Evening star., 1900-08-18

wares to the ladies'. The dry goods man
high as himself on his shoulder Is to be
seen every day in Manila, notwithstanding
there whole streets given up to Chinese
selling of the same articles.
The Gale de Rosario.
The chief business street outside the Es-
colta is Gale Rosario. This is a great Chi
nese bazaar half mile long, lined with
Chinese stores packed with cottons silks,
hardware and notions There are hundreds
of little caves in the wall SO full of cotton
goods that there is room in them for
counters or cases. The goods are piled
upon shelves, stacked up on the floors, hung
from the ceilings and even put outside on
the street in the arcade which runs from
block to block. The stores have no doors
and their whole fronts taken away in
the daytime. Some not more than six
feet in width and ten feet in depth. But
each has one or two pig-tailed clerks, and
all seem to be busy.
The usual costume of the merchant is an
uLdershirt and drawers. He is always
bareheaded and usually barefooted with
the exception of his low slippers, which
he often drops Off He usually sits in
the street outside his store smoking a
cigarette, while he waits for custom. lie
is never asleep, and is always ready to
bargain and sell.
The Chinese stores are grouped much
according to the articles sold in them The
dry goods stores take up a number of
blocks, hardware stores have their own
section and in other parts of Manila you
find streets given up to Chinese shoe
makers, tailorS and sugar manufacturers.
Many of them make sweetmeats and many
manufacture chocolate from the cacao bean.
Making soap from cocoanut Oil is another
great industry. 1t is made in little yellow
disks about as big around a silver dol
lar and half an inch thick. One such piece
costs l cent of our money.
The Chinese do a large part of the shoe
business of Manila and almost all the
shoe meQdiQg. You the Chinese shoe
maker on every corner He carries his
tools about in a basket and suuats down
and mends your soles while you wait He
does some of the washing, but this so
far is largely monopolized by the Filipino
women who stand in the dirty water of
the canals and pound the dirt out of the
Chinese in the markets where they sell
most of the fancy vegetables and pork,
and, in fact, there is scarcely a place or
business in the whole island where they
are not very much in evidence.
Litter Hearers in Army.
The Chinaman here has been of great ad-
vantage to the army, although Uncle Sam
is now trying to dispense with him. He
has been the litter bearer. going bravely
out into the batlefields under the fire Of
the insurgents to carry off our wounded
and dead. He has done a greater part of
the transportation of goods during the
march and has handled the most of the
goods of the quartermaster's department
at Manila. 1t is common sight to see
train of fifty Chinese carrying great
boxes on poles from one part of the town
to the other, and you find them loading and
unloading the transports. There is no
doubt but that they are far superior to
the Flipinos as laborers, and it is a Seri-
Gus question whether Uncle Sam Is not
making mistake in trying to exclude
them from the islands.
The Exclusion of the Chinese.
The development of the Philippines will
require some other labor than the Filipinos
can furnish. What Don Carlos Palanca has
said about their unrelability is undoubted-
ly true. If the United States is to build
railroads and public works we will need the
Chinese. If we are to manufacture here
for Asia we must have them. and If the
mines, which seem to exist in the noun
tains, are to be developed it can best be
done with Chinese labor. The question
here is not the same as at home Our peo-
pie cannot stand hard work in this tropical
climate. They will not work for the wages
that are necessary In these Asiatic sur
roundings, and it would seem that the Chi
nese are the only solution of the labor
troubles which are to confront us sooner
or later.
As to the danger of the country being
overrun by the celestials, they have been
here for 300 years, and at present they do
not number one-eightieth of the population.
They have not materially increased from
year to year" and any great influx could
easily be controlled by future Legislation.
At present about fifteen hundred Chinese
arrive and depart every month. None
come in but those holding certificates show
ing that they have been in the islands be-
fore. Each of these certificates gives a de-
scription of its owner. but the Chinese look
so much alike to us that they often
sold, the price in Annoy being, l told,
from S15 to $50 per certificate.
The Chinese MestizO.
MANY of the Chinese who come to the