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

UNOFFICIAL LETTERS OF

way of finding out whether the foreigners in Pekin
are dead or not. We hope that the Government
will not fail to replace the soldiers they are taking
away from here with new ones. One of our acquaintances, who took us on the launch party to
Laguna de Bay, is ordered to China. War seems
worse when one is away from it. just as the plague
does. When thirty persons were dying a day in
Hongkong we went about into shops and alleys and
never thought of it. Yet I am worried to hear of
two cases in San Francisco. You are no doubt
alarmed when you hear rumors of the uprising in
Manila, but here we do not think about it.
I told you that we had bought another carriage
and ponies, and we have a new coachman. This
adds to my discomfort, as the little animals stamp
and snort all night and try to kick our guests as
they pass them on their way upstairs. On the
Fourth of July the town was decorated with flags.
The Filipinos arranged pony races in honor of the
Commission and gave a ball in the evening. In
the afternoon at the theater there was a public
school festival, where patriotic songs were sung
and the Declaration of Independence was read in
Spanish and English. Americans, in spite of their
boasted sense of humor, show very little of it out
here. Last week a prominent Filipino leader was
confined in the Anda Street jail because he was advocating just such sentiments as were contained in
38