pation was concerned. General E. S. Otis
was still in supreme command in succession to General Merritt,
and reinforcements were arriving from America to strengthen the
position. General Otis's able administration wrought a wonderful change
in the city. The weary, forlorn look of those who had great interests
at stake gradually wore off; business was as brisk as in the old times,
and the Custom-house was being worked with a promptitude hitherto
unknown in the Islands. There were no more sleepless nights, fearing
an attack from the dreaded rebel or the volunteer. The large majority
of foreign (including Spanish) and half-caste Manila merchants showed
a higher appreciation of American protection than of the prospect
of sovereign independence under a Philippine Republic. On the other
hand, the drunken brawls of the American soldiers in the cafes,
drinking-shops, and the open streets constituted a novelty in the
Colony. Drinking "saloons" and bars monopolized quite a fifth of
the stores in the principal shopping street, _La Escolta_, where
such unruliness obtained, to the detriment of American prestige,
that happily the Government decided to exclude those establishments
altogether from that important thoroughfare, which has since entirely
regained its respectable reputation. The innovation was all the more
unfortunate because of the extremely bad impression it made on the
natives and Spaniards, who are remarkably abstemious. It must also
have been the cause of a large percentage of the sickness of the
American troops (wrongly attributed to climate), for it is well known
that inebriety in the Philippines is the road to death. With three
distinct classes of soldiers in Manila--the Americans, the rebels,
and the Spanish prisoners--each living in suspense, awaiting events
with divergent interests, there were naturally frequent disputes
and collisions, sometimes of a serious nature, which needed great
vigilance to suppress.

The German trading community observed that, due to the strange conduct
of the commanders of the German fleet, who showed such partiality
towards the Spaniards up to the capitulation of Manila, the natives
treated them with marked reticence. The Germans therefore addressed
a more than ample letter of apology on the subject to the newspaper
_La Independencia_ (October 17).

As revolutionary steamers were again cruising in Philippine waters,
all vessels formerly flying the Spanish flag were hastily placed on t