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cal cases, and at Ancon there is a large laboratory in which tropical diseases are investigated under the distinguished pathologist, Dr. S. T. Darling. On the island of Taboga in Panama Bay is a con. valescent hospital, where a few of the patients spend the week immediately following their discharge from the hospital.

This system of free medical treatment has been in effect seven years. With a carefully selected class of employes, and a population where the average age is not above 35 years, the results, viewed from a statistical point, would be misleading. From a social standpoint they are probably typical. There has been no noticeable development of the "chronic," as might be expected where drugs are dispensed without cost. The physicians are not tempted to encourage illness, and the people are not encouraged in it. In consequence there is very little medicine dispensed, outside of quinine for malaria and salts for constipation.

Taking away the incentive of private fortune has had no apparent effect on the physicans employed by the Government. These men are selected after competitive examination, and as a class are above the average of their profession in the United States. They are paid salaries varying from $1,500 to $7,000 a year, the average being $2,800 a year. They have a medical society which holds monthly meetings, and they have maintained an esprit du corps no less remarkable than that of the remainder of the Canal force.

The investigations of malaria which have recently won for Dr. W. E. Deeks and Dr. W. McC. James election to various English and American societies of specialists were conducted in connection with regular practice among the patients at Ancon Hospital. Others of the medical profession are doing just as serious work in connection with their other duties; and this spirit of professional enthusiasm is characteristic of the whole staff.

Many of them who entered the Canal service merely as a stepping stone to more lucrative practice, are now frank to say that they would remain in the Government medical service at purely nominal salary, rather than to take up the occupation of a private-adventure physician in general practice.

SCHOOLS.

Two schools for primary instruction are maintained in the Canal Zone by Spanish laborers, but except for these the schools are maintained by the Government. There are two distinct systemsone for colored children and one for white children.

Teachers in the schools for white children are recruited in the United States, and the requirements are fully as severe as those in the average small city in the United States, including professional training and actual teaching experience. There are ten primary schools, and one secondary or high school.

Teachers for the colored schools are recruited with the assistance of the Government of Jamaica, and are chiefly Jamaican negroes who have had professional training in that island. There are sixteen schools for colored children. In addition to the primary branches an effort is made to teach the rudiments of farming to the negro

children, on the assumption that they may remain in the Canal Zone where the opportunities for small farming are good.

A statement of the school attendance in 1911 follows:

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The work is directed by a Superintendent, assisted by two inspectors, 43 white teachers for the white schools, and 24 for the colored schools. Education is not compulsory. Text books are supplied free of cost.

PENAL SYSTEM.

The educative idea does not enter into the penal system of the Canal Zone, the imprisonment of offenders being entirely on the assumption that they owe a debt to the community. Persons convicted of misdemeanors are imprisoned in local jails at Ancon, Emire, Gorgona, and Cristobal, and are made to do work about the jails and police stations, and sometimes on the municipal roads and streets. Persons convicted of crimes are imprisoned at the penitentiary in Culebra, and the majority of the men are set at work on the Canal Zone highways. Their services are valued at 10 cents an hour. In the year 1910, when the Canal, Zone population was largest (approximately 65,000) there were 6,407 males and 477 females placed under arrest, and 80 per cent of these were convicted, the majority of misdemeanors, for which the sentence was a fine or imprisonment for not more than 90 days. One hundred and thirtyseven felony convicts began sentence at the penitentiary during that year. There were sixteen homicides, in which cases there were five convictions, eight acquittals, one dismissal, one sent to the insane asylum, three awaiting trial. Capital punishment is by hanging, and is inflicted only for premeditated murder. The policing of the Canal Zone, a territory of four hundred square miles inhabited by 65,000 people, is done thoroughly by a force consisting of one hundred and forty-six white and one hundred and eleven negro policemen, directed by a chief and assistant chief of police.

MISCELLANEOUS ORGANIZATIONS.

In six of the Canal Zone villages the Government maintains public clubhouses for its white American employes. The buildings contain waiting, reading and game-rooms, billiardY. M. C. A. room, bowling-alleys, and dance-hall that is also used for public entertainments. When the policy of establishing these clubhouses was determined upon the only trained conductors of such institutions in the United States were the secretaries of the Young Men's Christian Association. The Association was called upon to take charge of the Canal builders' social centers for the dual reason that it had the machinery and men ready, and that it makes a good impression in the United States to have Government functions under the guidance of an organization definitely

opposed to such social evils as alcoholism and gambling. It is a disadvantage that the clubhouses are furnished free (although ten dollars a year is charged for each person using them regularly, as a maintenance fee) because it is human nature to feel less interest in things given than in things striven for.

Women's
Clubs.

Part of the effort to establish home life, was the organization of women's clubs under the American Federation of Women's Clubs. These organizations flourished for a period of eighteen months; but soon the novelty wore off, and the difficulty of making the meetings attractive to scores of women of divergent interests and ideas could not be overcome. In an American city these clubs are organizations of women of comparatively similar tastes and interests and therefore are self-cohesive. In the Canal Zone they were started by the Government, and gradually their membership has diminished until it numbers less than two hundred. These few, however, belong to the clubs because they wish to, and they make a much stronger organization than the larger numbers of 1908 and 1909 did. The meetings are devoted largely to discussions of questions of current interest, regular study courses are pursued, and domestic problems are discussed. A tropical cook-book, sanitary drinking cups in the schools and railway trains, free lectures on tuberculosis and other diseases prevalent in Panama, public playgrounds in Colon, Panama, and Gatun, and essay competitions in the schools are among the more tangible results of the organization.

Fraternal
Societies.

Friendly or fraternal societies, such as the Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, Foresters, Knights of Columbus, and Kangaroos, have lodges and hold regular meetings. Their influence is negligible.

The prime object of the trades unions, that of increasing wages and bettering the conditions of employment, is anticipated in work for the American Government by the enforcement of an eight-hour working day, and by higher wages than are paid in private employ. Therefore the trades unions represented among the Americans on the Canal and Panama Railroad are practically restricted to presenting petitions of the employes, and keeping alive the spirit of organization against the time when the men shall again enter private employ. Committees of the men are always at liberty to present grievances to the Chief Engineer, whether they represent a regularly organized union or only a local organization. Individuals are accorded a like privilege, although it is naturally much better to consider grievances of a whole class and decide them at one time than to take up individual cases. The unions represented among the Canal workers include the International Brotherhood of Steamshovel and Dredgemen, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Machinists, Boilermakers, Molders, and Electrical workers. There is a local organization of railway conductors. Meetings are held regularly, and contributions are made to the central organizations in the United States. In every case where there has been a threat of strike the central organization has advised the Canal men not to leave their work, because the conditions of it are so much better than in the United States.

The Spanish laborers have a political organization made up of men of various radical beliefs, called variously liberals, socialists and anarchists. Their meetings are held openly and the discussion

is largely confined to such questions as temperance, gambling, and political conditions in Spain. In the only concerted movement of Spanish laborers that has taken place on the Canal or railroad, the leaders of the liberal clubs were the leaders of the men.

Such organizations as they had in the West Indies, the Englishspeaking negroes have transplanted to the Canal Zone. One is the West Indian Protective Association, which endeavors to present the claims of the negroes as a body, and its influence is unquestionably good, because its weekly bulletin emphasizs the need of right living. "The Land Ship" is an organization with several lodges, its claims on the men seeming to be like that of many of the American fraternal organizations, largely self-improvement and the joy of holding highsounding offices, such as Admiral, Commodore, and the like.

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Ferdinand Vicomte de Lesseps. Born Versailles, 1805. Died 1894. Began Suez Canal project 1854; canal opened 1869. Panama Canal project 1879 to 1894. Lesseps was not an engineer but a promoter. Although convicted with his son of misappropriation of Panama Canal funds, it is believed he knew nothing about the frauds. His name was capitalized. He was not in actual charge of the administration.

Theodore Roosevelt. Born, New York, 1858. Harvard College, 1880. President of The United States, September 14, 1901 to March 4, 1909. During his administration the independence of Panama was realized, and canal work organized.

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William Crawford Gorgas, (Colonel, Medical Corps, U. S. A.) Born Mobile, Alabama 1854. Bellevue Hospital Medical School, 1879. First lieutenant, Medical Corps, 1880. Colonel by special act Congress 1903 for work as health officer of Habana. Chief Sanitary Officer, Isthmian Canal Commission, since June 1904. Member Isthmian Canal Commission, since March 4, 1907.

John F. Stevens. Born West Gardiner, Me., 1853. Builder, engineer manager of railroads. Chief Engineer Panama Canal, July 20, 1905 to April 1, 1907, Chairman of the Commission, February and March, 1907.

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