In the crowded negro quarters one evidence of the activities of the sanitation department was largely missing. No attempt was made to screen all the barracks and shacks that housed the workers. But the self-closing garbage can, the oil-sprinkled gutters, the clean pavement and all the other evidences of the activities of Col. Gorgas’ men were there. Perhaps the feature of the barracks which most puzzled and amused visitors to the Zone were the kitchens. Imagine a frame building 300 feet long by 75 feet wide, three stories high with railed balconies at every story. Perched on the rails of the balustrades, at intervals of 20 feet, and usually facing a door leading into the building are boxes of corrugated iron about 3 feet high, the top sloping upward like one side of a roof and the inner side open. These are the kitchens—one to each family. Within is room for a smoldering fire of soft coal, or charcoal, and a few pots and frying pans. Here the family meal is prepared, or heated up if, as is usually the case, the ingredients are obtained at the Commissary kitchen.
The reader may notice that the gold employees are supplied with food at a fixed price per meal; the silver employees at so much per ration of three meals. The reason for this is that it was early discovered that the laborers were apt to economize by irregularity in eating—seldom taking more than two meals a day and often limiting themselves to one, making that one of such prodigious proportions as to unfit them for work for some hours, after which they went unfed until too weak to work properly. As the Commission lost by this practice at both ends, the evil was corrected by making the laborers pay for three meals, whether they ate them or not—and naturally they did. It is a matter of record that the quality of the work improved notably after this expedient was adopted.
Photo by Underwood & Underwood
A WORKMEN’S SLEEPING CAR
The gold messes are principally for the foreign laborers, Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese, and pains are taken to give them food of the sort they are accustomed to at home. Spaghetti is consumed by the ton, as well as rice, garlic, lentils and other vegetables sought by the people of southern Europe.
Photo by Underwood & Underwood
A WORKMEN’S DINING CAR
