Page:The National geographic magazine, volume 1.djvu/388

 The French people have seen the scheme fail under Lesseps in whom they had the most unbounded confidence, and it is not likely that they will raise any more money to be put in it as a business enterprise under any other management. Saddled as it is with a debt of nearly four hundred millions of dollars, it would be difficult to convince any one that it could ever prove to be a paying investment. Nor do I think that any American or English corporation can be organized that could obtain such concessions from Lesseps as would make the scheme an inviting field for capitalists, and thus my opinion is that the "Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique de PanamaPanama" [sic] has irretrievably collapsed, and that the canal will remain, as it is now, the most gigantic failure of the age.