The social dregs that strayed to Panama or stayed in Panama in those lurid days were men without character, conscience, or capacity for industry, other than in their favorite occupation of despoiling some one else. These pirates and plunderers are gone, but they have left their tracks and traces in the civilization of the Isthmus. The common people to-day are mild and submissive; no other type could survive. It is possible to exist in dire poverty and pass the time without land or property, and that is the only kind of existence that holds any promise of peace to the man at the bottom. [Illustration: WAYSIDE SELLERS OF FRUIT] There have been efforts on the part of the leaders of Isthmian life to inaugurate a new era and bring about improvements. These efforts have been spasmodic and usually complicated by political considerations. Large appropriations have been made for roads, public buildings, machinery, schools, and mills, but while the money has been expended, it has gone like water in a sandy desert, and graft and inefficiency have swallowed up the funds with little or no results. It has been supposed that appropriations for bridges, public markets, or good roads would in some way take the place of industry and thrift and bring good times. Half-finished markets rear their ghastly skeletons in town centers. Rusting road-rollers stand idle, decaying machines lie neglected, and half-finished public works are covered with cobwebs. Nobody notices, no one cares, and nothing is done. [Illustration: THE HOUSE BESIDE THE ROAD] A railroad was built with the evident idea that it would bring prosperity to a section of naturally rich country, but a railroad without crops is useless, and crops without labor are impossible, and labor without adequate returns is worth still less than it costs. The economic structure rests on the man at the bottom, and when this human foundation is the prey and target of every one above him the result can be nothing other than general distress and inefficiency. In some sections of the interior, as in the provinces of Cocle and Chitre, meat cattle of good quality are raised. Shipping facilities to the Panama market are very good. There is no regular inspection, but the cattle are uniformly healthy and in good condition. The cattle-raising end of the trade is all right, but the market is a different matter. The cattle buyers in Panama are organized into what is known as the meat trust, and these buyers hold the sellers in subjection. Prices are kept down to the lowest possible basis, and monopolistic methods so well known in North America are in full swing.