The Penn's Grove record., 1905-04-07
A Penn.s Grove Man In Panama.

Culeba, Canal Zone, March 26, 1906.
Greeting to all my friends in PENIS
Grove.
l promised all my friends in PENIS
Grove to let them know how things are
down here along the Panama canal. To
start with, when l left New York, Janu-
airy 31st, you had plenty of snow and
cold weather, but three days ride OH
the steamer Alliance, of the Panama
Railroad Co., brought us down to Cuba
and we all came out of our overcoats.
Four more days brought us down to Col
on, or Aspinwall of old.
Colon is a city of 5000 or 5000 inhabi-
tants, a few stores and old shacks, but
what they lack in number they make up
in price of the goods, or bads, they sell.
What hurt me most is the price of beer,
% cents a glass, and the most possible
small glass of stuff they call whisky is
20 cents gold. You must understand
American money is called gold and Col
umbian is silver, so you see a man must
dry.
Colon lays in a grove of tall slender
coco palm. The grove looks something
like Colonel French's grove, but without
flying horses. In place of them they
have generally a lean lame pony hitched
to a heavy four wheeled carriage and
when a man rides two blocks he is ready
for a good hearty meal as it shakes and
slinkers like old Mart Dolbow's market
wagon when he comes down the shell
road i'll a hurry. The distance between
Colon and Panama is 45 miles. We got
on the train 12.45 a. m. with a lightning
like speed of 10 miles per hour. Billy
Shinns could beat that with his old mare
and roadcart. We reached Panama at
5.16 p. m.
Panama is a city OF between 10000
and 25, 900 inhabitants, very dirty and
very dusty, the paradise of bedbups.
sa~ndjiggers and turkeybuzzards, with a
wide reputation for yellow fever, dirty
black women and ditto men. The streets
look a good bit like the shell road in
early spring after heavy carting of man
ure. We stopped three days in Panama
and had a good look around. There are
some splendid buildings in the city such
as the Governors Palace, the CITY Hall,
the Administration Building, and just
outside on a big hill is the Ancon Hospi-
tai, a big airy roomy'house with different
departments, surrounded by immense
king and COCO palms. Here is where all
the yellow fever cases 60. / have seer
seven men taken there, but none came
back. They all die within four days.
At present we are working at Culebra.
Here is the most difficult job on the can
al. They have to dig down 800 feet and
about a mile long. This section will take
about five years and will cost a little more
than old man Jecker's farm. The place
here is about the healthiest along the
canal. The sanitary condition is first
class and the sanitary commission is we'll
| represented i'll the shape of turkey buzz
yards. They are the street cleaners down
here and the price for killing one is 500
fine. The country here is very noun
famous with plenty of game such as deer,
pecary, wild pig, jaguars and anteaters
on land and plenty of fish and ~alligators
in the water. About eight miles back III
the mountains they say there is gold, but
| have not seen any. The farmers down
here are getting ready for planting corn
sweet potatoes, cabbage and yams. Or
anges, bananas, mangos and ~pineapples
grow all over, SO do sandjiggers and enor
nous big ~cockroaches.
When you go 10 any hotel to put you
name on the book the bedbngs will craw
over the desk to see which room you ar,
going to take and you will not feel lone
some the next few nights. Eating is BAG
what little you get. They take good car,
so you do not overload your stomach
because they say it is unhealthy. Boart
with quarters is $35 per month. Their,
is no hardware store here and l believ'
Mr.. Willis would do good down her,
with AL Dahms as saleslady. Alas. whit,
girls are very scarce down here. | wisI
you could induce some of those goo,
looking Penn's Grove girls here. Every
thing is coon, coon. coon. l wish you
color would fade.
| wished to write something good abou
the place, but can not tell a lie. Tn
only good thing is payday but it come
only once a month. / will close nv lei
ter with my best regards to all my friends
GUSTAV T~RAcHLER.