The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-08-21


| East and OF standing sponsor for the near
| ly 10000 native inhabitants that speak
a score of different tongues and live on
| anything from rice to stewed grasshop-
| pers? Do we want the task OF ciVilizing
this race, of opening up the jungle, of
setting up officials in frontier out-of-the-
way towns, who WON'T have been there a
| month before they viii wish to return?
can We run them? The Philippines
are hard material with which to make
our first colonial experiment, and seem
to demand a different sort of Teatment
from that which our national policy
| favors or has had experience in giving.
| Besides the peaceab!e natives occupying
| the accessible towns, the interiors of
many of the islands are filed with abo-
Tginal savages, who have never even
recognized the rule of SPAIN and who stn
think they are possessors of the soil.
Even on the coast itself are tribes of
savages who are almost as ignorant as
their brethren in the interior, and only
thirty miles from Manila are races of
| dwarfs that go without Clothes wear
| knee bracelets of horsehair and respect
nothing save the Jungles in which they
live.
ITO the north are the Igorrotes, to the
south the Moros, and in between scores
of wild tribes that are ready to dispute
possession. And is the United States
prepared to maintain the forces and
| feyer-stricken jungles necessary in the
! march of progress TO exterminate or
ciVilize such races? Have We like Eng
land, for instance, the class of troops
who could undertake that sort of work,
and do We feel called upon to do it, when
the same expenditure at home would go
so much further?
The Philippines must be run under
despotic though kindly form of govern
ment, supported by arms and armorclads,
and to deal with the perpiexing questions
anu perplexing difficulties that arise needs
| knowledge gained by experience by hav
ing dealt with other such problems be-
fore"
Commenting on health conditions, Mr..
Stevens writes.
Il see by the papers that there are at
least two cases of smallpox in Boston,
that everybody is alarmed and hundreds
are getting vaccinated. Curious state
of affairs isn't it, when every day out
here you see small children running
around in the streets, covered with evil
dences of this disease. Nobody thinks
anything about smallpox in Manila, and
one ceases TO notice it if a Philippine
mamma sits opposite you in the tram
car, holding in her lap a scantily clothed
child, whose swarthy hide Is illuml-
mated with those unmistakable mark
ings. Some weeks ago there were even
400 deaths week in Manila from this dis
ease alone, and from the way in which
the afflicted mix with the hale and hearty
you can only wonder that there were not
1000
Besides smallpox, them fever Is
about the greatest enemy, and certain
types of the malarial variety seem so
common that the sufferers from them
often walk to the club, drop into
chair and say, Got the fever again
Means another lay-off If they can
keep about, the Old stagers never give
up; but noVces buy thermometers and
cracked ice, and either go through a ter
rife siege, like my friend whose eight
! weeks struggle shrunk his head so that
in cOnvalescence his ha6 touched his
ears, or escape with a weeks initiation.
Typhoid seems also common, and there
is generally one member of the colony. for
whom the rest are anxious, stretched out
IN ice-baths and wishing he had never
seen the Philippines
Manila fare, like Manila life Is not
unwholesome, but it lacks variety, and
one rather tires now and then of soup.
chickens, beefsteak and toothpicks-four
staples. Our house is a good one, with
all the comforts of home, and is sur
rounded by an acre or two of land. We
have stables for our horses and outbuild-
ings for the families of our servants At
the end of the month all the expenditures
for house rent food, wages, light and
IOSGInGE divided
my three, and with everything included
my monthly share comes to twenty-nine
gold dollars-less than one of our Ameri-
can cart wheels per diem
THE other morning began the first real
storm of the rainy season and we came
very near having a bad typhoon, but
some one turned the switch and it sWirled
up the back coast on the Pacific side
and crossed through a notch in the noun
tainS some distance to the north of Man
lila, giving the city only four days Of
monstrous winds and floods of rain. The
streets were two feet deep with water
in the business section, and down at our
house by the sea the wind blew so hard
that 1t carried the tin from our roof off
to visit the next suburb.
"a month or two later came the real
article one of the most terrific blowings
l have ever felt. Down came all the
wires in the main street; over went half
a dozen houses to one side of US, and ker-
PUNK broke off some venerable trees.
After the typhoon came the floods, and
the old Pasig covered the adjacent coun-
try. The water concealed the road to the
uptown club a Nagtajan under a depth
OF several feet, and one could without
difficulty row into the billiard room or
play water polo in the bowling alley Two
of my friends were nearly drowned by
trying to drive when they should have
/
off with their carriage into a rice field
in the darkness and was drowned in more
than eight feet of water.
"For years now Spain has sent men and
gunboats down to AIindanao to wipe out
the savages and bring the island under
complete subsection, but without avail.
Young boys from the North have been
drafted into native regiments to go South
on this fatal errand. The prisons of Ma
Mia have been emptied and the conYicts
armed with bolos or meat-choppers, have
followed their more righteous brethren to
the front. Well-trained native troops
have gone there; Spanish troops have
gone; officers have tried it; but to no end.
If, in the storTning of some MORO strong
hold dozen miles back inland from the
beach, the convicts in the front rank were
cut to pieces by the enemy, 1t was of
no Importance. If the drafted youths were
slaughtered, there were more at home. If
the native troops failed to carry the
charge things began to look serious. But