him an assistant at two dollars a month; in
less than another week that assistant to the assistant had employed
him an assistant at the princely salary of fifty cents a month; and
from fear that the chain of dependents would end only by our having
the whole Filipino race attached to our culinary force, we broke up
house-keeping and went boarding again, choosing that as the less of
the two evils.

Our house furnishings were almost wholly Philippine. The table ware
and the food on the table came from the ends of the earth. The knives
and forks were made in Germany, the plates were manufactured in
England, the glass ware and table cloth, in the United States. The
oatmeal and flour came from the United States also. The butter came
from Australia, the rice from China, the salt from Russia, and the
other eatables from sources about as various as their separate names.
Switzerland furnished the condensed milk and Illinois the canned
cream. Nearly all of the canned fruit bore labels from Spain.

Thus it can easily be seen that life in the Philippines, if lived
according to American ideals, is dependent upon a highly developed and
highly complex commerce. However, the difficulties of transportation
and the restriction of large stocks of merchandise to Manila and some
half a dozen other towns, make so great a difference between country
life and city life that a short comparison of the two will not be out
of place, and life in Manila may well be taken as being fairly typical
of the latter.

Life in Manila is pleasant, but expensive. It is pleasant from the
fact that it is not only the capital but also metropolis of the
archipelago. Thus the combination of wealth and high official position
has given to Manila a society of the highest and most refined type.
The process of beautifying and improving the city which is constantly
going on bids fair to give us at no distant day a city of which we may
well be proud.

But let him who intends living well in Manila on a small income bid
farewell at once to so idylic a dream, for it costs much to live well
there. In the city of Manila one can get almost anything he wishes,
but it must be paid for at the price it commands. Especially in the
case of eatables, this price is by no means small, because to the
first cost of articles must in most cases be added the expense of
distant shipment from American, European, or Australian ports, and not
infrequently the cost of long refrigeration must