Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 243, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1914 — Panama City and the Canal [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Panama City and the Canal

PANAMA is a unique city. The circumstances which shaped her destiny and wove her into the* web of progress, made of her a sister to the great cities of North and South America. Her geographical situation, her North American adoption and the greatest of world projects carried out in her enVirons, all have served to lift her out of that centuries old lethargy so enervating, impassive and retarding. After the old Panama had been revived again and again from the rapine destruction of pirates and buccaneers, it was finally left to the denizens of the jdngles and the new Panama founded some five miles to the southwest, where the devastation ,of plundering shipß’ crews was impossible. The Panama of today stands protected to seaward by a long reef, to landward by a narrow 1 peninsular neck, and by the mighty arm of the United States government. Metropolis of Central America. No more will Pizarros, Morgans and Walkers pillage this metropolis of Central America, no more will the bigotry of priesthood hold a throttling hand upon her progress. The new Panama, born in the last decade, is pulsating with enterprise and industrial achievement. The financial inva-

sion of the United States has attracted every type of civilized mankind. There is work to be done, heeds to be assuaged, money to be made. All the resources of the surrounding country must be brought to a focus so that the ships that glide in at the Pacflc entrance and out into the Atlantic, will carry away to the crowded markets of the north Panama’s quota of fruits, hardwood, rubber, indigo, coffee and bats. With this, civilized prosperity begins, and it matters not what race or 'conglomeration of races are .involved. The “Bpiggoty Lingo.” At first it was difficult for these people to get along on any kind of footing in the way of everyday speech.! One man having many interests in common with another could find no medium of expression. And out of this confusion of tongues grew a language which Is neither English, nor French, nor Spanish, nor German, nor Chinese, nor Japanese, nor anything other than ltself. It is not a very old language, and consequently not well developed, nor has it ever been written or spoken outsjde of the canal zone and Panama. It is called the “Spiggoty Lingo,” and its origin is substantially this: If you ask ,a native something in English he will say, "No speaka da Engliss,” because he doesn't. For a long time they used this taply, until the enterprising American found a few words of their language and they found a few of his, and of all the others brought in, so that there were words enough of all languages known in common to make for a new language which was promptly called the “Spiggoty" or "Stfeaka de ” as you please to spell it. This same method was used by the Hudson Bay company in the earliest days of the Weet with the Indian tribes of the Northwest. They used some signs, sdme Indian words they were able to grasp, taught the Indian a few of their own bad English words, and called the whole, “The Chinook language,” after a tribe by that name. Through the medium of the Spiggoty language a vast amount of practical labor Is being performed. It has been found adequate for inductive reasoning, for speaking persuasively, oratorically, v imperatively, and can be used significantly while in a state of disgust or qnger.

There are many beautiful plazas and patios set among the otherwise bald, sere houses and streets of Panama. These are green and fragrant all the year with fan palms and banyans casting a day-long shade over the up-to-date benches. In Santana park, when the shades of evening begin to fall, a “Spiggoty band” usually playing some of our popular music, comes from somewhere, and begins The young people seem to think a great deal of the music .for they acclaim it loudly after each piece, and will sit all night and listen, if the band keeps up. There are still a considerable number of high-class families who make various far-reaching, claims toward an aristocracy, which, so far as is actually known, never existed beyond the imagination. But they nevertheless observe strict relations with the inferior “Americans” as they hold them to be, and will not let their daughters be seen unescorted in any of the plazas. The girls of the common class ata met and spoken to by the young men, but come and ’return home in groups after they have concluded a merry evening at the concert. For those who can afford it, the National theater offers entertainment of a type that is peculiarly original in

Panama. The productions are usually in English, because the majority of the audience is American, and they correspond to our vaudeville, in that they are put on in skits and separate parts. Dancers are obtained from Peru, Valparaiso, Chile and Mexico, who do their native dances with skill and grace, while the acts brought from the Stateß are coarse and mediocre in comparison. Another great paradox in relation to the tones of this unique city is evident in the unfaltering belief that still prevails in the old Roman orthodox form of religious interpretation. All the observances of the church are adhered to as punctiliously today as in bygone centuries. The workmen cannot be made to perform their labors on any of the multitudinous days set apart for the worship of some saint or other. It took more than 200 years for the Spanish priests to grind this holy zeal into them, and it will take nearly as long to grind it out.

STREET SCENE, PANAMA CITY