The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-06-01

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last ten years. Everything in the city
is ancient. People live in old, musty,
two.story houses that come flush with
| the narrow sidewalks. All have dull,
| forbidding look with their board blinds
and heavy doors, which are seldom
open. In the center of almost every
house is an open court, known as the
patio. All the rooms in the house open
on this patio, and there the family hold
their social gatherings and eat their
meals ten months in the year. Some
patios are beautifed by palms, beds of
| flowers, and arbors of vines. The
commercial buildings are all old, too.
| The show windows are little cheap at
| fairs, and there is none of the modern
conveniences in any of the best stores
in the whole city. A unique feature of
all homes and Offices in Manila is the
use of tiny square panes of translucent
oyster shell instead of glass. A win
dow six feet long and four feet wide
will contain 260 of these oyster shell
panes. They temper the fierce glare
of the sun in the buildings, and in a
country where many people go blind
| from the constant sunshine this is a
precaution to be taken.
"Spaniards seldom remain longer
than five years in the Philippines-in-
deed, if so long. AS fast as they de-
part for their native land, newcomers
arrive to take their places. The islands
have been for generations region in
which people of influence at Madrid
might come and recover their financial
losses, and where young Spaniards
might in few years make fortune.
There are, however, several Spanish
families who have made Manila their
home for years. They are immensely
wealthy and live in beautiful old pal
aces in Binodo-a pretty residence
suburb of Manila. A genuine census
has never been taken in the Philip
pines, but of total population of about
900 in Manila about 5000 are Span
ish. The troops are relieved here once
in two years, but the rebellions have
been so many in the islands during the
last few years that the soldiers have
been kept on duty at Cavite and other
garrisons longer than usual.
speaking of rebellions reminds me
that there have been seventeen re-
spectacle sized rebellions in the last
sixty years. 1t seems strange that such
an easy, slumbering, happy. go-lucky
race as the natives as the Philippines
should have such turbulent politics.
With almost any other government
over them, the natives could undoubt-
edly be peaceful and contented. OF
late years the rapacity of the Spanish
has increased, and the poor people are
desperate. They long for any other
governing power than the Spanish.
can't begin TO think now of all the
taxes and licenses that the people in the
islands pay for their government. All
males over twenty-one years of age
must pay an annual poll tax that equals
SIS in our money. All females must
pay S14 as a poll tax. A person must
get licence to gather cocoanuts from
his own trees and sell them. have
myself paid hundreds of dollars for Ii
censes for poor farmers who wished to
harvest their indigo crop and sell it to
me. Every article of furniture that
costs sum equal to 50 in our money
is taxed. The curtain never goes up at
the theater that $40 is not paid to the
government. No one in the Philip
pines may kill his own animals for mar
ket, clip his sheep, or cut down a tree
without first paying fee to some OF
the army of collectors that infest the
country. A couple pay tax when
they wish to be married, besides fee
to the padre. The natives love snowy
funerals, and the Spanish decided a
few years ago that the gravedigger
must collect $3.50 for the government
before he can bury any one in the GEM
terry. These sums may seem petty, but
| oh hn hot ho
age native has little opportunity to
work for hire, that if he does succeed
in securing employment his wages are
often not more than five cents day,
and that he is usually unable to dispose
of his farm products for cash, being
compelled to exchange them for other
commodities. In addition to these and
taxes that do not recall, there is tax
on beasts of burden, tax for keeping
a shop, tax on mills or oil presses,
tax on weights and measures, and
tax on cockfighting. AT every turn the
poor natives finds himself face to face
with the dire necessity of paying tri
butte, and he frequently spends his life
in an Intellectual effort to meet the OBJ
legation thus imposed. The revenue
goes to Spain to pay the soldiers and
navy.
"There is no escape from these taxes.
/ have seen women whipped in the
rural towns because they bad perhaps
failed to get license before they sold
their annual crop of cocoanuts, or had
secreted COW or goat so that the tax
collector did not see it in his official
rounds. For the collection of taxes the
Spanish have revived the plan which
was in use in France before the revo-
luton of 1889. For each district of
1000 square miles tax collector is ap-
pointed by the Governor of the pro-
vince. He is called gobernadorcillo,
and he is responsible for the estimated
amount which his district should pay in
taxes, 80 that if collections fall short he
must make them good from his own
pocket. He has under him a number
of deputy collectors, known as cabezas,
each of whom collects the taxes OF from
forty to sixty taxpayers, and is person.
ally responsible for the amount ex-
pected from each. If they fail to pay
up he distrains their property and sells