In one case high waters in the Chagres interrupted traffic on the Panama Railroad, and the price of ice in Panama City promptly jumped from 50 cents to $1 a hundred pounds. At another time a ship bringing coffee to the Isthmus ran aground and the commissary had to buy coffee in the Panama market. It had to pay 6 cents a pound more at wholesale for the coffee than it was selling for at retail in Panama the day before the ship went aground. On another occasion a vessel carrying a supply of milk went ashore and the wholesale price of that commodity jumped a hundred per cent overnight. The Panaman merchants made a long and persistent fight to get the privilege of doing the business which is done by the commissary, but the canal officials were too wise to allow the working force to be dependent upon native business men for family budget needs. Although the commissary did an annual business of nearly $7,000,000 a year during the height of the construction period, it received comparatively little actual money for the commodities it sold. A great deal of this business was with the subsistence department of the Canal Commission, furnishing supplies for the hotels, European laborers' messes, and common laborers' kitchens. Practically all of the remainder was with the employees of the commission, and was done through coupon books. When an individual wanted to buy from the commissary he asked that a coupon book be issued him. If it were found that he had sufficient money coming to him for services rendered to cover the cost of the book, it was issued to him and the clerk in the commissary detached coupons to cover the purchases. When the monthly pay roll was made up, the cost of the coupon books was deducted from the amount due the employee for services. Many employees and their families lived too far away from the commissaries to make daily visits, so they simply deposited their coupon books with the main commissary at Cristobal and sent their orders in by mail from day to day. The commissary clerks would fill these written orders, sending the goods out on the first train. In addition to buying and selling products for the benefit of the canal workers, the commissary operated a number of manufacturing establishments. It had a bakery using some 20,000 barrels of flour, baking 6,000,000 loaves of bread and other things in proportion annually; an ice-cream plant freezing 138,000 gallons of ice-cream annually; a laundry washing 4,250,000 pieces a year; a coffee-roasting plant; and a large cold-storage warehouse. About 70,000 people were constantly supplied with commodities from the commissary.