Daily Kennebec journal., 1913-12-05


| is-at least for Americans-about the
most interesting place in the worlu.
| The old and new. the obsolete and
| the advanced. the historic and history
| in the making can nowhere be founo
in more contrast. The massive anu
picturesque walls of the old Spanish
city are fortunately intact, thougn
dozen years ago many F1llplhos "ouiu
gladly have seen them banished WITH
the Spanish flag. The unwholesone
medieval moat. however, has been
| filed up and turned into the hrst
Philippine public playground. vast
swampy malarial tracts have been re-
claimed and made into parks oeautilul
with tropical foliage and flowers anu
every evening enlivened py the hlusle
of good Filipino bands.
Solid waterfronts and valuable
building sites have also been created.
Fine bridges and fine roads have come
into existence as my magic, and clean
streets put to shame some of the
boasted cities of the Occldent. w me
the climate is continual summer, the
healthiness of Manila is now pro-
verbal. 1t is called the healthlesl
city in the Orient, and has been maze
SO by unremitting care, such as SEND
ing inspectors twice week to Ook
after conditions and even in many
private houses to disinfect drains. In
parts of the city still unseWereu
refuse is carted away in tight recep-
taeles and burned, receptacles ana
all. The utilizing of such refuse for
fertilizers is impracticable as the
dreaded amoeba which turks in the
soil is stimulated into activity by i'm
purities.
The walled city" keeps its medie-
val character, though such of its deni-
zens as cholera, smallpox, leprosy'
plague and fever have been routed.
One delights in the pieturesqueness OF
the old, narrow, tortuous streets with
their low, wide spreading buildings,
shut-in courtyards and blind en-
rtances, irregular arches and gables,
balconies and small barred windows,
crooked outside stairs and useless tur-
rets a modern air is given to some
of the palatial residences by inclosed
gardens, but these are few, gardens
seeming to have been much less priced
by the Latins than they are by recent
comers. In other parts of the town
most livable homes of all grades have
multiplied apace, open all around to
air, each with its palm shaded garden
and its broad verandas draped with
towering vines and hanging ferns and
orchids.
In the business streets pretensious
shops are close neighbors to Chinese
or Japanese tiendas looking like moth
ing but big packing boxes open to the
sidewalk, the wares kept neatly fold
ed on shelves along the sides, while a
front shelf affords repose for the
cigaret smoking proprietor or pro-
prietress when not molested by GUS
tom.
The city's busy traffic, its air of life
and stir suggest little of the sweet do
nothing of the torpid East. Smart
automobiles and auto trucks share
right of way with countless one-pony
two wheel ,calesas and carts drawn by
| the wide horned, small-necked, am
! phibious caribaos or water buffaloes'
/ The Manila society for the prevention
/ of cruelty to animals has for its
president an American woman. Every
day for it would be hard to tell how
long there has appeared in the Manila
Times this paragraph
BE kind. Cruelty is form of
savagery. The advancement of the
whole world is measured by the in
crease in humanity and the decrease
of cruelty to animals. Be kind"
Unhappily, judged by this gauge
/ there still remains much to be desired
along the line of Filipino advance
ment from Latin and Malay stan
dards.
The men of all classes wear white
duck, but the way flowing costumes OF
the Filipino women give plenty OF
color to say nothing of the pretty
frocks from across the seas
The water thoroughfares present
activities and contrasts not less strik-
ing than those of the land. The har-
Dor is often crowded with liners, wal
vessels, transports, cutters, cruisers
sailing ships, yachts, and ii, as well as
the river and it's canals, swarms with
long. quaint scows called eascos. lad
en- with rice or hemp, corn or cocoa
nuts, bananas, bread fruit, small
green, ripe oranges, and many othei
fruits and vegetables. There are
fishing craft of hundred fantastic
shapes and bearing sails of umber ol
carmine dye.
When it comes to buildings it is
hard to credit 1901 or threatened as the
date when American architects ant
builders first set to work in Manila
1t would seem that an Aladdin spell
must have helped the work along. II
no i'll accord with the old Spanish
churches stands the dignified Ameri'
Il can cathedral. Bishop Brents, ant
other and simpler churches, neither