CITIES IN THE WILDERNESS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 81, 1 May 1909, Page 3

CITIES IN THE WILDERNESS.

HOW 38,000 WORKMEN LIVE IN PANAMA. FOURTEEN. HOTELS. New York, February 27. Tire new Panama Canal furnishes a remarkable (Maniple oi how a Government can not only transport an industrial army of 38.000 men several thousand miles, but feed it and maintain it in comfort and even in luxury in a tropical, fever-ridden country. Some interesting statistics have been compiled showing the stupendous character of the undertaking, which is without parallel ill modern times. Of the 38,000 men employed in constructing the canal, 8000 are whites, mostly Americans. The United States Government looks after the welfare of its employees like a solicitous father. All along the canal route are email villages, with churches, schools, and model houses, especially constructed for the workmen. Each house for the whites hits balconies on all sides, and wire netting extending from ground to roof, outside the balconies, to keep out mosquitoes. The Government has spent £122,000 in wire netting, and is the owner or 3338 buildings, representing the expenditure of £2,000,000. It has also provided:—

Clergymen. Five State-maintained branches of the Young Men's Christian Association. , ; „•... Orchestras and glee clubs. dramatic societies. Women's clubs for wives of employees, Fourteen large hotels. Forty-five messes and commissariat kitchens. Baseball league, with clubs in every village, and scheduled matches. Two circuses. A laundry, with 5600 patrons. WOMEN'S CLUBS.

All the workmen who desire arc allowed to have their wives with them, and the women's clubs arc all affiliated with a central organisation in Panama City.

Only workmen on the canal are allowed to buy supplies at the Government stores, in order not to interfere with local shopkeepers, whose prices are naturally higher. The Government does a business of about £1,000,000 a year, without taking a penny in cash. All Government goods are purchased by vouchers, and deductions are made from the employees' wages in accordance with the vouchers.

Nobody need purchase from the Government unless he wishes. Of 23,000 West Indian negroes employed on the canal more than two-thirds refuse to deal with "Uncle Sam," and live in the native villages, or build huts for themselves in the bush.

At the Government stores one may purchase anything from a collar-button and a silk hat to all the necessities for a banquet. From America are sent to the Government's commissariat monthly:— 350,000 pounds of bce'i, mutton, and veal. £15,000 worth ef clothes. £O,OOO worth of tobacco.

500 gallons of oysters. It is no small undertaking to keep the various Government stores in the canal zone supplied with fresh food. A refrigerator train leaves Colon every morning at 4.30 with the day's supplies for all the commissariat stations along the isthmus. Two and a-half tons of chickens are eaten every five days, while the daily supplies include the following: —'lsoo loaves of bread, 1000 American pies, 400 gallons of ice cream, 15 tons of ice, 1230 eggs, 6</ 3 tons oi potatoes, 500 quarts of milk, 1 ton of ham, 1 ton of bacon. COST OP FOOD. At the Government hotels a dinner consisting of soup, fish, meat, vegetables, sweets, and coffe e costs Is 3d. At the messes, where the chief patrons arc Spanish laborers, Is lOd pays for a day's meals, and at the kitchens,'where the! blacks eat, Is 3d is charged a day for food. The Spaniards are doing the best financially of any of the foreign laborers. They draw 6s 6d a day, and, living in Government quarters free and paying Is lOd for meals, they net a profit of 4s 8d daily. ' About the only things the American Government refuses to sell are intoxicating beverages. No public houses arc allowed in the canal zone, and when the workers want stimulants they go to Panama City, where there arc 1200 bars, which, tor a .town of a population of 20,000 is probably a world's record. If th ( , (lovcrnment sanitary department on the isthmus succeed* in making workmen immune against the bite of a particularly dangerous species of mosquito that flies about in the canal zone at night, the construction of the canal will be greatly accelerated. Hitherto night gangs have been impossible owing to the ravages of this mosquito, but it is now believed that its bite can be rendered harmless.

Fifty-eight per cent, of the excavation has been accomplished, and twenty-eight months more arc required to finish the digging. If the night mosquito can be rendered harmless, it is estimated that the canal will be completed in twenty months. There are 105 steam shovels of enormous power gouging out rock and dirt, each doing the iwork of 125 men. A steam shovel will load' a large two-horse waggon in seventeen seconds, or 150 railway cars a day. 'A shovel necessitates only one-third as much dynamite to loosen the rocks as manual labor would require.