Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1914-06-10
COMMERCIAL ASPECT
Of THE PANAMA CANAL
CONTINUED from First Page.o


clothes in cold water. Since the
American invasion they have come to
use electric cooking and heating
devices and as current is sold very
cheap this has come to be the
standard wherever possible TO get the
current. In San Jose the capital city
electricity enters into the necessities
of everyday life with the great
majority of the people.
] am one of those who do not ap-
prove of Americans trotting over to
Europe to gaze on the stage settings
as prepared by the innocent natives,
not at least until the sights worth
seeing on this side have been ex-
hausted.
For instance in San Jose they have
one of the finest theatres in the
world. It was designed by the
architects who planned the con-
gressional library How many of
our European travellers have seen this
theatre. Probably there are thou
sands of Americans who know all
about the cathedral at Milan who
have never heard of Costa Rico and
some who know nothing of the Con-
gressional Library.
THE MUNICIPAL WASH TUB
A peculiar custom in San Jose is
the municipal wash tub. AS above
mentioned the natives dread fire and
will not put hand in hot water.
All laundrying is done in cold water.
One of the priests gave the city a
municipaI wash tub which consists of
cement basins fed by mountain
streams. Each woman has a COM
partment and here in the center of
the city the native women gather and
do their laundering. While nothing
but cold water is used it is said the
laundry work of these native women
surpasses our northern methods The
clothes are alternately bleached and
sprinkled and allowed to remain
spread on the cactus bushes for three
days before ironing.
LOOKING DOWN TWO SIDES OF CON
TINENT.
/ met a native Costa Rican at
Colon and learned that he lived
at an altitude of six thousand feet.
He is high enough to be in the
temperate zone and raises many crops
such as we raise in New York state.
Below him he can look down on the
coffee plantations and on other tropic
vegetation He can view two oceans
from his front porch and if he were
cross eyed could look down two sides
of a continent at the same time. His
particular avocation is collecting
orchids which he purchases from the
natives for a few pennies and sells in
Havana for $40 each. Orchids are
almost as common there as dandelions
with US. One lady I met had three
sprays containing twenty seven
blossoms wrich she purchased from a
native boy for five cents.
This is Costa Rico a land of promise
if only the government could be made
over, or the people, or both. Nature
has lavished her choicest caresses on
this devoted land. Everything here
is on big scale. The towering
mountains, the giant forests, the
tropical abundance of fruit and flower
is nowhere equalled. At night the
perfume from the coffee plantations
during the blooming season is so
heavy and aromatic as to almost
deaden the senses. The production is
enormous, and all this in spite of the
fact that this was an old settled
country when Buffalo and Cleveland
and Chicago were wilderness.
ANCIENT CIVILIZATION.
And before the coming of the
white man and before the coming of
the Indian, even before the era of the
pyramids of Egypt this was a settled
country. All through Central America
are prehistoric ruins showing un-
mistakable evidence of a civilization
of which no record is left save their
ruined temples and pottery. This
was country peopled by civilized
race ages and ages ago-how long no
body knows, but long enough so that
the Roman Empire and the Egyptian
Dynasties are comparatively modern.
People who go wandering off to
Europe, guide book in hand, to gaze
on the pyramids and prowl through
Pompeii and stand before the Acrop-
oils, will find enough to hold their
attention and excite their curiosity
and stimulate their desire to unravel
mystery right here almost within
sight of the newly acquired territory
Of the United States, the Panama
Canal Zone.
LOU d. MacWETHY.