Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1899-01-12
fl MHNILA LETTER.
A BeetOwn Boy In The
Philippines Writes
To Relatives.
MANILA O., Nov. l6, rs.
90. I'D. )" Isl Mont. Vol. /

DEAR MOTHER AND SISTERS: L don 1
know how often YOU hear from me but
YOU ought to hear pretty often as !
write pretty often, about every three
weeks or so. hear from you about
every month. 1t takes the letters
about six weeks to come.
We have moved from Cavite and are
stationed at Manila. 1t is queer
city; everything is so ancient A per-
son can put in great deal of time
sight seeing. The women do most of
the peddling or selling while the men
are at work at something else; they
seem to be very industrious. The
children can be seen generally rust
ling something. At meal time they
come around with a tin can in each
hand or pail that will hold a gallon
or two ready to gather up all scraps
and crumbs that are left and they are
not very particular in what shape
they are for everything goes in to-
oether. You should see them scram-
BILE for a few beans or crust of
bread. They act as if their life de-
pended on it,
Inc women are sitting around most
any place where they see a chance to
sell few bananas, oranges or cigars
as that is about the extent Of theft
store. They always carry it on top
of their heads in flat kind of a bas-
ket. The whole outfit isn't worth
more than one dollar American.
When we first came to the Philip
pine Islands they charged two cents
apiece for bananas and two cents
apiece for oranges. Now we can get
bananas, one large one or two or
three small ones for cent also one
orange for cent. And remember
this money is only worth one-half as
much as ours An American nickle
is equal to ten of their cents, Ameri-
can ten cents equal to twenty of theirs.
American dollar equal to two of theirs
and so on. So for an American dol
lar person can buy a cart load Of
bananas, oranges or cocoanuts. Co
coanuts are five cents.
They bring cocoanuts into Manila
in RATS. The same as logs are RATED
down the Mississippi river. | saw a
raft of them going down past the 9th
er day that must have been sixty or
seventy feet long, and a person could
not ever guess at the number of CO.
coanuts it contained There is not
much fruit here now as the fruit sea-
son isn't here yet. December is the
beginning of the fruit season. Then
the water melons will suffer. ! wish
Jim Gates were here for about
month just to see if we are as good at
getting away with water-melons as we
used to be. / guess he hasn't much
time to hunt melons now.
The men here are very hard-work-
ing class of men. | haven't much use
for them on that account. They are
at work all of the time and seem to be
perfectly contented and happy. For
hauling large loads they use sea oxen,
large mouse-colored beast about the
same as an Am erican OK. They move
along at about the rate of two miles
an hour. And the native seems to be
perfectly contented with their speed.
They 90 pounding them along as if
they had to beat them about so much
or the OK wouldn't be cOntented and
guess they wouldn't be either. But
when it comes to pulling they can
make an American horse ashamed of
itself They don't move very fast but
they are sure. ! never saw one
stuck vet.
The natives live most any place
they can get shelter. Their furniture
consists of bed or two, cooking
stove" which is an earthern vessel
that they build fire in and cook over.
and box to put their fruit in. They
col I'D
their launches and eat their meals
there. Rice and bananas are their
main living.
don't hear anything about going
back to the United States. The Off
GERS seem to think we will have to
serve out our time here but of course
they don't know any more about it
than a post. At least hope they
don't, anyway. / guess some of the
officers hope we will have to stay our
two years for they are getting better
pay now than they ever did before in
their lives, and have an idea that is
the reason the government is so slow,
generally, mastering volunteers out.
The head officers don't push things
along as fast as they might.
we leIJ Sdu EIauC4oSo Oui - a.
rived at Honolulu July %. stayed
there six days and were treated fine
while there. There was nothing too
good for us and they set out the finest
dinner for us / thought / ever sat
down to. OF course AZ was appreciat-
ed on account of US getting nothing but
beans and slum gullion on the boat
but it was a fine dinner just the same.
Coming from Honolulu to Manila
was fright. They just starved Us,
and il we had had two more weeks on !