Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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BREAD Is the Staff of Life ' ir% g m O 1 New Every Morning Better Bread i r ^ is the Kind Your Neighbor Uses have you tried it ? For Sale By All Grocers ? TF1 PPHONF 49 ? CAMDEN STEAM BAKERY A. J. BEATTIE, Prop. Sold Hogs by Telephone A South Carolina farmer had a large number of hogs which were ready to kill. The weather ?was so warm that killing was out of the question. He went to his telephone, called a dealer in ' Columbia over Long Distance and sold his hogs at a good price. He then called the local freight office and arranged for shipment. The telephone is now a necessity on the farm. You can have one on your farm at small cost. See the nearest Bell Telephone Manager or send a postal for our free booklet. FARMERS' LINE DEPARTMENT SOUTHERN BELL TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY S. Pryor St., Atlanta, Ga. If Your Business must necessarily be handled by others and the matters are important, it will pay you JfojyJing ' Servfce to take advantage of our ? we represent the strongest of companies and would like to acquaint you with the reasonable cost features and surety these bonds give you. An inquiry obli gates you in no way. Let us give you information. WILLIAMS INSURANCE & REALTY COMPANY ( Incorporated. ) 1012 Broad Street Camden, South Carolina DRUG - STORE - NEWS We certainly have them ? anything you may want that a Drug Stor* carries. ThB quality I* good ? we look out for that. Th? price* are right ? very fair. Have u? fill your Prescription? and Phone us for Sick Room Supplies. WE APPRECIATE ^OUR PATRONAGE w. ROBIN ZEMP'S DRUG STORE pHONE in . ^ i -1 - ... .. ... Two Doors Above Postoffice dk LfV35?P3 Palace Colon, C. 'A - "The engineer's dream of (ho centuries has been realized." Everyone who \vrlt oh of the Panama canal feels bourn! to use that phrase, and though it in trite, It is no less true. Possibly when Balboa first stood on tho "Peak of Uarieu" and gazed en tranced at tho waters of what he called the Southern sea the thought of cut ting through the isthmus came to him. Certainly, within three years after hit* great discovery or In 15)6, he had transported two ships, In pieces, across from tho Atlantic to the Pacific and there put them together. It eould not have been very much later that the idea of an isthmian canal wan born,' for during the reign of Philip II. of Spain (1556-1698) the Inquisition declared that auy such pro ject to alter the face of the earth was Impious, and the Spanish ruler forbado Its further discussion. The ban of the church was effective for some time, but in 1699 a Scotchman of the name of Patterson revived the scheme, es tablished a colony on the shores of the isthmus and even mad.e a crude survey of the proposed route. Cale donian bay, on the north shore of Pan ama, alone preserves the memory of that attempt. French scientists in 1735 advocated a Nicaragua canal, fifty j years later the Spanish government or- j dered a survey of the Da r len route, and early in the nineteeth century von Humboldt declared a canal was prac ticable. In 1825, Immediately after Latin America had freed itself from Spain, the Central American -and United States Atlantic and Pacific Ca nal company was organized, and one of the directors of the concern with the high-sounding name was DeWltt Clinton. Various schemes were start ed and fell through, and in 1835 the United States senate voted for the building of a Nicaragua canal. An ex pedition was sefit to that country and reported that the canal could be con Btructed at a cost of $25,000,000. After the Cival war there was much negotiating by our government for a canal concession, but when the Nica ragua route seemed to be the favorite the Bogota government became impa tient and gave tho concession for a Panama canal to Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse, a French lieutenant. He made some maps and organized a company which sold out to the finan ciers with whom Ferdinand de Leseeps had associated himself., Albert Edwards in his admirable book on Panama thus describes the beginning of the tragedy of de Les Beps and his company: "The digging of the Suez canal was the accomplishment of his life. All his vigor and energy had gone into it. He came back to Paris literally carried on. the shoulders of his nation. The government made him a 'comte' and the people called him 'le grand Fran cais.' I3ut he fell among thieves. The old man tumbled blindly into the trap of speculators, who foresaw a rich har vest in the drawing together of his great name and the shady concession of Lieutenant Wyse. They set the stage by summoning the scientists of the world to a great congress to dis cuss an Atlantic-Pacific canal. Al though it was called a 'scientific* con gress, most of its 136 members were speculators and politicians. Only forty two were engineers or geographers. They elected Count de Lesseps, rail roaded through a reeolution that the Panama route was the only practicable one, and formed the Universal Inter oceanic Canal company by buying the VVy6o concession for 10,000,000 francs, before the bona fide members of the congress know what had happened and In the face of much protest. There can be little doubt that the congress was packed like a ward caucus, but there is "no evidence that de Lesseps realized that it was. ' The company wae launched with many banquets, florid speeches by le grand Francais, and champagne with out end. And all the time those who were on the inside were playing the market from both ends, sending tho Btocks tumbling down the steps of the bourse on a manufactured report that tho United States was again waving tho Monroe Doctrino, shooting them up again with a misquotation from the president's mtwsago to the effect that we were enthusiastic in favor of tho French enterprise. A sorrier exhibi tion of conscienceless flnancc has sel dom been seen." . Old do Lesseps, however, was in earnest. He Bent over engineers who discovered that Wyse's maps were in accurate and that yellow fever was deadly. Then in December, 1879, the count himself, with his wlf? and three children, arrived from France. After receptions and speech-making In Colon he crossed to Panama, and there, on January 1, 1880, the formal opening of jthe canal was performed with tolab orate ceremony. Mil?, Perdinando do Lessepx hi Hick ( iio Ural blow of a pick ax at tlx- poiut where the canal wan to on tor the Pacific, ouch of the party fol lowed v< i 1 1? a blow, and there wan u vimt quantity of applause and cham pagne. j From the very first the French coin puny \*as beset with troubles. Ab the canal wan not a govern mont under taking tho work had to bo let out to contractors, attd many of these prov .ed to bo dishonest. They would take out the aoft dirt, collect the stipulate ed prlco per cubic yard, and then go Into bankruptcy. At Bogota tho poll ticiaiiB not only exacted tho usual blackmail, but annoyed the company with all manner of litigation, tho na tive courts Invariably ruling against tho French. Worst of all, perhaps, were the yellow fever and malaria, which killed off the engineers and laborers by the thousand, In tho laBt three months of 188-1 tho death rato per thousand was nearly 100, and In September, 1885, It reached 176.97. Sanitary science had not yet learned how to cope with these diseases, and there is every reason to believe that their ravages alone would have been enough to insure the failure of do Lessepa' enterprise, without the gross extravagance and the dishonesty that "The crash came in 1888," says Mr. Edwards. "After eigbt years of as bravo a fight as man had ever made against nature, the bubble burst. It la estimated that stock had been iBsued to the value of two hundred and fifty million dollars. It is doubtful If hall' this fium ever got near enough to Panama to bo expended on actual work. Most of this paper was held by French peasants and people of mod erate means. They had been led into it by the great name of do Lesseps. You may be sure that none of the orig inal promoters were caught with stock Statue. ?s Columbus ?t gristosal on their hands when the final break came. The scandal was - Immense. Many government officials were in volved. The shame of it drove the old man ? le Grand Francaie ? insane. He died a few years later in an asylum." The company went into the hands of a roceiver who organized the New French Canal company, and this con corn sold all its rights and property to the United States In 1002. Many of its building'), ranging in size from <1<? Lesseps' palace in Cristobal to houses for laborers, were found worth preserving and have been used by the Americans. The hospital buildings at Ancon and Colon were nearly all erect ed by the Frenfch. When Uncle Sam look hold of the canal work, the jungle all along the route across the isthmus was found full of expensive machinery abandoned to the ravages of rust and decay. Much of this was recovered and used in the earlier years of the American regime, and even now French dredges and lo comotives may be seen at work there. Nearly all the old French equipment, however, has been sold to a Chicago wrecking concern which has been pil ing it up in orderly heaps and dlspoe Ing of It as scrap. Two parts of the actual work done on the canal by the French have proved of great help to the' Americans. These were the dredging at the Atlan tic entrance and the dry excavation in the Cufrbra cut. SAWYKR'S Kll) cert* , /n ode 01 //t4bcz/ ? ?/?*?# *r~?" ~ilh/l?3 c^taa. Catch your little troubles in time, before they become big troubles. A neglected earache often leads to permanent deafness; neglect a running nose you may get catarrh; neglect a sore throat and you may bring on diptheria or lung disease. Do not let your ailments run on without attention. Get now the "ounce of prevention/* We supply none but pure, fresh drugs. Come to OUR Drug Store Sawyer Drug Company REAL ESTATE > SELL Do You Want to > loan ^ BORROW I May Help You. LAURENS T. MILLS, CAMDEN, S. C. Smile Producers You'll smile and look pleasant when you partake of a Cool Drink such as we dispense at our Fount. Camden Candy Kitchen Polite and Courteous Waiter* to Serve You The Cleverest Adaptions of the Latest Imported PARISIAN MILLINERY are to be seen in our splendid [display of MID-SEASON MILLINERY Besides these, there are many examples of the most exclusive of refined styles that are creations of the best domestic artists on display. MODEST PRICES? OF COURSE * - MISS MATTIE GEJRALD