File:Souvenir- trip of congressional party to Panama, March 12-18, nineteen hundred and seven; (1907) (14770271901).jpg

Identifier: souvenirtripofco00ache (find matches)
Title: Souvenir: trip of congressional party to Panama, March 12-18, nineteen hundred and seven;
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Acheson, Ernest Francis, 1855- (from old catalog)
Subjects:
Publisher: (Washington? Pa.)
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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ain instead of his farm or garden patch. While the railroad across the Isthmus is the only one in the Republic, the telegraph and telephone systems are fairly good and cover the country pretty well. Panama is almost fivehundred miles in length and most of its towns can only be reached by boat, either on the Atlantic or the Pacific coast, but you can communicate readily with all the important towns over the wires. The native Panaman is small of stature. He has used liquor to excess, and as a result after several generations his physical power of resistence is very low. He is kindly, affectionate and good to his family. In a total population of 340,000 it is estimated that not more than ten per cent are responsible citizens, and not over five percent are educated. About five percent of the population is white, and about ten percent Indian. Of the remaining eighty-five percent probably the proportion of mixed blood is twenty percent white, forty percent Indian and forty percent negro. These \
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are the figures given by some of the Americans who have been on the Isthmus for years and have made careful inquiry. The native Panaman is indolent, and without ambition to accumulate property. He is satisfied to live from day to day on the fruits which nature provides. It has been said that he can get along by swinging in a hammock, rocking it with his toe and picking bananas with his hands. While a large percentage of the births are classed as illegitimate, it cannot be said that the Panamanians are immoral; rather they are unmoral. They are accustomed to the common law marriage. In many sections of the county priests are inaccessible, and for years the marriage fees were so high that the natives would have to work for months before they could earn enough to pay for having a ceremony performed. Even now the civil authorities authorized to solemnize these marriages are often many miles away, and through centuries of indifference to the necessity of such marriage, the natives have become careless.

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