The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-07-18

CTlSLODaI, Oanal LOuet July 1tT-kAcEo is located the big commissary of the Isthmus. Every years 1t buys couple of million dollars worth of stun from the United States. including all the food stuffs furnished to the household CTS of the Canal Zone. This comInis- | sary is one of the things which makes | life on the Isthmus tolerabie. It sells the individual employe the best of
 everything at cost plus a very mar | row margin.
 1 This commissary is nothing more or | less than a big department store with l branches in every town on the lsthmus. | Its prices are astonishingiv lew when ore thinks how far -hey ha Q brought | things. A suit of linen selling for $7 l in the States can be bought here for | $5. Bottled 5u"ermIik as fresh as if l just from the churn. can be bought as low as in New York. Chicago or | St. Louis. Strawberries and water l melons can be bought as advants- | geously here as in any good market l in the States.
 All the beef comes through the com
 missary. The householder sends in his
 order to the commissary just as he would send 1t to his corner grocer in | the States, and 1t Is filled just as promptly. When 1t gets home he finds | that he has paid less for corresponding | cuts of meat than he would have to | pay in any leading American city. It
 is fine meat hegets, big. juicy steaks
 and roasts that would make the heart of the average American householdAr
 glad.
 In the City of Washington. where 1 there is as high class of beef eaters
 as in any city in the country, because i of its large percentage Of salaried peo- l pie. only ten per cent of the beef sold 1 to consumers by one of the leading 1 Chicago packers is prime beef. ore- | fourth of the remainder is the second | grade, and the remaining two-thirds iS l third grade meat. Here on the 18th | mus no third grade beef Is brought
 in. It is all good to prime, and no less l an authority than Chief Engineer
 Goethals himself. says that he cannot
 buy as good beef in Washington as
 he gets every day at Culebra. Any
 enc who has eaten the Isthmian Canal
 Commi mission's hotel fare day after day
 will concede the splendid quality of
 their beef. and the same kind is sup
 piled to the househofders.
 The same is true of everything. whe-
 ther 1t is something to eat. something
 to wear, or something with which to
 furnish a home. And everything is
 delivered at the housewife's door, the perishable articles directly from the | refrigerator cars. So far as this phase
 
 there is little left that could reason
 ably be desired.
 Married folks get the lonR end of
 the proposition on the Isthmus. Those | who bring their families are given
 married quarters as rapidly as pos
 sible. If the employe Is a low salaried
 man he is given furnished apartment
 of four rooms and bath. If he Is get
 ting a few hundred dollars more he
 Is given a five room house or apart
 ment The man getting still more gets l a six-room house and so on. the houses l being of a commensurate character | with the. position of the man--about
 the same sort of accommodations he would rent for himself. or own in the
 States. He Is furnished fuel. light and water free. Thus his only outlay is l for something to eat, something tc wear and the incidentals of life. Mar l ried quarters are in gread demand. There are several hundred applicants for quarters now. It Is not intended to build a great many more. so that hereafter only those vacated by peo- pie returning to the States or by those who have been promoted. will be available The Isthmian folk get a pretty fair line on the activities of Dan Cupid by the applications which come in, many of them from supposedly old bachelors.
 But notwithstanding the fact that married folks can live more cheaply on the Isthmus than in the States. and that they have the advantage of the unmarried, there are more tongue lashings handed to MT. Jackson Smith. the head of the Department of Labor, Subsistence and Quarters, than to any other man on the 1sthums. For in- stance. Mrs. Jones has q straight front dresser in her bed room. It may have been put there a full year ago. She goes over to call on Mrs. Brown and finds that she has just gotten new dresser and thaS it has a swell front. Immediately Mrs. Jones imaglnes her self discriminated against, and she cuts her call short to go down to the de- partment resolved to know the reason why she hasn't swell front dresser | like the one Mrs. Brown has. The ex- pIanation that @ new order of dressers | had come in and that all the new ones are swell fronts, don't appease her | wrath nor satisfy her mind. She Is | forever afterward the possessor of a grievance against the Canal Commis- l sion in general and the Commissioner
 of Labor. Subsistence and Quarters in particular.
 woman at Empire wanted a mat tress on a hurry-up order. The local manager told her he had only one and that this one was not very good but he would have others in the next day. She replied that she wanted one at once and that the one in stock would do Next day she saw neighbor get new
 mattress and in ten minutes she was at headquarters demanding that she get
 one like her neighbor had. In another case a lady gave a little Eirthday par tv to her daughter. She asked the Commission electrician to put in few
 extra lights for the occasion He did
 SO Within thirty hours he had twenty ladies asking for a similar number of | lights.
 The average woman on the Isthmus
 has little to do. and of course. idle
 minds like Idle hands are apt to find mischief to do. The little fancied wrongs that women have received ram l kla in their bosoms and spread about appearing worse as they go. | Seeing this. Secretary Taft nlanned | club organzation work which was done