The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-06-22
FILIPINO TOWNS.
Buildings Are Small and the Natives
All Poor.

New York SUM-
indian is a fair sample of Filipino
towns The buildings were mostly of
nipa palm. k,It out of repair perhaps
by the exigencies of war, but all are
poor and small Along the principal
street a few are of wood, but they are
ramshackle tumbledOWns. The blight
that ruined the once prosperous coffee
culture of that part of Cavite province
seems 10 have fallen on the houses of
indian also. But there stands the great
church with the inevitable convent typical
of all the Philippines
The friars builded their temporal houses
Wen, but they did not use them as models
Tor their other structures. The Indian con-
vent was in use as an insurgent hospital
Some forty patients were in ii when we
came The little medico in charge
Strutted around IN the uniform of a major
In one of the back rooms were piles of
records of the inSurgent hospital at San
francisco de MelabOn, and in some of
them there were interesting disclosures.
1t viii be remembered that when I.aWtOn
started into Cavite province, in June of
last year, on the campaign that led to the
night at the ZapOte river, he had a couple
of skirmishes on the first day in which
sixteen or eighteen of our nsen were
wounded. These hospital records showed
that the b6ttaliOns Trias, NOriel and
CaVlte were engaged on that day. and
that more than $50 wounded men were re-
ceived at the hospital after those skirm-
ishes
In the middle of the morning I went
down the road beyond the town for
half mile or so to see if L could not
buy come eggs and chickens. l got a
pass from the colonel for three natives
TO go with me to get grass for the ponies.
Where the road made a turn so that
TO go further would take me out of sight
OF our outpost, l stopped and sat down
IN front of a deserted shack. All sorts
and conditions of natives crowded around
and assured me that they were all very
poor. However, very few of them cared
TO undertake to find eggs or catch chick
ems for me. Only the boys would agree to
cut grass Three or four of them went off
and presently came back with good sized
bundles.
The three or four bright new COPPER
cents I happened to have produced as
lively a scramble in the crowd of children
as you can get up among the children of a
lot or steerage passengers on an immi-
grant ship. Finally a woman brought
three eggs. l gave her 10 cents and she
set up wall that could be heard in the
town. But other women set off i'm
mediately and soon I had several dozen
at that price woman came with three
chickens and wanted 81. When ! said no.
she calmly caught another that was run
ming about the road and put that with
the three. She was more than pleased
with the dollar for four
Three boys carried all the plumber back
to town for me- One ragged little fellow
ranged alongside OF me and looked I'D
he said. / laughed and asked why.
"MuchO Calienie," he said | said the
Tagals We're mucho buenO also, and We
would all be good friends before long. He
grinned a bit and then said: Los Indios
no, no valiente los IndiOs wuchO cure"
and he laughed so hard that the bundle of
grass fell off his head and he nearly
dropped the eggs trying to pick it up.
In the afternoon they buried the man
who had been killed in the brush of the
evening before, In the tumbledown
chapel at the gate of the old Campo Santo
they found a box that would do for a
coffin. Six men carried it down through
the street draDed with the headquarters
flag, the dead mans hat resting on it. In
the little procession that followed. the
colonel and half a dozen other officers
walked bare-headed. Down by the far
wall of the CamDO SantO the grave had
been dug. When the body had been lower
its head and said:
Men, in the absence of a chaplain,
we are unable to give our cOmrade such
p funeral as we would have liked to
give him. Let US repeat the Lord s
prayer.
With bowed heads the little company
followed the officer through the prayer.
A corporaPs squad stood at the side of
the grave
Load" said the corporal Aim. firer'
Twice more he gave the commands and
each time the bullets crashed clear
through the stone wall at the other side
of the holy field. Then taps sounded and
Private Freeman was mustered out.
The fat round Filipino padre at the
convent was the biggest bulk of densest
ignorance so far as affairs of the in
surgents were concerned that we had
met. He announced to me that it was a
day of blessing when the Americans came
to indian because the insurgents were
great robbers and utterly unDrinciDled
Wretches. When the boxes with $500 of
their money was found in one Of his back
rooms he made no delay in declaring that
the money was his own. The fine pony
in the back yard was his, he said, when
there was an inquiry as to which of the
insurgents owned it. But when I asked
him forage for the ponies that first night
he said he had none, as he never kept a
horse He was the easiest, but most I'M
Skillful liar l ever encountered. When he
had persuaded his boys to let us use the
cooking house on our arrival, by the sim
ole process of going in and using it any
how, he came with a protest that we were
disturbing the colonel, who was at that
minute upstairs. This was so bald a lie
that we could not refrain from telling him
so. He was a very OleaginOus padre, who
undoubtedly told the truth when he said
that although the insurgents had had
their headquarters in the building they
had never disturbed him.