The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-11-06
(By Frank G. Carpentcr.)

my FRANK u. Oarpenter.)
Washington. Nov. 6.-Within Il few
months Uncle Sam will have twenty
five hundred Chinese coolies working
on the Panama canal. They will be
brought across the ocean by CONTRACT
and will be subjected to rigid medical
inspection before leaving China for
Panama. While at Panama their
health will be carefully watched. their
sanitary conditions will be better than
at home, and the probability is that
they will solve the labor problem
there. Chinese coolies were imported
during the building Of the Panama.
railroad, but no regard was paid to
their health, and in the malarious con-
ditions which then prevailed they died
by hundreds. At one time an cpl
demic of suicide broke out among
them, and so many killed themselves
at one place along the road that the
seation there got the name of Mata-
chin, which means dead Chinaman."
1t has that name to this day.
The Chinese In South Africa.
Secretary Taft is anxious to throw
all safeguards about the Chinese and
to protect them in every possible way
not only as to their health. but as to
impOsitions of any kind. The condi-
tiOns of introduction will be about the
same as those now employed in bring
ing coolies from China to South Africa
TO satisfy the labor famine which eX-
lists there The GOLD mines of the
Rand have long been short of work
men. The East Indians who were inl-
nnrtoS NOT SnnoocS and ho of
frs. who have done Il great deal of
more and more unreliable from year
to year. They will work only when
they are hungry, and as their wants
are few. they can get enough to sat-
isfy them by laboring from one-third
to one-half the time. The result is
they are idle from six to eight months
every year, and the operators of the
mines never know when gang will
leave in body.
1t was in 1904 that the Transvaal
began to import Chinese coolies. 1t
has now brought in thirty or more
shiploads. containing altogether about
$4,000 Chinese OF these more than
two-thirds have been taken from north
China. of which less than one in one
hundred has died from sickness.
Choosing Coolies for Panama.
Our coolies will be secured after the
same method that the British used to
get coolies for South Africa. The
South African Chinese gathered by
the English mercantile firms in China.
who received certain sums for every
sound. healthy coolie delivered at the
port Of embarkation. We shall have
to make arrangements with the gov
eminent at Picking and our coolies
will be carefully examined by doctors
again and again before they are ship
ped. Their first examination will be
made by the American medical mis-
siOnary nearest home, and the others
by doctors at the ports. Barracks
will probably be built at the place of
embarkation to store the coolies until
the ships are ready to take them, and
the men will be gone over again and
again by the doctors. Their eyesight
and hearing will be inspected and
rigid physical examination made. Be-
fore the latter. each coolie will be
thoroughly scrubbed with soap and
warm water, and after the examina-
ton he will be vaccinated. photo
graphed and tagged with card cor
responding to his letter of identifica-
tion. Before he signs a contract he
will be made to understand just what
the contract is. and that he signs it
only Of his own volition. In this he
will be protected by the Chinese gov
eminent officials, who will ask him
all sorts of questions to see that he
knows just what he is doing. Here
are some of the questions which will
be put to him:
Where are you going? How long
will it take you to reach Panama?
What will you do when you arrive
there? What kind of work can you
do? What wages will you get? Can
you leave money in China for your
family? How much will you leave?
How many hours day will you work?
at Panama? How many days per
week? Do you go of your own free
will?" etc., etc.
III the Chinese coolie answers these
questions so that the government of
fetal knows that he understands his
contract. he will be passed on into the
gang and registered for embarkation,
but before he will be allowed to 20
the official will say:
Now. If there is any coolie here
who regrets having come, let him step
to the front. Any man who does not
wish to go to Panama is still at per-
feet liberty to go home. if he SO
chooses, and there will be no pun
ishment for him and no money to pay
for having changed his mind The
only requirement Is that he leave this
port within twenty-four hours"
Tagged With Lead Disks.
At the final inspection each Chinese
will receive lead disk stamped with
the number of his Identification card
and contract. This he will carry with
him to Panama, and it will be proba-
bly, used by him from day to day in
on board ship. however, he will have
to pass final medical examination.
For this several hundred coolies will
be brought into large hall at a
time. and each must then be clad only
in piece Of string and his paper tag.
The men will be taken one by one
into an adjoining room to be examined
by the doctors and by Chinese clerks,
who will see whether their physical
appearance corresponds with their
Identification tags. II they are found
correct the men will pass into a third
room, where there is tank of warm
water in which he must wash off the
the last dust of China from his body.
He will then go into a dressing room
to put on new, clean clothes and per-
haps uniform furnished by the con-
tractors of the Panama canal. 1t is
here that the coolie changes his pa
per tag for lead disk. and here he
gets his first payment of a months