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THE COLBORNE EXPRESS, COLBORNE, ONT. AUG. 22, 1957 No Bathing At The Village Pump In Campana, a little hamlet in interior Panama, a sign was recently placed close by the-village pump. In informal translation it reads, "Attention. Cooperate with hygiene. Do not wash your feet nor bathe babies here." Hilarious though this may sound to the average American reader, it is no laughing matter to the writer. He considers it a milestone of progress for Panama. Just a few years ago, the people of Campana would have thought nothing of washing their feet and bathing their babies in the village well or at the pump. A few more years back, they did not have a pump. From the days of Columbus up until recently, the villagers had gone to the nearby river for bathing and to obtain water for drinking and cooking. One of the commonest sights ■ in interior Panama today is that of women and children (never men!) trudging along the side of the road carrying water. Usually it is in five-gallon tin cans balanced on their heads. Infrequently it is in a small container. Never is it in a pail. In some 20 years in Panama, the writer has never seen anyone carrying . water in a pail. The great desire of every interior village is to have a pump for water. Few have it. Wells cost money, which Panama's interior villages don't have. Only through the intervention of the national government are wells sunk and pumps provided in rural Panama. Panama's present President, Ernesto de la Guardia, Jr., has^ provided in the current budget for sinking some 200 wells throughout the provinces away from the capital city. Providing water for small communities may help solve one of Panama's problems: poor distribution. Its farmers are almost nomadic. Instead of closely knit communities, the people of Panama are sprinkled over its hills and coastal plains as if thrown at random by a giant hand. With no concentration of pupils, it is impossible to establish schools. For the same reason that prospective clientele are widely scattered, stores are unable to operate. There is simply no community life in such regions. It seems to be a case of every family for itself as it seeks to WHA HOPPEN?-C!ere Scardigno is all confused by the aerial spaghetti that has landed on her at dockside in New York City. The tangle of paper ribbon is the result of a traditional confetti shower from an incoming liner. Clere was waiting to greet an uncle returning from Italy. centered in a thatched roof hut --homemade from free native materials -- which shelters the family from rain and sun and offers little else writes Ralph K. Skinner in The Christian Science Monitor. Lack of communication, transportation, and centralization prevents the setting up of marketing facilities which could bring in cash for the farmer. Many of Panama's farmers don't handle $25 cash in a whole year. While village pumps may not rectify this situation overnight, it is thought that in the course of time the women may force a a move toward uniting groups of families in villages where water, good clean convenient water, is available throughout the year. Because of the nature of the countryside, the rivers here are plentiful and rapid. During the nine months of the rainy season they are swollen and become saturated with mud from ripping their banks. The water is thus not appetizing to drink or any aid to washing clothes. Engineers point out that Panama could have hydroelectric power in any desired quantity by development of these rivers. They are not so used. Instead they serve as a source of drinking water tor natives, as drinking troughs for cattle and horses, as public bathing spots', and as laundry tubs for Panama's interior citizenry. The rocks along "the river are the washboards on which clothes are pounded to cleanliness. Each village pump that is installed will save hundreds of hours daily in trips to the river but the amount of increased productivity resulting might well be balanced on the point of a pin--a small pin. That is because the modes of living, the attitude of thought, must also be changed. It will require a superior job of "selling" to convince the Panamanian campesino (country dweller) that the hours saved walking to the river could be employed profitably in some other direction. It is not true thatHhe people of Panama are impervious to change. But impatient North Americans may consider them so when they try to introduce new concepts, especially concerning work or new uses for spare time. Frustrating have been recent attempts to teach the interior farmer to break away from his centuries-old agricultural system. He still plants by thrusting a sharpened stick into the ground, throwing some seed into the hole, pushing the dirt bacK with his toe, and tamping it down with his heel. Point Four and the concerted efforts of an enlightened handful of his countrymen have made little effect on the over-all pattern. Yet the little islands of change amid the vast sea of tradition indicate that improvement is possible. Against such a background, the village pump in Campana and its sign, indicating development of cleanliness and the idea of regard for one's neighbors in sharing community facilities are helpful notes of progress. Hats off to an improved thought -- no feet or babies to be bathed at the village pump! A self-made successful business man, attracted by a crowd on the beach, runs over to discover that his wife is being revived. She has been caught in an undertow. 'What on earth are you doing to her?" asks the husband. 'We're giving her artificial respiration, of course,' replies the well-qualified first-aider. 'Artificial, at a time like this! Ridiculous! Give her the real thing. I can afford it!' It is not necessary to take a person's advice to make him feel good; all you have to do is ask CROSSWORD PUZZLE 2 r 4 k h i7 I8 ° f i i 7 ... 21 *' M H •fS ■ Answer elsewhere on this page. UNDER HIS HAT-Farmer Gust Meyer indicates with aid of his sun helmet just how high his rain-stunted corn crop should be at this time of year. The "lake" in background is a portion of his 30 acres at Tinley Park, III., that are flooded by run-off from excessive rain. Thousands of acres planted to corn in that area will be lost. THIPABM FRONT lorva12U^elL In some rural areas the goose is called the poor man's hired hand. But since we-d thy plantation owners of the South, cotton growers and pecan orchard-ists in Texas, and nursery, truck and strawberry growers in many states have taken so enthusiastically to the goose as a most reliable "grasser," a mora accurate term for this modern field worker might be the "no-pay" hired hand. A goose will waddle down the furrows and strip the ground clean of crab grass, Johnson grass, fox tail, and most weeds and not touch any of the crop plants. Geese cannot work all crops but have been successfully used in potatoes, corn, sugar cane, sugar beets, strawberries, asparagus, young orchards and nursery plantings. When the inner spring and airfoam mattress factories ended the homemade feather-bed era, farmers looked askance at their flocks of geese. But Fred Cer-vinka, who operates one of the largest goose farms in the Midwest, the Heart of Missouri Poultry Farm at Columbia, Mo., says the goose has made a spectacular comeback. . "We sell geese by the thousands to work as weeders in fields and we could rent them by the hundreds of thousands if we just had them. In fact, I don't know of a more promising business than 'rental geese,' although let me add it is not for an inexperienced operator. "But most of the farmers needing geese as weeders do not care to' carry on a goose business, too. They would prefer to rent the geese for the few months they are needed. But they are rather desperate, as most rural hand laborers have gone to the cities and it isn't always possible to import Mexi- Folks are accustomed now to expensive motorized machinery taking the place of men, horses and mules. But the fact that a $3 goose can do a better job on the weeds in a half acre of cotton than a day laborer is astounding. One of Mr. Cervinka's customers who keeps records says he found that 3 men and 200 geese did the weeding on a hundred acres of cotton which had required 15 men the season before. Furthermore, the goose-weeded fields were much cleaner than those weeded by hand --so much so. that the cotton was graded higher at harvesting time, writes Hallie M. Borrow in The Christian Science Monitor. The geese spread fertilizer and eat some insects. They never stand leaning on their hoe handles, complaining of the weather, wages or rising cost of living. They belong to no union and work by neither sun or clock--they seem to enjoy nibbling on bright moonlight nights. They do not sing along the rows as the Negro hoers used to, but they do quack! Of course there are some pre- cautions to take. Geese must be well watered and if the trough is at the other end Of the field, you may be sure the geese will start toward the water, pulling grass en route. There must be a man to look after the water and feed the geese as the "pick-in's" get thinner. Since dogs and predators can create havoc, the fields must be fenced. After the goose is through as a weeder. usually it is fattened, and marketed. There also is a market for down stripped from the pelts. Then the goose is the main source for quills for pens traditionally used by justices of the Suprema Court of the United States. The supply of quills ran out at the end of World War II, and a new supply could not Wf SCHOOL LESSON By Rev. R. Barclay Warren B.A., B.D. Amos, Crusader for Righteousness (Temperance Lesson.) Amos 1:1; 6:4-7; 7:10-15. Memory Selection: Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live. Amos 5:14. Would Amos be received any better today? We doubt it. He had no training in the school of the prophets. He was a farmer who thought he had a message from God. He spoke out bodly against the oppression of the poor. He pointed to the trickery in business as selling substand-dard merchandise and falsifying the balances. He deplored the desecration of the sabbath and the selfish ease and indulgence of the people. They drank wine in bowls. Amos said that because the people persisted in their sin they would be carried into captivity and the house of their king cut off. No wonder the priest said, "The land is not able to bear all his words." He bade Amos to go back to Judah and prophesy no more in Israel. The predictions of Amos were fulfilled. Canadians are drinking wine in bowls, too. Many of them are starting it in the teens under social pressure. My seventeen-year - old cousin recently said goodbye to her missionary parents in India and returned to Canada by freighter to continue her education. She had refused the intoxicating beverages pour- Upsidedowrt to Prevent Peeking be obtained from the London manufacturer who had supplied them for years. A goose farmery at New Haven, Conn., has now added the quill pen to his goose business and he supplied the court with 1,500 quill pens at 15 cents. ed at the meals for all the others at the captain's table. At the last farewell party the. waiter insisted on pouring a little in her glass for the toast. But Ruth toasted with water instead. A lady said in disdain, "Well, what a fine sport you are!" Ruth flushed. A senior officer spoke up, "That's all right, Ruth I admire you for your principles and if you have never touched it, don't start now." Driver at the Bar The Travelers Insurance Companies' valuable annual analyst of circumstances surroundinj fatal highway accidents has beet out some time. But it is not tot late to deduce lessons from iti findings. As in previous years, its statistical tables point an accusing finger inexorably at th« driver. An endeavors to show that inanimate factors should share much of the blame fade in the light of the figures. Ought we to blame the weather? Almost nine-tenths of fatal accidents in 1956 occurred in clear weather. The road? Over 80 per cent of such accidents took place on dry roads and 75 per cent on straight stretches. Might the difficulty lie with inexperience ? Almost 97 per cent of the drivers involved in such mishaps had operated • car for a year or more. (But the inexperience of youth -- yes. Drivers under 25 years old are inolved in twice as many fatal accidents as their numbers warrant.) Mechanical failures on the part of the cars? Over 96 per cent of the cars were apparently in good condition. To what extent, then, can the 1956 fatality toll be laid at the door of things the drivers could have chosen to do or not to doT In 43.5 per cent of the accident* one or both of the drivers were exceeding the speed limit. The Travlers has never attempted to reduce drinking or drunkenness factors to statistics, although it strongly admonishei never to drink and drive. But there is some significance in these findings: As high a percentage of fatal accidents (5.4^ occurred" between midnight and one in the morning as the average Of the afternoon rush houa between four and six whea many times more cars are 05 the road. Mr. Driver, you might as wel| face it. It's up to you. --From The Christian Science Monitor. The only thing that keep* some families from having a phone of their own is a teenage daughter. SEEING IS BELIEVING - A cow that roller skates? A pooch that struts about like a human and drinks from the bottle? Here's photographic proof these things do happen. The roller-skating bossy, Lady Linda, below, churns along a sidewalk on her homemade roller skates. Lady Linda's owner. Doc (Peg) Ford, spent 18 months teaching her to skate. Doc, who gets around pretty well himself on just one leg, says the free-wheeling Guernsey enjoys her unusual right, a pooch of undetermined origin, probably doesn't know what the expression a "dog's life" means. All dressed up for a morning stroll, Brownie takes time out for a cool drink, supplied by her master.