Unofficial letters of an official's wife [by] Edith Moses.

UNOFFICIAL LETTERS OF

everyone has calmed down, and is hard at work
making the town as sanitary as possible. The excitement attending so serious a situation as the outbreak of cholera, in a city in which only a few years
ago thirty thousand persons perished within three
months, keeps one from taking time to be frightened.
I confess to a queer sensation in my knees, but that
is excitement, I suppose. At all events, to watch
twelve ignorant, superstitious Orientals, who are as
likely to die of fright as of cholera, keeps me busy.
The doctor, with his wife, arrived from Bohol the
day the existence of cholera was definitely determined, and under his direction we put our house
into sanitary condition so far as we could. The
odors are awful, but comforting, and the fact that
a very little heat kills the cholera germ keeps up
our courage. We hosed off the " China " boys and
Filipinos with disinfectants, and I made their eyes
stick out with fright by describing a cholera germ.
I searched the dictionary for appropriate terms, and
made such an impression on the coachmen and their
parientes downstairs, and on the floor boys, that they
go about with their mouths shut tight, scarcely daring to open them lest a microbio pop into them. The
two little boys, I am sure, expect to see them jump
out from every dark corner. I told Lai Ting:
" Cholera all same cockroach, only velly small. He
hide in dirt, and jump out to kill 'China' boy and
Filipino. If 'China' boy keep house clean, no die."
222