Panama and the Canal in Picture and Prose

by Willis J. Abbot

THE ANCIENT CATHEDRAL
Its towers have looked down on carnival, revolution, revelry and riot

Señoritas of sundry shades look down sweetly from the balconies, and shower confetti on gallant caballeros who stalk along as giant chanticleers, or strive to entangle in parti-colored tapes the lances of a gay party of toreadors. At night some of the women enmesh giant fireflies in their raven locks with flashing effect. King License rules supreme, and some of the horseplay even in the brightly lighted cafés of the Centrale and Metropolitan rather transcends the limits of coldly descriptive prose. The natives will tell you that the Cathedral Plaza is the center of propriety; the Plaza Santa Ana a trifle risqué. After observation and a return at daybreak from the carnival balls held at the Centrale and Metropolitan Hotels you can meditate at your leisure upon the precise significance of the word propriety in Panama at Mardi Gras.

Photo by Underwood & Underwood

THE POLICE STATION, PANAMA

The clause in the treaty which grants to the United States authority to maintain order in the Republic might very readily be stretched to include police power over Panama. This has not been done however and the city has its own police force, an exceedingly numerous one for a town of its size. Undoubtedly, however, diplomatic representations from the United States have caused the Panamanians to put their police regulations somewhat in accord with North American ideas. There are no more bull fights—“We never had very good bull-fights anyway”, said a Panama gentleman plaintively acquiescing in this reform. Cock-fights however flourish and form, with the lottery drawing, the chief Sunday diversion. A pretty dismal spectacle it is, too, with two attenuated birds, often covered with blood and half sightless, striking fiercely at each other with long steel spurs, while a crowd of a hundred or so, blacks and whites, indiscriminately yell encouragement and shriek for bets from the surrounding arena. The betting in fact is the real support of the game. The Jamaicans particularly have their favorite cocks and will wager a week’s pay on their favorites and all of their wives’ laundry earnings they can lay hands upon as well. One or two gamecocks tethered by the leg are as common a sight about a Jamaican’s hut as “houn’ dawgs” around a Missouri cabin.

CHURCH OF OUR LADY OF MERCY (LA MERCED)

If there is any regulation of the liquor traffic in Panama, it is not apparent to the casual observer. Nowhere does one see so much drinking, and nowhere that people drink at all is there less drunkenness. It is a curious fact that these two phenomena—wide-open drinking places and little drunkenness—are often found together. In Panama the saloons are legion, and I regret to say the biggest of them are run by Americans. No screens obstruct a full view of the interiors, and hardened tipplers flaunt their vice in the faces of all beholders. Perhaps the very publicity impels them to quit before they are hopelessly befuddled. Possibly the moist and somewhat debilitating climate permits the innocuous use of stimulants to a greater extent than would be possible in the North. Beside the absence of any scandalous open drunkenness there seems to be some significance in the fact that the records of the Zone hospitals show a surprisingly small number of deaths from diseases induced by chronic alcoholism. But the casual observer strolling on Avenida Centrale, or along the streets tributary to it, might be excused for thinking Panama one great grog shop. It is curious, too, that despite the Latin character of the populace the taste for light wines, in which some see the hope of national temperance, does not seem general. Whisky, brandy and rum are the regular tipples. On a still remembered night in Panama, before the American invasion, the Centrale Hotel bar was made free to all. No drinks were served to the thirsty, but to all who appeared a bottle was given and the line marched past for some hours. Yet, even at that, there was no considerable drunkenness observed. Apparently for the Panamanians drink is not a hopeless evil, but to the soldiers and marines of the United States stationed on the Isthmus and denied the rational social life of a well-regulated canteen the open doors of the saloons of Panama are as the open doors to a hotter spot. Their more strenuous temperaments will not stand the stimulant which leaves a Panamanian as stolid as before. The fatal riot of July 4, 1912, is one illustration of what Panama saloon hospitality may do with the men who wear the khaki.