A Woman's Impression Of The Philippines Part 5

The trooper, a coal-black African, had picked up a great deal of Spanish, which he spoke with the corruption of vowel sounds peculiar to his race and color. In addition to collecting the stipend agreed upon, he incidentally borrowed two dollars (U.S.) of me. Now, I was brought up in Missouri and knew enough of the colored race to be sure that I was bidding a fond adieu to the two dollars when I handed them to the trooper. But I was not prepared for my henchman's persistence in having the extension of time made formal. I was willing to forget the two dollars and have done with them, but the African would not permit them to rest in peace. He presented himself regularly every two weeks to ask for another fortnight's extension. Finally, when the regiment was about to leave the Islands, I insisted that he should accept the two dollars as an evidence of my good-will toward the United States Army and the defenders of the flag, and he was graciously pleased so to do.

The trooper's muscles were strong as his habits of renewal, and he and Romoldo scoured the floors of my new establishment until the s.h.i.+ny black accretions of twenty-five years of petroleum and dirt had given way to unpolished roughness, and then I set to work to get a new polish. Then we took hold of the furniture--heavy, wooden, Viennese stuff--and scrubbed it with zeal. My landlord came to look in occasionally and was hurt. He said plaintively that they had had no contagious diseases, and he asked why this deluge of soap and water. I basely declined to admit the flat truth, which was that the floors and chairs were too greasy for my taste, but attributed our energy to a mad American zeal for scouring. He said, "Ah, _costumbre_!" and seemed to feel that the personal sting of my actions had been removed.

In due time the house was clean, and I moved in. The sala, or drawing-room, was at least forty by thirty feet, with two sides arcaded and filled with sh.e.l.l windows, which, when drawn back, gave the room almost the open-air effect of a gallery. It was furnished with two large gilt mirrors, a patriarchal cane-seated sofa, several wooden armchairs, eleven majolica pedestals for holding _jardinieres_, and two very small tables. These last-named articles "the Magnificent"

placed at the head of the apartment in such a position as to divide its cross wall into thirds, and then arranged all the chairs in two rows leading from the two tables, beginning with the most patriarchal armchair and ending with the dining-room chair, the leg of which was tied on with a string. The effect was rigidly mathematical; and when my landlady came in and adorned each table with a potted rose geranium, stuck all over with the halves of empty egg-sh.e.l.ls to give it the appearance of flowering, I felt that it was time to a.s.sert myself. The egg-sh.e.l.ls went promptly into the garbage box, and the chairs and tables were pulled about to achieve the unpremeditated effect of our own rooms. Then I went out for a walk, and returning found that Romoldo had restored things to his own taste. Again I broke up his formation, so the next time he tried a new device. He put one table at the top of the room and one at the bottom, with the chairs arranged in a circle around each one. This gave the pleasing impression to one entering the room that a card game was ready to begin. Again Romoldo's efforts were treated with contempt.

For at least two weeks a deadly combat went on between Romoldo and me, in which I finally came off victor. At the end of that time he seemed to have accustomed himself to our ideas of decoration. He had, in our week's deluging, cleaned up the lamps of the chandeliers, brushed down the cobwebs, and removed some half-dozen baskets of faded and dust-laden paper flowers. He administered the ironical consolation meanwhile that their destruction did not matter, since my admiring pupils would see that the supply was renewed. To my eternal sorrow he was a true prophet, and I had to contemplate green chrysanthemums and blue roses, and a particularly offensive hand-painted basket made of plates of split sh.e.l.l. However, the potted palms and ferns with which I ornamented the eleven pedestals made atonement; and when I came in after a hard day's work and saw the unreal, golden-tinted light of afternoon filling the dignified old room, I found it home-like and lovely in spite of the paper flowers and the sh.e.l.l basket.

My bedroom was half as large as the sala, with a small room adjoining it which I used for a dining-room, and at the back there were a kitchen, a bathroom, closets, and a bamboo porch. For this shelter, furnished as it was, I paid the munificent sum of twenty-five pesos Mexican currency, or twelve and one-half dollars gold per month.

As my house was located over the second saloon in town--one of the regular, innocent, grocery-looking Filipino breed--and as it commanded a fine view of the plaza, guard mount, retreat, and Sunday morning church procession, I had at least all the excitement that was going in Capiz. The American soldiers swore picturesquely over their domino and billiard games down stairs; the "ruffle of drums" (though why so called I know not, for it consists of a blare of trumpets) woke up the sultry stillness at nine A.M.; the great church-bells struck the hours and threw in a frenzy of noise on their own account at some six or eight regular periods during the day; at twelve, noon, the village band stationed itself on the plaza to run a lively opposition to the bells; and at sunset the charming ceremony of retreat brought us all out to see the flag drop down, and to hear the clear, long bugle notes; and there were sick call, mess call, and several other calls. Not the least beautiful of these was "taps." I used to wait for it in the perfect stillness of starlit nights when the Filipinos had all gone to bed, and the houses were ever so faintly revealed by the lanterns burning dimly in front, and the faintest gleam told where the river was slipping by. There would be no sound save the step of the trumpeter picking his way up the street. Then the church clock would strike--not the ordinary bell, but a deep-throated one that could have been heard for miles--and as the vibrations of the last stroke died away, the first high-pitched, sweet notes would ring out, to fade away in the ineffable sadness of the closing strain.

But if there was much that was novel and more that was noisy in those first experiences, there was also plenty of irritation. As I stated before, I had brought Romoldo from Iloilo to Capiz with the idea of using him for a cook. In the days when I was still boarding, he had confirmed me in this intention by stating that he had had experience in that line with an American army officer. He was particularly enthusiastic over his achievements with "hankeys." For a long while, I could make nothing of this word, but at last I discovered that it was his corruption of "pancakes." I found out this fact by asking Romoldo to explain how he made "hankeys," and by recognizing among his ingredients milk, eggs, and flour.

As the Filipina with whom I boarded professed to be eager to learn American cookery, I told Romoldo to make some "hankeys." In the language of Virgil, I "shudder to relate" what those "hankeys"

were. There were three, nicely piled on top of one another, after our time-honored custom. No words could fitly describe them. They resembled unleavened bread, soaked in a clarifying liquid, heated, pressed down, and polished on both sides. The Filipina tried to conceal her disgust, and pretended to accept my explanation that they were only a caricature of our loved breakfast delicacy; but I could see that she thought I was trying to cover up my newly acquired sense of national deficiency.

However, when I set up housekeeping, Romoldo was promoted to the office of chief cook and only bottle washer. He conveyed to me a delicate intimation that it was not proper for me to live without a female attendant, and said that he had a friend--a young woman lately orphaned--who needed work and would be glad to have the position. I was sufficiently unsophisticated in Filipino ways to take this statement at its face value. As the orphan was willing to labor for a consideration of one dollar gold per month and room, the experiment could not be an expensive one.

The orphan duly arrived, escorted by Romoldo. He carried her trunk also, consisting of several garments tied up in a cotton handkerchief.

Her name, as Romoldo p.r.o.nounced it, was Tikkia (probably Eustaquia), and I could have wished she had been handsomer and younger. She was a heavy-browed, pock-marked female, with a ma.s.s of cocoanut-oiled tresses streaming down her back, and one leg, bare from the knee down, rather obtrusively displaying its skinny s.h.i.+n where her dress skirt was looped up and tucked in at the waist. She had no petticoat, and her white chemisette ended two inches below the waist line. As it was not belted down, it crept out and lent a comical suggestion of zouave jacket to the camisa, or waist, of _sinamay_ (a kind of native cloth made of hemp fibres). She understood not one word of Spanish or English.

When I occupied my new home for the first night, I "ordered"

fried chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner, and then went out in the kitchen and cooked them. The army quartermaster had loaned me a range. Romoldo displayed an intelligent interest in the cooking lesson, but Tikkia seemed bored. When the potatoes were done, I gave them to Tikkia to mash. Romoldo was in the dining-room, setting the table. I told her in my best mixed Spanish and Visayan to mash them, and then to put them on the stove a few minutes in order to dry out any water in them. She understood just that one word "water"; and when I returned, after being out of the kitchen a minute, the potatoes were swimming in a quart of liquid. So I dined on fried chicken.

For the first two or three weeks there were many ludicrous accidents in my kitchen and some irritating ones. But on the whole Romoldo took hold of things very well; and though my _menu_ broadened gradually, it was not long before he had learned a few simple dishes, and my labor of supervision was much lighter. I said that I was pleased with Romoldo to the enlisted man who was in charge of the officers'

mess and who incidentally made some market purchases for me. He said, "You ain't particular," with a finality that left me no defence. He was mistaken, however. I am particular, but at that time I was still in the somnambulance of philanthropy which brought us pedagogues to the Philippines.

I am willing to admit to-day that I vastly overrated Romoldo's services, and yet, considering the untutored state of his mind and the extent of his salary, they were a good investment. There has been among some Americans here a carping and antagonistic spirit displayed toward Filipinos, which reflects little credit upon our national consistency or charity. We have a habit of uttering generalities about one race on the authority of a single instance; whereas, with our own, the tendency is to throw out of consideration those single instances in which the actual, undeniable practice of the American is a direct confutation of what his countrymen declare is the race standard. My kitchen under Romoldo's touches was not perfect, but I have seen worse in my native land.

Romoldo being a young and rather attractive man, and Tikkia such a female pirate, I insist that my failure to suspect a romance is at least partially justified; and certainly never by word or glance did they betray the least interest in each other. But some days after my establishment had begun to run smoothly, one of the military ladies asked me to dinner. The punkah string was pulled by a murderous-looking ex-_insurrecto_, who fixed me with a basilisk glance, half entreaty, half reproach. It became so painful that toward the end of dinner I asked my hostess if his expression was due to his general frame of mind or to a special aversion toward pedagogues. She replied that he was probably bracing himself to approach me on a topic consuming his very vitals, or as much of them, at least, as may be expressed in absent-mindedness. Tikkia was his _matrimonio_, and I, the _maestra_ had taken her and given her to Romoldo, and the twain lived in my house! The lady added that Tikkia was not _matrimonio en iglesia_--that is, married in church--but only _matrimonio pro tem_.

Pedro came into the sala after dinner and made his pet.i.tion with humility. He extolled his kindness to the ungrateful Tikkia, and denounced Romoldo as a fiend and liar. He tried hard to weep, but did not succeed.

_0 tempora! O mores!_ Such are the broadening effects of travel and two short months in the Orient. Conceive of the old maid schoolteacher in America a.s.suming the position of judge in a matrimonial--or extra-matrimonial--scandal of this sort.

I promised justice to the sniffling Pedro, and told him to call for it next day at ten A.M. Like me, he supposed it would take the form of Tikkia. But when I reached home and summoned the culprits before the bar of a "moral middle cla.s.s," they were not disconcerted in the least. Romoldo stood upon high moral ground. Tikkia might or might not be married. It was nothing to him, and he did not know. She was an orphan of his acquaintance to whom he wished to do a kindness. Tikkia promptly drew up her skirt over the unexposed knee and showed a filthy sore which she said was caused by Pedro's playful habit of dragging her about on stony ground by the hair. Moreover she stood upon her legal rights. She was not _matrimonio en iglesia_, and she had a right to leave Pedro when she chose.

Pedro came next day at ten A.M., but he did not get justice. On the contrary, justice, as embodied in Tikkia, stood at the head of the stairs and said, "No quiero" as often as I (and Pedro) turned our imploring eyes upon her.

Things went on in this way for some time, and my perplexities offered amus.e.m.e.nt to my friends. I felt sure that Romoldo and Tikkia were lying, and at one time I resolved to discharge them both. The young American teacher who had been in the Islands since the beginning of our occupation gave me some sound advice. He said: "What on earth are these people's morals to you? Romoldo is a good servant. He speaks Spanish, and if you let him go for one who speaks only Visayan, your own housekeeping difficulties will be greatly increased." Then I pleaded the old-fash-ioned rural American fear that people might think the worse of me for keeping such a pair in my employ; and Mr. S---- simply collapsed. He sat and laughed in my face till I laughed too. "We are not in America now," was his parting remark; and I am still learning what a variety of moral degeneration that sentence was created to excuse.

I have already given more s.p.a.ce than is warranted by good taste to the romance of Tikkia and Romoldo. The affair went on till I began to fear lest Pedro, in one of the attacks of jealousy to which Filipinos are subject, should take vengeance and a _bolo_ in his own hands. Fortunately, at the critical moment, Romoldo and Tikkia fell out. She kicked his guitar off the back porch and he complained that she neglected her work. Then she asked leave to return to her own town for a few days, and the request was joyfully granted. Pedro also obtained a vacation. Their town was round the corner one block away, and there they retired. They greeted me pleasantly whenever I pa.s.sed by, and Tikkia seemed in no wise embarra.s.sed by her change of front.

If I have described this incident in full, it is because it ill.u.s.trates so perfectly the att.i.tude of a large portion of the Filipino people on marriage. The common people seldom marry except, as we would term it, by the common-law marriage. When they do marry in church, it is quite as much for the _eclat_ of the function as for conscientious reasons. Marriage in the church costs usually eight pesos (four dollars gold), though cheaper on Sundays, and to achieve it is quite a mark of financial prosperity.

Of course, among the educated cla.s.ses our own view of marriage prevails, though I have heard of instances where the common-law form was still observed. In some towns it is customary for marriages to take place but once a year; an American told me of descending on a mountain town where the annual wedding festival was due, and of finding fifty-two happy couples in their gala attire wending a decorous procession toward the church.

CHAPTER X

Filipino Youths and Maidens

Manners and Social Condition of Filipino Girls--Sentimental Boy Lovers--Love-making by Proxy--How Courts.h.i.+p is Usually Performed--Premature Adolescence of Filipino Youth--The _Boda Americana_--Filipino Girls Are Coquettes, But Not Flirts--Exposure of Filipino Girls to Unchaste Conversation--Unceasing Watchfulness over Girls--Progressive Changes in All the Above Matters.

With regard to their women the Filipinos are an Occidental people rather than an Oriental one. Marriage is frequently entered upon at the will of the parent, but few parents will insist upon a marriage where the girl objects. While the social liberty accorded a young girl is much less than what is permitted in our own country, there is no Oriental seclusion of women. Children accompany their parents to b.a.l.l.s and fiestas, and maidens are permitted to mingle freely in society from their baby-hood. At fourteen or fifteen they enter formally into society and begin to receive attentions from men. In the upper cla.s.ses seventeen or eighteen is the usual time for marriage. By the time a girl is twenty-two or twenty-three she is counted _pa.s.see_, and, if unmarried, must retire into the background in favor of her younger sisters.

The young girls are exceedingly attractive. They are slender, and their heads sit beautifully above long swan-like necks. They dress their hair in a rather tightly drawn pompadour, and ornament it with filigree combs set with seed pearls, or, if they are able, with jewelled b.u.t.terflies and tiaras. Jewellery is not only a fas.h.i.+on here, but an investment. Outside of Manila, Iloilo, and Cebu, banks are practically unknown. The provincial man who is well to do puts his money into houses and lands or into jewellery for his womankind. The poor emulate the rich, and wear in imitation what their wealthy neighbors can afford in the real.

Filipino women never affect the dominating att.i.tude a.s.sumed by young American coquettes. They have an infinite capacity for what we call small talk and repartee; and, as they never aim for brilliancy and are quite natural and unaffected, their pretty ways have all the charm that an unconscious child's have. They love dress, and in one lightning flash will take you in from head to foot, note every detail of your costume, and, the next day, imitate whatever parts of it please their fancy and fall in with their national customs. They are adepts at mimicry and among themselves will lash us mercilessly. They straighten up their shoulders, pull in the abdomen, and strut about with a stiff-backed walk and with their hands hanging stiffly at their sides. They themselves are full of magnetism and can advance with outstretched hand and greet you in such a way as to make you believe that your coming has put suns.h.i.+ne in their lives. Their chief talk is of lovers in the two stages of _pretendiente_ and _novio_, and they are full of hints and imputations to one another of love affairs. Among young people, in spite of the restrictions put about them to keep the opposite s.e.xes from meeting _tete-a-tete_ or the remotest chances of "spooning," the air is surcharged with romance. Apparently the Filipino boy has no period in his development in which he hates girls. At twelve or fourteen he waxes sentimental, and his love notes are the most reeking examples of puppy love and high tragedy ever confiscated by an outraged teacher. When written in the vernacular they are not infrequently obscene, for one of the saddest phases of early sentiment here is that it is never innocent; but in English they run to pathos. One ludicrous phase of love-making is the amount of third-person intervention--an outsider thrusting himself into the matter to plead for his lovelorn chum. For some years I made a collection of confiscated _billet-doux_, but they were destroyed in one of the frequent fires which visit Manila. I can, however, produce a fair imitation of one of these kindly first aids to the wounded. This is the prevailing style:

Miss----,

_Lovely and Most Respectable Lady_:

I am do me the honor to write to you these few unworthy lines to tell you why you are breaking the heart and destroying a good health of my friend Pedro. Always I am going to his house every night, and I am find him weeping for you. He is not eating for love of you. He cannot sleep because he is think about your eyes which are like the stars, and your hairs which are the most beautiful of all the girls in this town. Alas! my friend must die if you do not give him a hope. Every day he is walking in front of your house, but you do not give to him one little word of love. Even you do not love him, you can stop his weep if you like to send him one letter, telling to him that you are not angry to him or to me, his friend.

I have been informed by several persons that there is an official etiquette about this sort of correspondence. When a boy decides that he has fallen in love with a schoolmate or with any other young girl, no matter whether he knows her or not, he writes her a letter in the first person similar to the above. If she ignores the letter utterly, he understands that he does not please her--in brief, that "No Irish need apply." But if she answers in a highly moral strain, professing to be deeply shocked at his presumption, and informing him that she sees no way to continue the acquaintance, he knows that all is well. He sends her another letter, breathing undying love, and takes steps to be introduced at her home. Once having obtained a calling acquaintance, he calls at intervals, accompanied by seven or eight other young men, and, in the general hilarity of a large gathering, endeavors to s.n.a.t.c.h a moment in which to gaze into the star-like eyes of his _innamorata_, or to gloat over her "hairs which are the most beautiful."

The lover's habit of fortifying himself with the society of his fellow men would be the last which an American boy could understand. But a Filipino swain rarely presents himself alone at a house to call. He feels, perhaps, that it makes him conspicuous. The whole race, for that matter, is given to the habit of calling in droves. If a Filipino girl goes to an office on business, her mother and father do not const.i.tute a sufficient escort. Her brothers, cousins, a few admirers, and possibly a female friend or two are added to the parental guardians, till the bodyguard a.s.sumes the appearance of a delegation large enough to negotiate a treaty. One of the division superintendents tells a story which shows the humorous American recognition of the inconveniences of this habit. The Superintendent had recommended two young girls as _pensionadas_, or government students, in the Manila Normal School. It was their duty, on arriving in Manila, to report to the Director of Education; and they must have done so in the usual force, for the Director's official telegram, announcing their arrival, began in this pleasing strain: "Miss---- and Miss----, with relatives and friends, called this morning."

The premature adolescence of the Filipino youth makes him very repellent to the American. One of the most frightful things which I ever saw was a play given in Spanish by children. The play itself was one which Americans would never have permitted children to read or to see, much less to present. The princ.i.p.al character was a debauched and feeble old man of the "Parisian Romance" type; it was played by a nine-year-old boy, who made the hit of the evening, and who reminded me, in his interpretation of the part, of Richard Mansfield. His family and friends were proud of his acting, which was masterly, and laughingly declared that his conception of the role was wholly his own. If so, there was no need of laughter and there was much cause for tears.

Here is a short essay written by a twelve-year-old boy, in response to an order to write a composition about what he had done the previous day.

"Yesterday I called upon all my young lady friends. None but the fathers appeared. We must all be judged according to our works."

The child wrote this by constructing the first sentence himself, and by picking the other two out of phrase-books, which from some source or other are scattered all over the Philippine Islands. What he meant to convey in the carefully pieced mosaic was that he was a dangerous fellow, and that when he came around the fathers kept a close eye on their daughters. That is dubious wit in a man of thirty. In a child of twelve it is loathsome.

Engagements are usually announced at once and are seldom long--from three weeks to three or four months. If the marriage is really for love, as is not infrequently the case, the lovers must have a hard time of it; for they never see each other alone, and "spooning" before others would seem to them in the last degree scandalous. They have marvellous self-control. I have watched many a pair of Filipino lovers for the stolen glances, the shyness, the ever-present consciousness of each other which are characteristic of our lovers, and I have never beheld the faintest evidence of interest in any engaged or newly married couple. They manage to preserve an absolutely wooden appearance at a time when one would expect a race so volatile to display its emotions freely.

Elopements sometimes take place and are called the _boda Americana_, or American marriage. However, they have the advantage of us in one kind of elopement--that of the widow. Runaway marriages between widows and old bachelors are not a common feature of American life, but they seem to const.i.tute the most frequent form of elopement here. Forced marriages occur in spite of the restrictions put around young girls. They cause a ten days' hubbub, winks, nods, and much giggling behind fans. But no social punishment and ostracism of the girl follows as in our own country. So long as the marriage is accomplished, the Filipinos seem to feel that the fact of its being a little late need disturb no one. But if, as sometimes happens, a girl is led astray by a married man, then disgrace and punishment are her lot. I recall a circ.u.mstance where a young girl under a cloud left her native town, never to appear there again. But less than three months after her banishment, her seducer was an honored guest, sitting at the right hand of her brother, in the brother's own house. Apparently the best of feeling prevailed over a matter that with us could never have been forgiven, though bloodshed might perhaps have been averted.

In my eight years in those Islands I have met among the upper cla.s.ses but one young girl whose conduct offered reason to men to take her lightly. In a pretty, childish way, Filipino girls are coquettes, but they are not flirts. Their conception of marriage and of their duty to their own husbands and their children is a high and n.o.ble one. Nevertheless, with innately good and pure instincts, they cannot take half as good care of themselves as can the American girl who is more indiscreet, who knows much less of the matters pertaining to love and s.e.x. The latter has an infinite advantage over her dusky sister in the prudery of speech which is the outwork in a line of fortifications in which a girl's tenacity to her own ideal of chast.i.ty must be the final bulwark, A frankness of speech prevails in the Philippines with regard to matters about which we are frank under necessity, but which, as far as possible, we slide into the background. Stories are told in the presence of young girls, and jokes are interchanged, of more than questionable nature according to our standards. Our prudery of speech is the natural result of the liberty permitted to women. When the protection of an older woman or of a male relative is done away with, and a girl is permitted to go about quite unattended, the best and the surest protection that she can have is the kind of modesty that takes fright at even a bare mention, a bare allusion, to certain ordinarily ignored facts of life.

The result of general freedom of speech and the process of safeguarding a girl from its results is to make a Filipino girl regard her virtue as something foreign to herself, a property to be guarded by her relatives. If, through negligence or ignorance on the part of her proper guardians, she is exposed to temptation, she feels herself free from responsibility in succ.u.mbing. Such a view of life puts a young girl at a great disadvantage with men, especially with men so generally unscrupulous as Filipinos,

Among the lower cla.s.ses there is no idea that a young girl can respect herself or take care of herself. Girls are watched like prisoners, and are never allowed to stray out of the sight of some old woman. It is almost impossible for an American woman to obtain a young girl to train as a servant, because, as they say, we do not watch them properly. This jealous watching of a child's virtue is not, however, always inspired by the love of purity. Too frequently the motive is that the girl may bring a higher price when she reaches a marriageable age, or when she enters into one of those unsanctified alliances with some one who will support her. Filipino men are merciless in their att.i.tude toward young lower-cla.s.s girls, not hesitating to insult or annoy them in the most shameless way. I once forced a little maid of mine to wear the regular maid's dress of black, with muslin cap and ap.r.o.n, and she was certainly a joy to the eye; but one day I sent her out on an errand, and she came back almost hysterical under the torrent of ribald admiration which my thoughtlessness had brought upon her. A seamstress will not remain alone in your house while you run into a neighbor's on an errand without bolting herself in the room; and, if you are to be gone any length of time, she will not stay there at all, simply because she is afraid of your men servants--and justly so.

However, in respect to such matters, things are changing fast. The Filipinos who love us least, high or low, rich or poor, admit that the American idea of treating every self-respecting woman with respect is a good thing. They remark frequently the difference between now and former times, and say, with admiration, that a woman can go past the _cuartels_ or the fire stations, without encountering insult in the form of _galanteria_; and the electric street-car line, suspected at first, has gained the confidence of nearly all. Many Filipino families of the upper cla.s.s permit their daughters to go to and from the American schools on the trolley car, and it is no uncommon thing to see three or four youngsters, all under ten, climbing on and off with their books, asking for transfers, and enjoying their liberty, who ten years ago would have been huddled into a quilez and guarded by an elderly woman servant.

Lastly, a bill for female suffrage was introduced into the Philippine a.s.sembly a few weeks ago. It is one of those "best" things which Filipinos all want for their land. The young man who introduced it had probably been reading about the female suffragist movement in England, and he said to himself that it would be a fine idea to show this dull old world how progressive and modern are the Philippine Islands; and so he drafted his bill. Nothing seems to have been heard of it, and it was probably tabled, with much other progressive legislation, in the hurry of the last days of the session. Another bill was one to put an annual license of one thousand pesos (five hundred gold dollars) on every minister of the gospel, Protestant or Catholic. I suspect its parent of having been coached up on modern French thought. However, that is not pertinent to the woman question. What I desire to do is to give a correct impression of a country where _real_ conditions are such as I have described them, and _ideal_ conditions have advanced to the point of a bill for female suffrage.