cousins, a few admirers, and possibly a female friend or two are added to the parental guardians, till the bodyguard assumes the appearance of a delegation large enough to negotiate a treaty.  One of the division superintendents tells a story which shows the humorous American recognition of the inconveniences of this habit.  The Superintendent had recommended two young girls as pensionadas, or government students, in the Manila Normal School.  It was their duty, on arriving in Manila, to report to the Director of Education; and they must have done so in the usual force, for the Director’s official telegram, announcing their arrival, began in this pleasing strain:  “Miss——­ and Miss——­, with relatives and friends, called this morning.”

The premature adolescence of the Filipino youth makes him very repellent to the American.  One of the most frightful things which I ever saw was a play given in Spanish by children.  The play itself was one which Americans would never have permitted children to read or to see, much less to present.  The principal character was a debauched and feeble old man of the “Parisian Romance” type; it was played by a nine-year-old boy, who made the hit of the evening, and who reminded me, in his interpretation of the part, of Richard Mansfield.  His family and friends were proud of his acting, which was masterly, and laughingly declared that his conception of the role was wholly his own.  If so, there was no need of laughter and there was much cause for tears.

Here is a short essay written by a twelve-year-old boy, in response to an order to write a composition about what he had done the previous day.

“Yesterday I called upon all my young lady friends.  None but the fathers appeared.  We must all be judged according to our works.”

The child wrote this by constructing the first sentence himself, and by picking the other two out of phrase-books, which from some source or other are scattered all over the Philippine Islands.  What he meant to convey in the carefully pieced mosaic was that he was a dangerous fellow, and that when he came around the fathers kept a close eye on their daughters.  That is dubious wit in a man of thirty.  In a child of twelve it is loathsome.

Engagements are usually announced at once and are seldom long—­from three weeks to three or four months.  If the marriage is really for love, as is not infrequently the case, the lovers must have a hard time of it; for they never see each other alone, and “spooning” before others would seem to them in the last degree scandalous.  They have marvellous self-control.  I have watched many a pair of Filipino lovers for the stolen glances, the shyness, the ever-present consciousness of each other which are characteristic of our lovers, and I have never beheld the faintest evidence of interest in any engaged or newly married couple.  They manage to preserve an absolutely wooden appearance at a time when one would expect a race so volatile to display its emotions freely.