Conde_, Binondo, as the leading hotel in Spanish days,
is now converted into a large bazaar, called the "Siglo XX.," and
its successor, the "Hotel de Oriente," was purchased by the Insular
Government for use as public offices. The old days of comfortable
hackney-carriages in hundreds about the Manila streets, at 50 cents
Mex. an hour, are gone for ever. One may now search hours for one,
and, if found, have to pay four or five times the old tariff. Besides
the fact that everything costs more, the scarcity is due to _Surra_
(_vide_ p. 336), which has enormously reduced the pony stock. There
are occasionally sales of American horses, and it is now one of the
novelties to see them driven in carriages, and American ladies riding
straddle-legged on tall hacks. In Spanish days no European gentleman
or lady could be seen in a _carromata_ [235] (gig) about Manila; now
this vehicle is in general use for both sexes of all classes. Bicycles
were known in the Islands ten years ago, but soon fell into disuse
on account of the bad roads; however, this means of locomotion is
fast reviving.

The Press is represented by a large number of American, Spanish and
dialect newspapers. These last were not permitted in Spanish times.

Innumerable laundries, barbers' shops, Indian and Japanese bazaars,
shoe-black stalls, tailors' shops, book-shops, restaurants, small
hotels, sweetmeat stalls, newspaper kiosks, American drinking-bars,
etc., have much altered the appearance of the city. The Filipino,
who formerly drank nothing but water, now quaffs his iced keg-beer
or cocktail with great gusto, but civilization has not yet made him a
drunkard. American drinking-shops, or "saloons," as they call them, are
all over the place, except in certain streets in Binondo, where they
have been prohibited, as a public nuisance, since April 1, 1901. It
was ascertained at the time of the American occupation that there were
2,206 native shops in Manila where drinks were sold, yet no native
was ever seen drunk. This number was compulsorily reduced to 400 for
a native population of about 190,000, whilst the number of "saloons"
on February 1, 1900, was 224 for about 5,000 Americans (exclusive of
soldiers, who presumably would not be about the drinking-bars whilst
the war was on). But "saloon" licences are a large source of revenue
to the municipality, the cost being from $1,200 gold downwards per
annum. A "saloon," however, cannot now be established in defiance
o