left to the discretion of the authorities on the Isthmus. When given this leave of absence employes are entitled to the Government rate of twenty dollars each way on the steamship line between New York and Colon.

Employes engaged by the hour are granted no leave of absence with pay, though upon termination of satisfactory service—that is, at least after eight months-they are granted free transportation to a port of the United States.

Free medical and hospital attendance are provided all employes.

Members of immediate families of employes sent to the Zone, are, upon request, when the exigencies of the steamship service permit, also granted the Government fare between New York and Colon. No charge is made for children under six years of age, and half rates are charged for children between the age of six and twelve years. Employes are not permitted to take their families to the Zone until they have gone there first and secured quarters for them.

FURNITURE ALLOWED EMPLOYES. -MARRIED MEN.

Kitchen-Range, plain table, two chairs and refrigerator.

Dining Room-Table, set of six chairs, sideboard and serving table.

Bedroom-Double bed with springs, mattress, pillows, chiffonier, dresser, washstand, table, two chairs, one rocking chair, one towel rack (nickel) and one mirror.

Parlor or Living Room-One settee, two rocking chairs, two plain chairs and one center table.

Bath Room-One chair and one mir

ror.

Porch-One double seat and two

chairs.

SINGLE MEN.

One bed, mattress, pillow and mosquito bar, bureau, washstand and table, three chairs, lamp and hat rack.

HOW EMPLOYMENT IS OBTAINED. Under executive order of the President employes for the Panama service are appointed under the provisions of the Civil Service Act and Rules, excepting per

sons employed merely as laborers, persons whose appointments are confirmed by the Senate, and officers detailed from the army.

The United States Civil Service Commission maintains registers of eligibles for the various employments, and it is from these heads of departments make requisition for men.

When these registers cannot be maintained that is, when the Civil Service Commission cannot supply the required number of employes in any trade or calling the Canal commission may, and is doing so now in a number of cases, make appointments without the formality of a Civil Service examination. In such case nothing more is required of the applicant than that he should be able to show certification of fitness.

In all cases a blank (Form No. 115) should be executed. This blank may be obtained from the office of the Isthmian Canal Commission, Washington, D. C.

Briefly, this blank or application form, requires the applicant to state: (1) the position sought; (2) what experience he has had in the same, and what is the highest pay he has received; (3) present employment and salary; (4) lowest salary he will work for on the Isthmus; (5) age and place of birth; (6) whether or not he uses intoxicating liquors, and, if he does, to what extent, and to give names, employers preferably, of three persons who are able to certify to his qualifications.

When an application is forwarded it is placed on file, and appointment may be made direct by the Canal commission, or, as already explained, if the Civil Service Commission has a sufficient list of eligibles, a regular examination will need to be entered into under the last named commission.

At the present time, however, the chances of any applicant who can satisfactorily meet the requirements outlined in Form No. 115 for direct employment are good; that is, for positions in the building trades, particularly for carpenters. Bricklayers are not being appointed at the present time, though there will be need of more of the craft later.

Applicants writing for this application

blank also receive copies of Form No. 111, which states the conditions governing employment.

A medical examination form, to be filled in by a physician and signed by him and the applicant, is also provided; this is not required until after appointment has been made, but must be submitted before appointee sails. Except in the case of railroad men, the exami

nation is in no way different from such examinations when ordinarily made.

When appointed, employes are required to execute the oath of office, which is provided in another blank form, and to fill in a personal question sheet. The particular object of this latter form is to obtain in concise form the appointee's statement that he has complied with all conditions, etc.

Work, when intelligently executed, is when one's energy is closely related to those sources of power gained from proper relaxation.

It is when every faculty has healthful exercise upon a given course, and bears the stamp of individual mastership. Unintelligent work is activity without purpose, like motion without direction.

Our line of business calls for a special training of our activity, for a large per cent. of the energy spent through the channels of duty is instantaneous remedy to contemporary causes.

We are called to meet issues that require an application of immediate action, and, if that action does not subserve intelligently to the cause, the effect is felt detrimentally to every movement one is related to on the division.

One should try to reach a completeness of efficiency through self-development, with a strict observance of all of nature's law within one's possibilities. Hence, relaxation and recreation are absolutely essential to meet our issues of service. As nature calls us speedily to account when one of her laws has been violated, and as intelligent work depends wholly upon the faculties, recreation and relaxation is the soul to that necessity. When work ceases to contribute joy in its undertaking, it has become a task, and the highest results are only secured when these principles are realized. How and when to secure recreative conditions should depend upon

the individual discrimination, as the mind must be in the mood for restful repose.

Thought diverted from those tasks of service serve to rest those faculties at work, and calls upon those that have rested. The spirit of play is as essential in man as in the child. It diverts the mind with variety.

The more strenuous the work, the more essential the joy from recreative occupation. Exhaustion in service leaves a poor record for the management, as well as the individual. Strain robs work of its harmony, and exhaustion destroys its quality. The master mind is a healthful force, using all its material at hand to develop its possibilities, and seldom leaves an impression of effort, but of force and completeness. One in his active service, where responsibility rests broadly upon one's shoulders, will get keyed up under pressure like a stringed instrument easily put out of tune, and as easily strung out of harmony with overwork.

To overcome the crash that follows overworked nature, relaxation is absolutely necessary, for the relief from tension and concentrated effort.

It is during relaxation and man's passive mood that energy accumulates for active conditions.

The channels of thought during the period of relaxation are like the current of a slow-moving stream. It has time to form deposits and store up knowledge

during the period when thought runs riot the current expels instead of concentrates the substances of thought.

Those under direct responsibility of train movement should have time for restful relaxation between every trip, and the management will deteriorate the service when these forces they rely upon for the public safety, are overworked.

Man becomes stupid after a number of hours in service, and his mental energy is not as acute as when proper rest has been his individual privilege. When the management considers the men's relaxation as much as they do their active service, they multiply largely man's efficiency to the service. Man in his restful mood finds greater range for thought, and greater insight to those affairs he is directly associated with.

In the success of things depend insight, knowledge and sanity of its detail, and, in the minuteness of detail may hinge the magnitude of some great enterprise, as one's healthful faculties are important details to his service. The dwelling of those senses for too long an application of the faculties in a strenuous service not only wears away the mental strength, but puts the subject in a state of stupor that demands constant effort toward self to keep an outraged nature from collapse. This condition leaves the individual the predominating cause for attention, and he is apt to neglect his duty of service as nature's law, when outraged, demands the price, and will insist upon immediate payment, regardless of rules and regulations.

There is no question but the lack of proper attention for the comfort of the forces employed is largely due the casualties each year.

Men have fallen asleep at their posts of duty, because nature's immutable law demanded it. We, as a rule, are a wide-awake class. The nature of our

business soon puts one in a state that is alertly receptive, and, under reasonable and normal conditions, the possibilities of disastrous conditions are almost reduced to minor cases of small note and little damage. But sleep lost against nature's law can never be recovered by a few hours' rest. Nature is so silent and slow in her building of tissue she will not be urged; and sleep once lost is lost forever. The victim sinks into exhaustion from its effect, and the awakening will not be refreshing unless nature, instead of the caller, governs the awakening. Man is fully reliable only when proper rest, food and comfort have been taken in connection with his duties of service. For whatever impairs the vitality of the subject at work impairs the service as well.

It is absolutely necessary that man's highest, vitalized condition should be the first condition for consideration.

The physical condition demands so much relaxation and recreation of the senses, and when nature has been satisfied she releases one from it. But the greed for the individual's service, practiced contrary to this law, has written its results in blood upon the tablets of disastrous accidents since the practice of it begun.

Seventy-five years is not a long period in the life of a nation, and is but little more than the traditional three-score and ten allotted by the Psalmist as the span of man's life in this world; yet that interval has witnessed the development of the whole modern system of trans

portation. That system has been the most potent factor in the marvelous revolution which has taken place, not only in the world's commerce and industry, but in all the relations of men and nations. The vast exchange of commodities and ideas which has been the direct

result of improved communications has operated to produce changes in the condition and welfare of the inhabitants of the world comparable to those fundamental discoveries which ethnologists tell us led to that growth of the human intellect which first differentiated man from the lower animal orders. Just as the discovery of the use of fire and of the means of creating it at his will lifted the primitive man, and in a way analogous to the mathematical principle of permutations widened and extended his powers, so the perfection of transportation methods opened the way for the modern expansion of human activities.

Without the railroads and the parallel development of steam navigation, communities would have continued in a state of isolation, and there would have been neither room nor occasion for the spread of modern commerce, with all its attendant marvels and advantages. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad does well, therefore, to mark the anniversary of its own early experiments in the first use of steam for the moving of passenger traffic in America. Historians may differ as to the actual details of the story of the locomotive in America, and there may be ground for dispute whether the date of the engine to which Peter Cooper first applied gun barrels in lieu of water tubes for the boiler was not 1831 instead of 1830; but the main facts remain that seventy-five years ago the steam locomotive was practically unknown in this country, and in the interval this marvelous piece of mechanism has been so perfected and strengthened that many of the railways of the country are being reconstructed to enable it to exercise its full powers.

The one or two little locomotives of that time, weighing about four tons and

drawing with great uncertainty a tiny car with a handful of timid passengers, or a few pounds of merchandise over a few miles of road, must be compared with present conditions if we would appreciate the significance of the transformation that has been wrought. To-day there are in service on the 213,904 miles of railroad in the United States in the neighborhood of 50,000 locomotives. During the last year for which the official figures are available this motive power carried nearly 715,500,000 passengers, and moved 1,309,899,165 tons of freight. To handle this traffic 1,798,561 cars were required, 39,752 of which were for passengers and 1,692,194 for freight. So varied is the service required of this vast train equipment that the lists have to be divided and subdivided properly to classify them for the needs of the statistician. Thus we read of four distinct types of locomotives, each in turn classified according to the number of driving wheels, pilot wheels and trailers. Under the heading of freight cars, again there are many types and sizes-box cars, flat cars, tank cars, stock cars, refrigerator cars, etc., each classed according to capacity. These figures hardly convey an idea of the magnitude of the operations they represent, and when placed beside the tiny figures of the equipment at the beginning of railroad history, are truly staggering. Even then they tell only a part of the tale, for the record takes no account of the enormous number of locomotives and cars that have performed their service and gone to the scrap heap. With the rapid changes going on to-day, and with more radical ones forecasted by the prospects of electrical development, the record of the coming seventyfive years promises to be still more impressive and, amazing.