Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines Part 9

There is a subscription ball-room, where a.s.semblies are held three times a-month; at one of which there is only dancing; at another, performances by the amateurs of vocal and instrumental music. Some of them, having a taste that way, do wonders for amateurs; and after the concert, there is dancing.

At the third monthly a.s.sembly, there is a farce or play of some sort acted by amateurs; and as the Spanish genius inclines to the buskin and the sock, they acquit themselves very well.

To this _sociedad de recreo_, or casino, there are many subscribers, including the Governor and his family, if he has any, and all the considerable people of the place, who for many years kept out those of lower caste than themselves by the ballot, which is the mode of electing candidates, who must be introduced by two members. However, at last the funds of the society got so low, that the admission of many new members was requisite to bolster up the concern with their entrance-money and monthly contributions, and, of course, a much more indiscriminate set were admitted, than formerly used to go there, which caused one or two people to absent themselves from the a.s.semblies for some time, as no one, of course, chooses to introduce his daughters among people he does not wish to a.s.sociate with. On the whole, however, the place has benefited by the new people; that is to say, it is more gay than before they came, which is the chief consideration to one careless of the precise social degree of any handsome and pleasant girl whom he may meet at the place.

All the ladies sit together; and the men, who dare not, apparently, trust themselves so close to their brilliant and beautiful eyes, as we fancy we can do with impunity in Britain, promenade up and down the ball-room, or in one of the large ante-rooms contiguous to it. No doubt their tindery and inflammable temperaments, whenever love-making is concerned, has something to do with this arrangement; as, if a young male acquaintance of any damsel took a seat beside her, it would be certain to attract the papa or chaperon, to the spot, to see what was going on, as their most likely subject of conversation would have a strong leaning towards a flirtation, or downright love-making, at which nearly all the Spaniards are great adepts; the flowery expressions of their language being peculiarly suitable for such sentimental recreations.

Besides the princ.i.p.al theatre, where Spaniards are the actors, there are two native theatres, where plays are represented in the Tagalog language, and written to suit their ideas of the drama; the subjects represented being princ.i.p.ally tragedies connected with their historical traditions, and of their fathers' earliest connections with their European conquerors.

But their mode of representing these subjects is scarcely suitable to any one's taste but their own, as the amount of vociferation, and drawling singing of the women who take a part in the pieces, are very disagreeable, and the noise and quant.i.ty of fighting with which they are always interlarded, is tiresome. Yet, strange to say, they themselves are much interested while listening to these absurd recitatives.

The Spanish theatre is generally opened twice a-week, and one or two of the performers act very creditably. The national pa.s.sion is for dramatic amus.e.m.e.nts; and the house, which is a large one, is usually well filled.

CHAPTER XXV.

A misconception appears to exist as to the state of society at Manilla, people at a distance for the most part labouring under the erroneous impression that it remains stationary, and is today as much behind the rest of the world as it was thirty years ago; and that it can support no newspaper or other publication. Now, during my residence at Manilla, there have been various periodicals published daily, bi-weekly, and weekly; but at the end of last year (1850), these had all given place to one daily newspaper, called the _Diario de Manilla_, which being more carefully conducted than any of its predecessors, still continues to enjoy its popularity.

It is under the direction of an editor, who being in his youth trained up to commercial pursuits, and having spent some years of his life in Great Britain in order to conduct the business of his Spanish friends, has insensibly acquired ideas during his residence there which are, no doubt, more exact and unprejudiced than those of the bulk of his countrymen, so that he understands the duties of a journalist, and manages his paper better than these things were formerly done. Of course, however, he must study not to trespa.s.s on the existing regulations of the censor, if he would avoid the scissors of that officer, whose duties are, to prevent any statement obnoxious to the powers that be from seeing the light. This, of course, is a great check to the spread of information, especially of a political character; and articles written and printed, have frequently to be suppressed in the succeeding impressions of the paper. The power is sometimes exercised when there is very little occasion for the interference of authority, and, of course, must very materially interfere with the mode of conducting an efficient newspaper.

To give the censor time to examine its contents, the _Diario_ is printed the afternoon preceding its publication, and is issued every day except Monday, thus leaving the printers free from work and at liberty on Sunday.

The _Diario_ has a large circulation in Manilla and the different provinces of the islands, besides having agents at Madrid, Cadiz, and Paris; it is also obtainable in the Havana, at Hongkong, and at Singapore.

The subscription is one dollar a month, which is moderate enough; and advertis.e.m.e.nts are inserted in its columns without charge.

Once a week it includes a list of the s.h.i.+pping in the harbour, and also of the arrivals and departures, and reports every morning the arrivals and cargoes of any vessels that have come in on the previous day from the provinces. It also publishes a weekly price-current of the produce of the country.

A well-conducted periodical of this nature is of great importance in a commercial point of view, not only from the advertis.e.m.e.nts circulated by its means throughout the Philippines, but from the variety of facts and information which the country alcaldes address to the Manilla Government, in which they are required to give a list of the prices-current for the various articles of produce grown in their different provinces; a regulation which, of course, tends to keep the trade on a sound footing, and to prevent reckless speculation, which the want of market information usually induces.

The _Diario_ is delivered at the houses of Manilla subscribers at about daylight every morning, so that they may make themselves masters of its contents while sipping their chocolate, before engaging in the business of the day. This is no slight luxury, I a.s.sure the reader, and it is not at all diminished by the place being so remote from the sound of Bow-bells and the region of c.o.c.kaigne, although it is true that the contents of the paper are not composed of exciting parliamentary reports, or of leading articles equal in talent to those of the _Times_ or _Morning Chronicle_.

The mail bags are carried to the provinces by mounted couriers, and the north post, arriving at Manilla every Friday morning, brings communications from the important provinces of Bulacan, Bataan, Zambales, Pampanga, Nueva Eciga, Pangasinan, Ilocos (North and South), Abra, and Cagayan; and is despatched from the capital to all these districts every Monday at noon.

The south post, embracing the provinces of Laguna, Batangas, Mindoro, the islands of Masbate and Ticao, Camarines (North and South), Albay, Samars, and Leyte, reaches Manilla every Tuesday morning, and is despatched from it in return every Wednesday at noon. To the a.r.s.enal of Cavite there is a daily post, excepting on Sundays; and to the islands of Visayas, the Marianas, and Batanes, the correspondence is forwarded by the first s.h.i.+ps bound for any of those places, as they are obliged to give notice to the postmaster two days before starting for them.

It would be difficult to over-estimate the advantages of this line of postal communication, which affords the native traders in remote places the best facilities for the prosecution of their trade in the various articles of commerce produced in the districts where they live.

There are, of course, several things which might be improved in the administration of the post-office, as is the case in every country, without bringing Spain and her colonies in question; but, no doubt, these will be found out by-and-by, and an alteration for the better will take place.

The press of Manilla is much more active than is commonly supposed, as, besides the _Diario_, there are several other periodicals printed in the place. Among them may be mentioned the _Guia de Forasteros_, and an _Almanac_, which is printed at the College of Santo Tomas, being entirely got up and sold by the priests of that inst.i.tution, the proceeds being devoted to charitable purposes.

Various religious and polemical works also emanate at different times from the press, all of them neatly and well printed, nay, highly creditable to the Indian compositors who execute them.

I have frequently seen it stated in books, the authors of which should have been better informed, that no periodical publications exist at Manilla. Certainly there is much less appet.i.te there for such things, than is exhibited among my own countrymen, whose birthright it is to grumble at the conduct of authorities, and to show up delinquencies with the most unsparing zeal, neither of which would be quite safe to attempt at Manilla, although it is so in Great Britain, and all her colonies and dependencies.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Through ignorance and a misconception of the nature of the country, many people are in the habit of adducing the scantiness of manufactures among the Indians, as an evidence of their backwardness in civilization and the arts which it teaches.

But this is not so in reality, for if our readers reflect on the subject a short time, it can scarcely fail to occur to them, that the fertility of the soil, and the abundance of primary materials, even of those made use of in the manufactories, is the true reason why they neglect manufactures, and turn all their attention to growing the raw produce, from which spring the materials for conducting them.

It is this cause which makes the Americans send their cotton-wool to Manchester, to be there, at some thousands of miles from the place of its growth, made into cloth--and the shepherds of Australia to send their wool to Yorks.h.i.+re for a like purpose.

This appears paradoxical, but it is true. A day's labour on a fertile tropical soil is better recompensed when it is directed to grow cotton, than it would be, were the same labour applied to weaving the wool into cloth; for although this climate is suitable for the growth of cotton in the fields, it does not at all follow that it is so for weaving cloth, as has been proved to be the case in the United States.

In that country, where manufacturing industry has so much energy of character in those carrying it on to back it up, and to secure a satisfactory result, it appears very strange that we should be able to beat them in the manufacture of their own produce.

But although many efforts have repeatedly been made by speculative and sanguine men to weave all the descriptions of cotton cloth made in Great Britain by the power-loom, they have never been able to do so in the United States. Even when they have actually carried machinery and men from Manchester to work it, across the Atlantic, the produce of the looms has been of a different quality of cloth to that which the same cotton yarn would have produced by the same machinery in Great Britain. This can only be accounted for, I believe, by estimating the effects of climate. The moisture of the atmosphere, the difference of water, and other causes, have been a.s.signed as the cause of this very remarkable circ.u.mstance, and perhaps some, or all of them, have their share in producing it.

In the Philippines, the natural shrewdness of the people, who show considerable apt.i.tude in the arts which experience has taught them will pay them best, is demonstrated by the neatness of execution which characterises many of their handiworks, demanding no small portion of skill, care, and perseverance; the elaborate execution of the gold ornaments worn by the women frequently exhibiting signs, in a very high degree, of skilful and neat workmans.h.i.+p.

I have seen chains, &c., of native make, quite as beautifully and as curiously worked as any I have seen in China, where those ornaments are made in more perfection than the European gold or silversmiths have as yet been able to attain.

But probably the pina cloth manufactured in the Philippines, is the best known of all the native productions, and it is a very notable instance of their advance in the manufacturing arts.

There is perhaps no more curious, beautiful, and delicate specimen of manufactures produced in any country. It varies in price according to texture and quality, ladies' dresses of it costing as low as twenty dollars for a b.a.s.t.a.r.d sort of cloth, and as high as fifteen hundred dollars for a finely-worked dress. The common coa.r.s.e sort used by the natives for making s.h.i.+rts costs them from four to ten dollars a s.h.i.+rt.

The colour of the coa.r.s.er sorts is not, however, good; and the high price of the finer descriptions prevents its becoming generally a lady's dress; and the inferior sorts are not much prized, chiefly because of the yellowish tinge of the white cloth. The fabric is exceedingly strong, and, I have been informed, rather improves in colour after every successive was.h.i.+ng.

Pina handkerchiefs and scarfs are in very general use by the Manilla ladies, although they are rather expensive; the price of the former, when of good quality, being from about five to ten pounds sterling each, while for a scarf of average quality and colour about thirty pounds is paid. The coa.r.s.er descriptions can be had for much less money than the sums mentioned; and the finest qualities would cost from three to four times more than the amounts I have set down.

Besides the pina there is also a sort of cloth made by the natives called juse (p.r.o.nounced huse), or siriamaio, which makes very beautiful dresses for ladies. It is manufactured from a thread obtained from the fibres of a particular sort of plantain tree, which is slightly mixed with pine-apple thread; and the fabric produced from both of these is very beautiful, being fine and transparent, and looking, to the unaccustomed eye, finer than the ordinary sort of pina cloth.

It can be made of any pattern, and is generally striped or checked with coloured threads of silk mingled with the other two descriptions.

The manufacture of both these articles is carried on to a small extent in the immediate neighbourhood of Manilla; but in the provinces of Yloylo and Camarines the best juse is produced, the price of which is very much lower than pina, as a lady's dress of it may be got at from seven to twenty dollars; and for the latter amount a very handsome one would be obtained.

In addition to these manufactures, which the natives have appropriated and made their own, from the greater facilities found in the Philippines than in other places less adapted by nature for their prosecution, the Government has been at some pains to force them to engage in the manufacture of cotton yarn and cloth by imposing high duties on those descriptions of foreign manufactured goods most suitable for the native dress, either from their partiality to particular colours, or from other causes.

And for this reason solely a number of kambayas of blue and white checks are made in the country by the native hand-loom, these colours being in general favourite ones of the Indians; the custom-house duty on such goods, and on other favourite colours, being 15 and 25 per cent., according to the flag of the vessel importing them; the Spaniards guarding their own s.h.i.+pping, and securing to it a monopoly of the carrying trade by that difference of the import duty. Should these goods come from Madras, which is their native country, the duty charged on them is 20 and even 30 per cent.

Although these rates of duty may be considered high enough, they are in reality very much more than that per-centage, because the duty is charged by the authorities on a very high fixed valuation, or on the _ad valorem_ principle, which actually is equivalent to increasing the rates of duty, were that only charged upon the actual market price. Since the beginning of this year (1851), however, I understand some changes have been made in the tariff by altering the valuations of goods.

Kambayas are used as sayas, or outer petticoats, by the native or Mestiza girls, and are generally made of cotton cloth, although, of late, juse and silk sayas appear to be more generally worn than they used to be.

Tapiz of silk and cotton is also manufactured in the country. This piece of dress is used as a sort of shawl, and is wrapped tightly round the loins and waist, above the saya, being generally a black or dark blue ground, with narrow white stripes upon it, which, when the garment is worn, encircles the body.

The great advantage which the natives have over foreign manufacturers of these coloured cloths consists not so much in the duty, although that is an immense protection, as in the quickness with which they are able to meet the changes of taste in the patterns and designs of such fancy goods. For it is evident that before designs of new styles can reach Great Britain, and the goods be manufactured there, and s.h.i.+pped off to Manilla, many months must elapse, during which the native manufacturers have been supplying the market with these new and approved styles of goods, and of course reaping all the advantages of an active demand, exceeding the supply, by the high prices obtainable for the new designs. For the market of Manilla varies as much, and the tastes of the people are as inconstant and capricious with regard to their dress, as the natives of almost any country can be.

It will scarcely be believed, that in this remote quarter of Asia, many of the natives of the country are as much _pet.i.ts maitres_ in their own way, as a gallant of the Tuileries or of St. James's. It would astonish most people to see some of these poor-looking Indians, or Mestizos, wearing a jewel of the value of four or five hundred dollars in the breast of their s.h.i.+rts, or in a ring on their fingers.