. The natives called that sort of bar