Iron County register., 1899-01-05
THE FILIPINOs' HOLIDAY.
Christmas Music and Then Games
and G0ssip-Orange Bios
SONS.

In October the monsoon changes in
the China sea, and in place of the ener-
vaIing and balmy breeze from the lands
| of the equator comes the invigorating
wind of the north. The thermometer
| falls just enough to make the weather
beautiful by day and comfortable by
night. Christmas enjoys the finest
weather of the year. The sky is pale
blue or hazy with thin gray clouds. The
! orange groves put on their finest attire
and form long walls of FURNISHED
green, dotted with golden circles. A
dozen other trees and scores of shrubs
and lowly plants seemingly try to cell
ebrate the season by putting out their
| fairest flowers or sweetest fruit.
The day is holiday, and is observed
something as it is in Madrid, something
as it may have been before the con-
questadore laid his iron hand upon the
docile Tagal. The churches are open
and are centers of human activity
White women and brown, yellow and
red, proud Castilians and humble colo
malls, Tagal and Irrogote, Visaya and
half-breed, make up the procession that
enters and departs through the great
church portals.
Within is the storm of noble music
played as only the Filipino can play.
The art nature in the brown race ex-
presses itself in music and motion. The
recreation of the savage is found in
song and dance, ard the orchestras of
the churches show their ancestral hab-
its by melodious composition and the
rhythmic swayiEg of heads and hands
and often feet. They seldom play the
harmonic masterpieces of Bach, Han
del, Haydn or Beethoven; they probab-
ly would not understand the higher
thought which is embodied in the
matchless chords and wondrous SYM
pnonic effects of these composers. But
when it comes to Gounod and Verdi, I'd
such pieces as the ''Infammatus" and
the save Maria," they play and sing
with a vigor and enthusiasm that are
soul-stirring.
Every body is dressed in what New
Englanders call Sunday-go-to-m
clothes. The Caucasians wear the
toilets of Madrid, rich with Gothic
lEces, velvet applique silks and satins
The half-breeds appear in quaint but
elegant robes of silk and grass-cloth
pihas, and other odd but attractive ere.
ations of the eastern loom, while the
poor natives wear the quaint serong.
the Malay jacket and the Filipino
vest, which, in their way, are as grace
full and becoming as the finest mode
from Paris.
When the mass is over the men hurry
to the cockpit and wager their pesetas
and pesos upon their favorite birds
Women form school parties in the
courtyards of their homes and there
talk gossip and discuss never-ending
problems of domestic economy, the
same as their sisters in other parts of
the world. Sometimes the street is en-
livened by religious procession, and
sometimes a native funeral blocks the
thoroughfare.
Through the white men and the
brown move the stolid Chinese, dressed
in their invariable blue suits; the poor
coolies in the cheapest cotton cloth
and the rich merchants in magnificent
robes of Canton silk. 1t is an odd com.
bination of races, the brown Malay
iostling with the still darker Papuan.
and jostled in turn by the yellow man
and all subordinated to the imperious
white race, no matter whether Spanish.
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