In its efforts to meet the needs of the several classes of employees on the Canal Zone the commission established four different kinds of eating places,--a large general hotel, a score of line hotels, Spanish messes, and West Indian laborers' kitchens. At Ancon it built the large Tivoli Hotel costing half a million dollars, for the accommodation of visitors; and of those high-class employees who desired modern hotel facilities. This hotel is the social center of the Canal Zone. Here practically all of the tourists come and stay while on the Isthmus. During the year 1912 this hotel cleared $53,000 in its operations. The cost of the supplies for the meals served, of which there were 161,000, was approximately 51 cents per meal. The cost of services was approximately 19 cents, making a total of 70 cents per meal. The rates were $3 up to $5.50 a day, employees being given special concessions. [Illustration: JOHN BURKE MEAL TIME AT AN I. C. C. KITCHEN] [Illustration: WASHINGTON HOTEL, COLON MAJOR EUGENE T. WILSON THE TIVOLI HOTEL, ANCON] The line hotels were, more properly speaking, merely dining-rooms where the American employees were furnished substantial meals for 30 cents each. Outsiders paid 50 cents each for these meals. They were up to a very high standard. Once the late Senator Thomas H. Carter, of Montana, was a member of a Senate committee visiting the Isthmus and he invited the subsistence officer, Maj. Wilson, to come to Washington and show the manager of the Senate restaurant how to prepare a good meal. A year later, after Senator Albert B. Cummins, of Iowa, had eaten one of the lunches at Gatun, he renewed the invitation of Senator Carter, telling Maj. Wilson he was sure that if he were to come Senators would get better meals for their money. At one of the Congressional hearings on the Isthmus Representative T. W. Sims, of Tennessee, asked that the menu of a meal he had eaten at one of these hotels be inserted in the record. Major Wilson inserted the menu for several days instead. The following is the menu at the Cristobal Hotel for January 20, 1912: Breakfast.--Oranges, sliced bananas, oatmeal, eggs to order, German potatoes, ham or bacon, hot cakes, maple sirup, tea, coffee, cocoa. Lunch.--Vegetable soup, fried pork chops, apple sauce, boiled potatoes, pork and beans, sliced buttered beets, stewed cranberries, creamed parsnips, lemon meringue pie, tea, coffee, cocoa. Dinner.--Consomme vermicelli, beefsteak, natural gravy, lyonnaise potatoes, stewed beans, sliced beets, stewed apples, carrots a la Julienne, hot biscuits, ice-cream, chocolate cake, tea, coffee, cocoa. The line hotels in 1912, which were operated at a loss of $12,000, served over 2,000,000 meals. The cost of the supplies per meal amounted to $0.2504 and the service to $0.0165, making the average meal cost $0.3065, while the employees were charged 30 cents. Approximately 2,000 Americans were continuous patrons of the line hotels.