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332 police for slight or imaginary offenses while the streets of Panama were being paved and sewered became so _fre- quent and so annoying as to threaten the entire suspension of these opera- tions until the Panamanians could be brought to their senses and made to guarantee the protection of our work- men instead of annoyance. In both Panama and Colon, in 1905 and 1906, Americans were frequent y arrested and brutally clubbed when greatly outnum- bered by Panama police, in some in- stances after they had reached the "calaboose." On one occasion a group of young officers from one of our warships, on shore leave in Colon, were arrested, and after reaching the "calaboose" were severely clubbed. It was with difficulty, and only after much parley- 'ing, that a canal commission doctor obtained permission to send the unfor- tunate prisoners to the hospital for necessary surgical treatment of their wounds. I was present next morning in the little, dirty, dingy room on a second floor on a side street of Colon, where these young men were arraigned before the district judge. The trumped-up charges were careful- ly written at the dictation of the so- called judge, and the prisoners, cut, bruised and bandaged, had stood up to hear the charges read, when, to our great delight, but to the dismay of the court, there appeared in the doorway, like an apparition, one of the finest specimens of our naval of- ficers, in full uniform, sword and all. Having made his salute to the court, without waiting for recognition, he stated that he had been sent by the commander of the ship to bring the young men on board and to say that if their presence on shore was neces- Saty at any time the 'commander would be responsible for their appear- ance. This occurrence stirred the Americans, on the Isthmus to such, a bitter feeling that trouble seemed im- minent. The commander of the ship would have 'been pleased to turn to and blow the town 'out of existence, but a little time and hot cables be- tween Washington and Panama led to the whole matter being dropped ab- ruptly. Likewise the arrogant insults of the Panama police. Ravages of Time. The Canal Zone as we presented a spectacle that beggars de- scription. The ravages of time in such a climate are rapid, and nature quickly covers all traces of man's activities when once they are suspended. The only signs of the white man's enter- Pptise were on the line of the railroad received it THe Marine. REVIEW 'and immediately connected with the business of that corporation, and the hundreds of locomotives, dump cars, excavators, cranes and other machin- ery, the dwellings, hospitals and shops, and the miles of railroad tracks aban- doned to decay or to be overrun by vegetation suggested a graveyard of the most gigantic enterprise, or rather a monument to the most gigantic fail- ure of a good cause the world has ever seen. | The Panama railroad, always one of the best-paying railroads in the world, remains an anomaly. in railroad his- tory. Its stock is owned by the United States government, but the business is conducted, as is any, rail- road business, for profit, to pay inter- est on bonds still outstanding. Its president is the chairman 'of the canal commission,. the several members of which aze the directors of the road. Albsolute control of this railroad lby the commission has made it possible so to arrange its business that all else is secondary to its service to the canal work. Passenger trains are run in the early morning, at noon, and in the evening, to avoid the working hours of ditt trains and the great vol- ume of through freight, which is still crossing the Isthmus on its way to the United States and Europe, and is transported at night. : Health of the Isthmus. Of the many problems that con- fronted the pioneers' of this great work none seemed more serious than the health conditions on the Isthmus, The story that tells of the death of a man for each tie used in the con- struction of the Panama railroad in 1850-55 is only a slight exaggeration of the truth, and the havoc wrought by disease among the French in the period of their. greatest activity 'has given the Isthmus a reputation which the whole world refuses quickly to forget. When the first canal commission visited the Isthmus in May, 1904, be- fore the property of the French Canal Co. had been formally transferred to the United States government, a care- ful investigation was made as to the sanitary conditions--the population, the prevailing diseases and other nec- essary data--in the cities of Colon and Panama, and also in the canal zone. In May, 1904, the population of Panama was 19,000; of Colon, 7,000, and of the villages within the zone, 8,000, a total of 34,000. In Panama there was no water sup- ply except rain water from the roofs during the rainy season and water de- September, 1909 livered by carts during the dry season. The lack of running water made it necessary for each householder to keep one or more barrels, cisterns or tanks in which to store a small supiply of fresh water. There was likewise no sewer system except some anti- quated underground drains constructed of stone by the earlier inhabitants, Colon Water Supply. In Colon the water supply was somewhat better, there being a small pipe line owned by the Panama rail- road, which delivered a small quantity of fairly good water into that town. The better classes, however, continued to use rain water from cisterns. Two small sewers were in existence; one, the property of the Panama railroad, © the other of the Panama Canal Co, Along the canal zone there was ab- solutely no provision for a water sup- ply or sewerage system except at one or two stations where the activities of the old French Canal Co. had been such as to warrant the installation of a local water supply. It will be observed that the water receptacles in every dwelling, and the Swamps about the towns, afforded most favorable breeding places for the stegiomya and anopheles mosqui- toes. The French Canal Co. had built a hospital at Ancon, a suburb of Pan- aiia, with a total capacity of "700 when crowded, and in the city stood the old city hospital known as Santo Tomas, with a capacity of about 350 beds. In Colon were two hospitals-- one of 35 beds owned by the Panama railroad; the other of 50 beds owned by the French Canal Co. With the exception of the railroad hospital at Colon, all hospital buildings were out of repair and in an unsanitary condi- tion. Nor was any attempt made to keep the buildings or grounds from deterioration, some of the wards at Ancon being entirely hidden from view iby the tropical vegetation that quickly sprang up when the French activities began to subside. Diseases of Panama. The prevailing diseases were yellow fever, beri-beri, tuberculosis, malaria, pneumonia, typhoid and dysentery. Statistics of these diseases, which were kept during the operations of the French Canal Co., 1881-1904, not only Suggest a picture of the awful havoc wrought by disease upon the working force, but afford a most interesting comparison with the methods and re- sults of the later enterprise. The French 'began operations in