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

UNOFFICIAL LETTERS OF

who is not willing to give up his own preferences
and pay attention to Filipina girls instead of Americans. So you see we may have trouble. The Filipinos may be like some of the persons approached
by the social settlements in America, " hard to do
good to."
We have become acquainted with a charming
young Spanish officer, who is in Manila settling up
Spanish claims. Last week we invited him to dine
with us. Before dinner an orderly appeared with
two immense bouquets and a letter in Spanish begging el Sefior to allow his wife and sister-in-law to
accept the flowers as a proof of the appreciation of
the honor they were showing him. His character
combines the gay and the serious, and we like him
and are sorry he is going away very soon.
I wish we might know more of the different social circles here. Manila seems to be a society made
up of many cliques separated one from the other by
scorn and hate. Of course we are in with the proAmerican set, which shuts us out from any but one
kind. Now and then we come across an individual
who is outside our set and who knows all about
the others. I met a gentleman a few evenings ago
who claimed to know Manila society root and
branch, and he shocked me by saying that certain
persons I have supposed were the cream of society
here were absolutely tabooed by the really aristocratic families of Manila. He also said it was a
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