News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1899-10-18
OUR FILIPINO CITlZENESS,
When She Goes to Church She Lights Hei
Best Cigar.

When She Goes to Church She Lights HeI
Best Cigar.
| When a Filipino woman goes tc
church, as she does every Sunday,
rain or shine, she dresses in her best
and takes her biggest cigar. In fact
if she has far to go she takes two
cigars. Her children are dressed in
their clean clothes, and all go along
behaving as they should. They keep
on the shady side of the street, and
where there are crossings and only the
shadow of the telephone wires the
mother raises her parasol, which is
about the size of a good umbrella.
The typical Filipino woman has
great pride in her hair. In fact, she
spends a great deal of her time in
combing and washing it. When she
dresses for any occasion she lets her
hair fall down her back, and it gener-
ally reaches to her waist. So it is on
Sunday as she shuffies away to mass
Her brown shoulders are bare, and
her Eton-like jacket seems about to
fall off over one arm or the other
but it is not quite big enough for that.
Under this jacket she wears a lace
bodice, usually Of ecru-colored linen
and very we'll Numbered. Her skirt is
of linen material, or, if she can af-
ford it, of silk, but always either black
or brown. One side of the bottom Of
the skirt is caught up under her belt,
and this takes up its fuIlness. Now
if she is very well-to-do she puts on
stockings, but that is not necessary
Her toes are showed into a pair of
heellegs slippers, with wooden soles
Her children are dressed as she is if
they are girls. If a boy is trotting
along at her side he wears a pair of
white trousers coming well down on
the ankles, and his feet are stuffed
into a pair of slippers. Over his
shoulders and falling down like a
Chinaman's is gauze shirt, plain OF
covered with spangles, according to
the financial standing of his father
or the pride of his mother.
So they go down the street, the
children hand finland. Ahead of them
the mother is scuttling along putting
at large cigar, the ashes of which
she flicks off from time to time with
all the skill of one to the manner
born. If by any chance she has to re-
light the weed she carries matches III
the pocket Of her dress for that pur-
pose, and she is successful in the art
of making matches burn in the stiff
fest wind.
. At the church door she pausts to
chat with her neighbors, and perhaps
to gossip bit. If she is on the way
out she lights her cigar, looks at the |
ire end of it to see if the light" is
good, and then turnes to do her talk
ing. And she can talk when the oc-
casion demands The language seems
to be fitted to rapid work, and the
way it flows out by the Side of the
cigar demonstrates thorough under
standing Of the mother tongue. When
her gossipping is done she hoists her
pal GioOI anu .WdlhS OuI lulO luG SUM-
No matter how rapid her talk was
back there in the cool arches of the
church. her pace is never fast down.
the street. She passes with majes-
tic sweep the women who are coming
along with baskets on their heads and
smoking cigarettes. Perhaps the ped
dler woman has her hair done up in
q knot and is otherwise beneath no
tice, but if the well-dressed woman
happens to need light" she asks for
it with some hauteur and gets it with
plenty of comradeship.
When this woman reaches home it
is supposed she goes about her house
hold duties and gets dinner, TITO
which she puts an extra amount Of
coccanut oil. But later in the after
noon she takes her place on what
does duty for a veranda, and there
she smokes and chats with her neigh
bors or scolds her children.-Boston