The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1900-06-30
IN THE PHILIPPINES
A Grenada County Roy Writes Entertain
ingly of Our New Possessions


Mr.. Burton Hutson, Of Hardy, WHO
went to the Philippines about a year
ago rs a member OF the signal corps Of
The United States army, writes enter
tainlngly 70 his friend, Mr.. Virgil T..
Baker, now Of Memphis. Space will
not permit US to give the letter entire,
bu, the following extracts will prove
interesting.
Candaba, p. l., May 10, 1900.
| will first tell you something OF Ma
Mia. 1t is on the southwestern coast
OF the Isle of LIzon, and is the largest
city in the Philippines. The inhubi-
iants number about two hundred thou
and. # is divided into two parts-Old
Manila, or the Walled City, and New
Manila. The Old City is encircled by
a high stone wall about twenty feet
high and in some places ten or fifteen
feet thick. The top OF this wall is
sprinkled with broken glass which was
spriukled on when cement was wet.
There are but four entrances in the
wall and they are approached by means
OF a draw bridge which is pulled up a,
night and lowered during the day. The
wall is surrounded by d moat from
twenty TO thirty feet wide and about
twenty feet deep. OF course the wall
and everything else is going TO decay
now, but the ruins are plainly to be
seeu. Very near all the buildings are
built OF stone and bear the date of cree
tion, aud there are some buildings dat
ing to 1855.
The new city is much larger and
more thickly populated. The Escolta
is the principal street and most OF the
business houses are in that district.
There are very few native business
houses on the Escolta-they are mostly
American and Spanish. The most at
tractive place is the market, where
they deal in every kind Of article and
product OF the island. OF course there
are none but natives on the market,
put they certainly do a great business.
The bamboo is used over here for
everything. They even make bamboo
canuons and use them. Sometimes
there are some fearful explosions from
them. II is said that the observatory
in Manila is one OF the best in the
world and the most accurate for telling
the time and making weather observa-
tious. 1t is a large brick building and
part of it is used for a convent, and a
part OF 1t is also used for a museum. It
is certainly worth the time one loses
here to see the different things and the
different customs. There is every
class OF people in the world here and
one meets them in every day life. The
spend their Sundays cock
fighting. They start them lighting
at early dawn and keep it up until
dusk. The preachers are the main
guys at it. 1t is claimed that Aguinal-
do appointed the priests for the
chuyches and II they are not true TO
their offices he will have them killed. l
don't know, but they certainly act like
it. They run things to suit themselves
II a posr man dies and has no money
they won't even let his remains be
church, hut if a rich n dies
and they pay the priest we'll he will
sing and preach Cor half a day at a
time. There was a child died yester-
day. Its parents we're very rich and
paid the priest well, so he sung and
preached about NO hours. Then came
a poor one right after it and the priest
would not even go into the church to
look att. This [ saw myself.
Give all my friends ny best regards.
BURTON b. HUTSoN.