The National tribune., 1902-08-14

| hold furniture, casks of wine, sacks of
rice or flour, boxes of goods. family
moving is a long procession of cargadores
! trailing through the streets with all its
effects on poles, the things the family most
| desire to hide from public gaze being, of
course, displayed the most prominently.
MILK SUPPLY OF MANILA.
Nor is the early morning made melo-
dious with the clatter of carts. A few
bakery wagons may be seen going from
| place to place, an ice wagon or two and a
! soda-water cart, but not at unseemly early
hours, while the Gathering milk wagon is
unknown. Genuine cows milk is a scarce
| article. The water buffalo supplies most
of the milk used by the natives. 1t is a
snow-white liquid containing little cream
and having a flavor none too pleasant to
the American taste. Goats also add
somewhat to the milk supply.
A few Australian cattle of the Durham
and Devon breeds, some deer-like Andalu-
sian cattle resembling Jerseys somewhat
but giving only a thimbleful of milk, and
| a number of the white, hump-backed "sa-
cred COW of India" we used to stare at
| in the menageries, complete the list of
domestic animals for milk or beef, and
they supply little of either.
The foreigners use chiefly the canned
condensed milks or none at all. 1t was
the great reliance of the army. Butter
is all imported, neatly put up in pound
tins like salmon or condensed milk What
we got was Of good quality and served
well when kept OH ice. Otherwise the eli
mate keeps it in the condition of oleo oil.
With luxuriant growth of grass the en-
tire year round On the lOwlands this ought
to be a good dairy country.
The native milkman is curiosity.
Barefooted, he may be seen trotting in
from the suburbs in the early morning,
with a curved stick hanging over his
shoulder, from the rear end of which de-
pends long -necked earthen jar or a sec
tion of bamboo filled with the lacteal
fluid. In this way it is possible for man
to deliver nearly gallon in a single trip
into the city, something equal in speed
to the usual Filipino idea.
MARKETING IN MANILA. -
The substitute for the butchers cart
and the grOcer's wagon is the little bas-
ket Of bamboo carried from the market
on the head of the customer, usually
woman, for the women are the business
heads of families. Everything to eat is
sold at the "mercado," Of which there are
half dozen in Manila. Let not the read
er imagine Fulton market, where crisp
vegetables, fresh meat or clean fish tempt
the eye. Let him rather picture to his
mind large building, an open court or
a group of bamboo stalls, or a combna-
ton of all three, dirty, vile-smeling and
unpleasant to the eye, where crowds of
women and the male servants of white
residents make their daily purchases and
haggle as long over 1O-cent purchase as
white man would over railroad con-
tract.
There are stalls that contain nothing
but rice. This is much inferior to the
Louisiana rice or that of Japan. 1t is
also much broken and would be unmer-
chantable in this country, the method of
hulling it by pounding 1t in mortar
breaking up the kernels considerably. The
rice industry needs the introduction of
proper machinery to make it more profit
able.
Another stall has few bananas,
squashes, radishes, sweet potatoes, pota-
toes, beans, peppers, tomatoes, etc. All
these vegetables are of very inferior
quality and size. The climate and soil
are certainly suitable to the growing of
good vegetables, and it is probable that
new and good seed properly grown would
work revolution in this respect.
At another stall may be seen little
joint of meat, generally pork, and several
kinds of fish. Most of this fish is the
product of the ponds and sloughs around
Manila, the dirty Pasig River and the
shallow waters Of the bay and the La
guna. No deep-sea fish are to be had.
The Filipino is not a fisherman, like the
japanese. Doubtless the sea has plenty
of good fish, but l never had the pleasure
Of seeing or eating any in Manila. In
Japan l found splendid fish.
One little stall has small clans and
mussels, another little oysters gathered in
the bay near the sewers, and declared by
our Surgeons to have typhoid-fever germs,
and another shrimps and prawns. Still
another is devoted to chickens, the great
edible staple of the Filipinos next to rice
and fish, and more often seen on the tables
Of the rich than beef. Eggs, both of chick
ems and ducks, are the sole stock of an
other stall, while cakes of brown sugar
and kind of chocolate paste occupy the
baskets Of other vendors. In the Summer
season green corn, roasted, boiled and
fresh, finds place in the market.
The market for edibles is surrounded
by stalls where cigars, cigarets, dry goods
and trinkets are sold, the whole making