The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-12-03
PANAMA CANAL :
An Illuminating Article Upon Present Conditions on the
 Isthmus
Canal to Be Open for General Use in January, 1915l Though to Be Completed by December 1913 Sketch of Big Liners Passage Through the Ditch, Which More Nearly Resembles River.

let his cane stand upright out of doors
 overnight lest in the morning he would awake to find it rooted in the
 earth and sprouting branches. The 1 banana, orange, cocoanut and sugar l American energy could discover some method of revitalizing the shiftless
 nat yes and inspiring them to steady
 work. millions may be made in the cultivation of these crops. AS it is, the natives pick their crops wild. or at the most, can only be induced to | we half-hearted attention to a small | section of land
 The sun beats down mercilessly. Un- ! til few years ago the native oh ldren ,1nembarrassed, Haunted their chubby dark charms sans garments. Even at
 the present time one may occasionally
 see swarthy youngsters at the bath ! Tn front of a shack in natures garb. 1 Strongest to all American ears. is the : S"anish, French. or English accent of l the negroes. They are alike in fee- ture with the American negroes, but 1 their environment in Trinidad, or i Martinique. Gaudeloupe or Barbados,
 famacia or St. Kits, has left the ac-
 cent of the language spoken there. It
 is infinitely amusing to the Americans : to encounter a coal black negro who 1 talks with a cockey accent.
 ! The Isthmus is a cosmopolitan place. The Republic of Panama,
 through which the United States owns
 bbon of land 10 miles in width from
 ocean to ocean-the Canal Zone-is.
 of course. South American. it's people
 speak Spanish mostly. They are des- j cendants of Spanish pioneers. Some of | them with perhaps a mixture of In-
 dian blood. When the United States l began work on the Canal, Americans
 brought the English tongue. Today, | in Panama City, capital of the Re-
 public. one can manage to get along
 on Enelish
 i Dr. Fable Arosemna President or i the Republic, speaks English fluent : lv as. in deed do the majority of the upper classes of Panamanians. The daughters of nearly all prominent cit | iZenS are educated either in the Uni ! ted States or abroad, and many of | their sons likewise.
 ] While Panama Is an independent Republic gaining freedom with the tacit knowledee, if not actual co-op- eration of the United States. she is bound very close to America. Mer> chants and business men in the Re- public have grown rich by the s30,- 900 900 which Uncle Sam spends there yearly. Moreover. America exercises what is very like protectorate over the country. The treaty by wh ch the United States acquired the Canal
 
 More than that Uncle Sam undertook the task of making the principal cit ies of Colon and Panama sanitary land payements and forced the des- truction of pestilentical danger spots. There have been no cases of yellow fever on the Isthmus near or in the Canal Zone since 1905. The herculean task of transforming a belt of land packed with tropic levers and alive with pestilence-a job comparable to the engineering work on the canal has been accomplished by corps of military physicians under Col. Gorgas, with wonderful efficiency.
 Today the deadly yellow fever mos quito is practically eradicated. There is no d:minution in preventive work, however, and swamps and stagnant water pools all over the Zone are regularly oiled. Panama and Colon have been made clean and healthy cities-the latter being transformed veritable swamp alive with deadly fever.
 The Department of Sanitation even sees to it that the citizens of the free and independent Republic of Panama keep their streets clean. and it re- ouires a san tary and modern col1ec- tion of garbage as we'll as the ex- termination of rats and mosquitoes. An American need not fear to live and work on the Isthmus nowadays. Des- bite the heat, there has never been a sun stroke in the history of the medi- cal corps there. In 1904 three-Quar terS of those on the Zone were ln- fected with malaria and hospitals were kept busy treating about 30 per cent of the canal force Nowadays scarce lv one-third of this number are ,af- fected. The e'ght-hour working day prevails and the work is from to 1' a. m., and 1 to p. m. with two hours for luncheon and siesta: There are Y. M. c. A. stations, churches, government furnishes quarters, light, fuel and if desired, food. This latter at prices which appear rid 'culously low compared with the States, free schools. free medical and hospital at tendance and pay salaries s5 to 55 per cent above those pad for similar work in the United States. A laundry owned and operated by the govern ment does work for all employees and charges 25 to 40 per cent less than those in the United States Em- ployees receive distilled water free. They get ice from the government at a cheap figure If they desire they can live at the government Hotels" and pay just 30 cents for meal which cannot be obtained in the United States for 75 cents or $1. This is only open for government employees. The worker on the canal can smoke cigars which would cost 15 cents stra ght in .the States, but which an obliging commissary sells for cents each. His wife may purchase real Irish linen at 1-2 the price to her sister in the States. The reason is that there is no duty on imports to the Zone when are brought in by. the government.
 The United Press correspondent with President Taft asked an engineer on one of the big locomotives to tell him what he thought of the work on the Zone. Well" he said, 'Tm not main line engineer and I get only S1s0 gold, a month as against their so1O. But I have $10O every month of the year and live better than I'd even hoped to live when was in the States
 "How long have you been here?" he was asked.
 'I've only been back seven months this last time" he replied. 'sPr Or to that I worked here four years; then went home and bought farm. Now want another farm; so I came back where the money was easy"
 There is no Thigh cost of living on the Isthmus. The government em- ployee there can purchase the best -orter house steaks (tept in cold storage plant operated by the Sub sistence Department) for from 10 to 15 cents less than in the United States The two lone staples. upon