Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1888 — A FIELD FOR MAYOR HEWITT. [ARTICLE]

A FIELD FOR MAYOR HEWITT.

A City Where Sunday Is the Busiest Day of the Week. To a person who has just left the domain of Mayor Hewitt the city of Aspinwall presents sights which are novel and highly entertaining. The town is built around the edges of the bay and the northern end is lined with the huts occupied by the employes of the Panama Railroad company, with their hospital, machine and car shops, and general offices. Beyond the gates leading to this section is the city proper, about one mile long and running back some distance from the bay. Here are scattered dance halls, with wide-open doors and dances that rival the wildest dreams of Billy McGlorv. Faro and roulette layouts are in the buildings, and on the streets venders go about ringing bells and sellingTottery tickets for the drawing which takes place in Panama every Sunday, which day, by the way, is here the busiest of the week, everything being open and gambling at its height. Curious bazars of every nation,country stores at which anything call be bought, and money brokers line tfhe street. Nearing ±be southern endof the town is the “calaboose”and police headquarters,connected with which are 118 uniformed Jamaica negroes, who were instructed and drilled by Superintendent Murray, of the New York police. They make a very presentable showing on the streets, even though they do their drinking and smoking when on duty and occasionally try a hand at “bucking the tiger.” One thing they deserve credit so pay for their drinks, bananas, mangoes, and cigars, which is an improvement on their northern brother officers. Down the street some distance is the railroad track and the gates of Christophe Colombe, in the French section. It is all filled in ground, forming a large peninsula out in the bay and laid out in regular streets macadamized and lined with dwarf palms. The trees form a beautiful bower over each street, among which parrots, paroquets, and cockatoos fly and screech all day. The residences are all French cottages, with wide verandas and elegant grounds, and taken all together it is a little paradise on earth.

On the extreme point of the peninsula are two large mansions, reserved for M. de Lesseps and his family, when here, and in front of them is a bronze statue of Columbus protecting an Indian woman. This settlement, filling-in and all things included, has cost the canal company, many million francs, but when the canal is completed it will enter the ocean at this point, and people passing through will see what French enterprise can do even in the tropics. The merchants here have a queer idea regarding our money. For $lO, gold or greenbacks, they will give sl4 of Colombian silver, but if the $lO is silver they will not give more than sl2 for it, and some won’t take it at alls