It is possible that perpetual summer would soon breed quite
a different type of American. The Isthmus is nearly always in
boyish--or girlish--good temper. Zone women and girls are noted
for plump figures and care-free faces. And there is a contentment
that is more than climatic. There are no hard times on the Zone,
no hurried, worried faces, no famished, wolfish eyes. The "Zoner"
has his little troubles of course,--the servant problem, for
instance, for the Jamaican housemaid is a thorn in any side. Now
and then we hear some one wailing, "Oh, it gets so--tiresome!
Everybody's shoveling dirt or talking about the other fellow." But
he knows it isn't strictly true when he says it and that he is
kicking chiefly to keep in practice. Every one is free from
worries as to job, pay, house, provisions, and even hospital fees,
and the smoothness of it all, perhaps, gets on his nerves at
times. I question whether "the Colonel" himself loses much sleep
when a chunk of the hill that bears up his residence lets go and
pitches into the canal. It sets one to musing at times whether the
rock-bound system of the Incas was not best after all,--a place
for every man and every man in his place, each his allotted work,
which he was fully able to do and getting Hail Columbia if he
failed to do it.
Which brings up the question of results in labor under the pseudo-
socialist Zone system.
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