Another remarkable evidence of how the canal administration stands _in loco parentis_ to all its work-people is that it has provided twenty-six churches and maintains fifteen ministers of religion. This is interesting because it shows how the state, when conducted on common-sense principles, may provide for religious instruction without causing any offence or inflicting any injustice. The administration treated all denominations with perfect impartiality. Of the fifteen ministers it supported, four were Episcopalian, four Baptist, three Roman Catholic, one Wesleyan, and one Presbyterian. But this was not the entire provision of churches and chapels on the isthmus. There were fourteen other churches not under direct government control, but assisted by the government in many ways. Of the forty in all, thirteen were Episcopalian, seven Baptist, seven Roman Catholic, two Wesleyan, and eight undenominational. As I have pointed out, the moral sanitation of the isthmus was cared for as well as the physical. For example, in September 1905, a man living in the canal zone was charged with running a roulette table. He pleaded that he owned a concession from the Republic of Panama. That excuse was not allowed, and he was sentenced to fine and imprisonment for transgressing one of the canal zone laws. Gambling, which had always been one of the Panamanian vices, was quite forbidden within the zone. Remembering the descriptions given of the state of morals at the isthmus during the French occupation, one cannot help being struck with the contrast afforded by the American regime. Criticisms of the canal scheme, of climatic and social conditions in the zone, appeared in the early days from time to time. Mr. Johnson quotes an example which is so amusing as to bear repetition:--