and found wanting; estimates of character change; much of the romance that was current in Shakespeare's time has been proved to be of a mythological quality. The fact remains that Shakespeare's science of life and sense of character, his instinct, and his insight, enabled him to present Richard II., Henry IV., and the rest, as people so living and so natural that they will always be, to the popular mind, what Shakespeare made them. With his power almost of divination, he created them so like what the most critical research proves them to have been that he and learned history teach the same lesson, and he, course, far more persuasively and effectually.

of

Mr. Tennyson's new play, like the historieal plays of Shakespeare, brings the life of our ancestors before the eyes of the spectator. It takes up the chronicle where Shakespeare left broken, it passes from Henry VIII. into the chaos to which Henry led the English people. It was a chaos of opinions, of doubts, and fears, and of desires, a time in which no man knew what faith was safest to hold, what authority could claim respect, whether king or pope had to speak the last word about religion, when none could well call his lands his own, or his soul his own; when England was in danger of becoming a geographical expression under the power of Spain, when wild visionaries were crying that all things should be in common, and all authorities swept away, when bigotry and the new learning were in their fiercest struggle. This tumultuous time is the background of Mr. Tennyson's tragedy. In his play the murmurs of the street come to us, and the babble of the market-place; we can faintly see the beginnings of a defined faith, the faith, namely, in England and in freedom of judgment, lit in the hearts of the people by a spark from the pile of Cranmer. The great personages that cross the stage-Mary, drawn as only a great poet, who can pardon all because he understands all, could draw her; Philip, the sensual and heartless; Pole, the renegade of learning; Lord Howard, the liberal Catholic (if the anachronism is permissible) of that date-have their own web of fate to weave and tangle. It is something to teach, through the stage, that the best hated of English women was after all a woman, with courage, love, maternal hope in her nature. It is much to bring within the knowledge and before the eyes of Englishmen that she had claims to pity as well as scorn; that her fate was most miserable, even if hardly tragical. None of the criticism through which Mr. Tennyson's play has had to run the gantlet but admits that he has caught the spirit and the confused color of the years whose history he deals with. But it may be doubted whether his chief characters are so involved in tragical relations of love and jealousy, hope and fear, as these unseen actors, the people of England, who are blindly and bravely working out their destiny behind the scenes. It is from a word or two dropped here and there, from the voice of the Anabaptist preacher, from the grumbling of Pole at men and women who crowd into the fires," for what? no dogma," that we learn how the fires were becoming a beacon in the darkness of these days, how England was solving her problem by silent resistance to all foreign force in politics and religion. This blind movement toward light, a movement felt to underlie the action of the play, raises "Queen Mary" high in the ranks of the drama. It is easy to guess some of the opportunities it gives to the players, how much might be made of the queen, as her life "narrows and darkens down," and what kingly

majesty may ring half true in Philip's declamation of the names of his dominions. It is pleasant to think that the play only continues an old and noble work, the dramatic exposition of that history which is to us what the tales of Thebes and Argos were to the tragedians of Hellas. Mr. Tennyson has certainly followed the advice of Aristotle, and altered nothing; while he has made many things clear in the poem that takes up again the task of Shakespeare. There is much hope for the stage in the production of a play by the poet who has touched England more universally and more intimately than any singer of our generation.

OUR readers will recall a recent extract from a charming paper on "Peasant-Life in North Italy." The subjoined from the same article gives a highly-graphic description of a church-festival among the people of the Apennines:

It is Sunday, and the great festa of San Giovanni Baptista. The church and the piazza since break of day have been well stocked with men and women in holiday costume, and the bells ring and jangle as of old. Since four o'clock the two priests have been hard at work at the altar, taking it by turns, with the mass

es.

The air of the chancel, and even of the nave, is by this time faint and heavy with incense. The organ peals out quiet snatches of waltz and opera tunes. The congregation changes rapidly, for each service the church is more or less crowded, and when the hour for the preaching draws nigh, a new influx pours in from the piazza and from the roads and hamlets around. The people, who have been hushed and devout during the first part of the high mass, now begin to shift and shuffle in their seats, and there is a great whispering, and a sound even of suppressed laughter, while the priest ascends the little steps of the marble pulpit. Men lounge about the building, standing in groups around the door, crouching on the steps of the organ-loft, or even of the chancel, close packed, and careless in their attitudes, but absorbed and intent, as no more genteel congregation would have been, when once the preacher's voice has had time to assert its power. The sermon is in the dialect of the valleys-short, concise, and pithy; matter-of-fact and plain spoken too, with none of the trimmings and sentimentalities of religion, yet breathing of courtesy and neighborly care for the people's interest. How silent they sit, and how teachable these men and women are, who without upon the piazza, or in their cottages, are apt to treat their pastor but as one of themselves, to fall or to stand according to his pluck and his cunning in the wisdom of the world! Even that kindly and terrible Caterina, beneath whose iron rod he is wont to pass his days, sits now beneath his pulpit as though willing to hearken to the advice of her own slave. So with masses and sermon passes the morning of the great day, and in the afternoon is the procession. The peasants trudge home in their various directions across the parish to eat their holiday dinners, and by three o'clock the little piazza is again thronged with loiterers waiting for vespers. Little booths and tables stand about, whereon are sweets and filberts displayed for sale; rosaries and gay-colored clay figures of saints; crosses and amulets to be worn around the neck; rings of the Virgin or the patron saint. Groups of people stand around laughing, boys and girls, men and children; it is a gay and changing crowd, bright with sunny

colors, and glittering in movement. There is a great glaring sun, and the piazza is but little shaded by the tall cypresses which grow there, yet the people do not seem to mind. The women, it is true, have covered their heads with their yellow and crimson kerchiefs, but the men seem strangely careless of the sun's might. All along the way down which the procession is to pass many-colored trappings are hung along the hedges-scarlet and green and blue stuffs of the peasants perhaps, or else things belonging to the church, and used for many a long year on similar occasions. They make a rare and gaudy effect; and down the steps of the church and across its piazza the women have spread white sheeting, spun and woven by their own hands-for the girls work hard at this coarser kind of linen weaving in our Apennine valleys, and in the most industrious cottages the loom is scarcely silent all day. Flowers, too-sweet and scattered petals of golden bloom of vetch and cistus-are strewed over the white carpeting, while files of children hem the way to scatter more blossoms again when the procession shall pass. The bells begin to tinkle anew; and now a fair company of white-veiled damsels issue forth. They bear lighted tapers in their hands, and around their gayly-adorned figures the pezzotto (or muslin veil of the country) is cunningly draped. One girl in the front-and it is the tall and strong-limbed Bianca, ever the first to assert herself-carries the great silvermounted cross. Behind, and in due order, follow more girls, then the older women, and after the women the men,.among whom many wondrous and time-honored figures, crosses, and banners, are also borne aloft above the heads of the people. In their midst are the priests, who move along, chanting slowly, beneath a fringed and gilded canopy. And the people sing, and the bells chime, and the children scream when the pop-guns are fired off. So the procession comes to an end, and soon after the day comes to an end, too-only before the night is quite there, the youths and maidens must meet upon the green that they may dance awhile to the sound of the fiddles, and then the festa is fairly over in truth. It has been a long day, and the people are almost weary with the unwonted pleasure-making.

AFTER reading the subjoined, the reader, if he is also an author, will have good reason to hope that critics are as liable to render wrong judgments to-day as they were two hundred years ago:

It must not be supposed that any special regard for the poet's intentions saved "Othello" from molestation at the hands of the playwrights. "A Short View of Tragedy, its Original Excellence and Corruption, with some Reflections on Shakespeare and other Practitioners for the Stage," written by one Mr. Rymer, servant to their majesties, and published in 1693, clearly exhibits the extremely contemptuous feeling entertained for the poet at that date. Mr. Rymer was enamored of classical example, and found great satisfaction in the severity of form lately adopted by the dramatists of France; notably in regard to their addition of a chorus to their tragedies, deeming that a very hopeful sign. Naturally he found much to condemn in Shakespeare; and he did not hesitate to express his opinion. He held that Shakespeare had altered the story from the original of Giraldi Cinthio in several particulars, aud always for the worse. The moral he derides, as simply a warning to wives to take better care of their linen; and to hus

bands, that before their jealousy be tragical, the proofs may be mathematical. He proceeds: "Shakespeare in this play calls them the super-subtle Venetians. Yet examine throughout this tragedy, there is nothing in the noble Desdemona that is not below any country chambermaid with us. And the account he gives of their noblemen and senate can only be calculated for the latitude of Gotham. The character of that state is to employ strangers in their wars. But shall a poet thence fancy that they will set a negro to be their general, or trust a Moor to defend them against the Turk? With us a blackamoor might rise to be a trumpeter; but Shakespeare would not have him less than a lieutenant-general. With us a Moor might marry some little drab or small-coal wench; Shakespeare would provide him the daughter and heir of some great lord or privy counselor. . . . So much ado, so much stress, so much passion and repetition about a handkerchief! Why was not this called the 'Tragedy of the Handkerchief?"" he demands.

There is much more criticism to the same effect. The catastrophe he finds to be "nothing but blood and butchery, described in the style of the last speeches and confessions of the persons executed at Tyburn." He concludes: "There is in this play some burlesque, some humor, and ramble of comic wit, some show and some mimicry to divert the spectators; but the tragical part is plainly none other than a brutal farce without salt or savor."

THE Saturday Review has something fresh to say about scruples:

There are some things of which we should have neither too much nor too little, and among these are scruples. Unscrupulous is a term of just reproach; the unscrupulous man is dangerous in whatever capacity we have to deal with him, but the man of scruples is not therefore desirable as such. He may be eligible and deserving, but we should like him better without his scruples, for nothing is a graver barrier in social matters than obtrusive scruples which we do not share. Scruples are essentially private things; when two people agree together in an objection or an opinion, we view it in another light, and probably call it something else. Scruples represent private judgment exercising itself in small matters; that is, they appear small to common-sense or to prevalent public opinion, though they are Jarge and predominant to the scrupulous mind. Not that scruples are independent of the prevailing tone of thought in the world, but they are the means by which some persons take their share in it, and they constitute the originality of a certain class of intellect-they furnish an opportunity for that self-assertion which is a natural object with thinkers of every class and grade.

Of course virtue has scruples. The minuter duties of morality have, we may say, an equal obligation with the weightier matters of the law; but in one case public opinion is accepted as exponent and interpreter, while the scrupulous conscience owns no law but itself, and sees no farther than the letter. Honesty of the straightforward, social sort agrees that it is a sin to steal a pin, but it does as it would be done by; and, holding itself justified by general usage, it takes the pin on an emergency and does not call it stealing. The scrupulous person goes pinless at the cost of being a less competent and efficient member of the body politic, but is not the less confident and satisfied. The scruples which fairly bear the character of scrupulosity are those which warp

the judgment and obscure the perception of the relative importance of things. The man who is governed by them may be a guide to himself, but he is no guide for others; his conscience and his reason are not on sufficiently good terms. And it may be observed that nobody can be scrupulous all round; a pet scruple often makes a clean sweep of collateral obligations. The scrupulous temper is liable to large and eccentric omissions where the conscience is off its guard. People cannot act as members of a family or a community whose notions of private duty cover all their view and engross their attention. We live in this world in many capacities, all imposing moral duties, of which common-sense has to adjust the claims where they seem conflicting; but common-sense, even candid and unselfish common-sense, is despised and abhorred by the mind possessed by a scruple, or regulating itself by a code of scruples. The duties that cannot be reconciled, or will not fit in, are set aside-overlooked as not of obligation. We know of a clergyman who had a scruple against reading any of the words in italics which occurred in the Lessons for the Day. He simply passed them over as not dictated by inspiration. It was indifferent to him that he made nonsense of the Word of God, which it was his office to set forth; he saw one side of his duty so very plainly that he saw nothing else, and we need not say was utterly unpersuadable. Nor need scruples be of this absurd type to show an equal want of grasp of the leading idea. It would appear that the capacity for a large general view is never found in conjunction with this microscopic activity of conscience. All scruples are conscientious, and carry with them a sort of religious obligation. But it depends on the character how deep this goes. Many people scruple to play a rubber who will plunge into reckless speculation without a twinge. It was a conscientious scruple which induced Pepys, on receiving a letter and discerning money in it, to empty the letter before he read it, "that I might say I saw no money in the paper;" and this is only a type of the action of a great many scrupulous persons who desire to profit

by the consequences of a certain course of action without incurring the responsibility of it. And, short of this, scruples constantly stand in the way of an honest perception of right by stopping at the letter. A mind given to small scruples has the judgment in leading-strings, and often misses the flash of truth amid the minute questions which occupy it. Perhaps the most common form of hypocrisy is this self-deception.

SWINBURNE opens his papers, entitled "The Three Stages of Shakespeare," with the subjoined fine passage:

The first of living poets has drawn a parallel of elaborate eloquence between Shakespeare and the sea; and the likeness holds good in many points of less significance than those which have been set down by the master - hand. For two hundred years at least have students of every kind put forth in every sort of boat on a longer or a shorter voyage of research across the waters of that unsounded sea. From the paltriest fishing-craft to such majestic galleys as were steered by Coleridge and by Goethe, each division of the fleet has done or has essayed its turn of work; some busied in dredging along shore, some taking surveys of this or that gulf or headland, some putting forth through shine and shadow into the darkness of the great deep. Nor does it seem as if there would sooner be an end to men's labor on this than on the other sea. But here a difference is perceptible. The material ocean has been so far mastered by the wisdom and the heroism of man that we may look for a time to come when the mystery shall be manifest of its farthest north and south, and men resolve the secret of the uttermost parts of the sea; the poles, also, may find their Columbus. But the limits of that other ocean, the laws of its tides, the motive of its forces, the mystery of its unity, and the secret of its change, no seafarer of us all may ever think thoroughly to know. No windgauge will help us to the science of its storms, no lead-line sound for us the depth of its divine and terrible serenity.

[VOL. XIV.

No. 334.]

erally on New-Year's day, 1844. When Magellan, in his first circumnavigation of the world, discovered the Philippines, his pursuit of the sun in his apparent daily flight around the world made a difference of time amounting to sixteen hours. When he arrived again at the longitude of his departure his log-book showed he was a day behind the time of the port. The error remained uncorrected in the Philippine Islands till about thirty years since, when, by a royal decree, it was resolved to skip New-Year's day altogether, and make the almanac right again.

This incident has a typical sig. nificance as bearing on Spain and Spanish colonies. These have for a long time been behind the rest of civilization, lost in a sluggish acquiescence with the immediate ne

Travels in the Philippines. By F. Jagor. London: Chapman & Hall.

I.

cessities of existence. The policies justified by two centuries since, but changed by the growth of the world, have remained intact, the monuments of a sterile conservatism. A government which has looked on its dependencies as mere feeders of the central power -pasture-fields for the support and aggrandizement of an indolent aristocracy-and a Church which has remained rooted in all the untimely traditions of the past, have combined to blight the prosperity of some of the most fertile islands in the world. If vicinity to the United States has saved Cuba from some of such attendant evils, no such goodfortune has alleviated the lot of the Philippine Islands, located in the East Pacific, only a few days' sail from China and Japan.

In the nineteenth century, when commerce is the most important pivot on which the interests of the world swing, the tradetactics of a nation or community speak more to the point than all other problems that can be questioned. No tropical colony is so favorably situated to serve as the principal entrepot of commerce, now growing into such large dimensions, between Asia and the western coast of America, as the Philippines, and it is only in minor matters that the Dutch and English Indies ought to compete with them for the favors of the Australian market. The position, of Manila is extremely favorable to the development of a world-wide trade; its bay is one of the noblest in the world, being one hundred and twenty nautical miles in circumference, and washing the shores of five different provinces. At the

time of the northeastern monsoons all vessels making the Asiatic voyage are obliged to pass close to these favored islands. They would seem to have been designed by Fate to become a leading factor in the Oriental commerce of the world.

But the relations of trade are delicate and sensitive, and the restrictions of Spanish bigotry and intolerance have so far proved an iron cramp beyond which there is no passing. The colonial policy of Madrid has sown hatred and dissension between the different races and classes, under the idea that their union would imperil the sway of the mothercountry; and that important element, the planter class, is almost entirely wanting. Pride, hatred, place-hunting, and caste hatred, are the order of the day. The crown and its favorites, until recently, have persistently thought of nothing but extracting every thing possible from the colony, and in pursuit of this policy aimed as far as possible to exclude foreigners, especially the enterprising English and French merchants, who have been attracted by the unrivaled natural facilities of Manila. The most absurd distinctions were made in favor of Spanish bottoms as against all others, and a powerful effort even made to prevent the inhabitants of the Philippines from importing articles from China and India direct.

Without further alluding to the details of the destructive policy by which Philip II. extended his influence down to the present century, it suffices to say that it is only since 1869 that any radical change for the better

has been inaugurated. The commerce of the Philippines then ceased to be a relic of mediæval barbarism by the establishment of à liberal tariff and wiser port - regulations, though the islands have as yet only commenced to arouse from the slumber of centuries.

The city proper of Manila is a hot, sunbaked place of two hundred and fifty thousand people; full of monasteries, convents, barracks, and government buildings. Its inhabitants make up a picturesque assortment of Spaniards, creoles, Tagals (natives), and Chinese. Though it shares with Goa the honor of being the oldest city in the East Indies, it is extremely provincial in appearance, and has a sombre, sullen aspect from the character of its structures, for safety, not beauty of architecture, was the aim of the founders. A handsome old stone bridge, of ten arches, crosses the Pasig, on whose banks the city is built, and more recently a costly suspension - bridge has been added to the means of inter-communication. Foreigners reside on the northern bank of the river, in Binondo, the headquarters of the wholesale and retail commerce, or in the pleasant suburban villages, which blend into a considerable whole.

There is but little social spirit, however, among the foreign residents, such as makes the mercantile colonies in other East Indian ports so pleasant. With the arrogant and envious Spaniards there is hardly any intercourse, for the latter look on the strangers as interlopers, and regard their gains as so many robberies committed on themselves. The very houses, though spacious, reflect the spirit of jealousy, distrust, and envy, which corrupts the people of the whole city. They are gloomy, ugly, and badly ventilated. Instead of light and airy jalousies, they are fitted with heavy sash - windows, which admit the light through their oyster-shell panes scarcely two inches square. These dwellings are, for the most part, made of planks, bamboos, and palm-leaves, supported on isolated beams or props, and the space beneath is used for warerooms or servants' offices. Such constitute the mass of the houses, though some of the foreign residents have elegant and commodious dwellings, and such have they

been since the days of the adventurous Magellan.

The exterior forms of the life of Manila reflect its dullness, stagnation, and monotony. The sluggish Pasig slips along, covered with green scum, typical of the people that vegetate on its low banks. Floating on its waters dead cats and dogs, surrounded by mud, like eggs in a dish of spinach, may

MANILA DANDY.

be noticed every few rods, and in the dry season the canals and ditches of the suburbs are so many stagnant drains, exhaling poisonous vapors that breed fever and pestilence for the unacclimatized resident.

Many of the prettiest "Indians are of the fair European type, and thereby easily distinguished from their sisters of the outlying provinces. The religious festivals in and about Manila are well worth attendance on account of the beauty of the Tagal and halfcaste women who make their appearance in the evening, and promenade the streets, which are illuminated and profusely decked with flowers and bright colors. The spectacle is a charming one to the stranger just arrived. The Indian women are very beautifully formed, with luxuriant black hair, and large, dark eyes. The upper garment is of homespun but costly material, of transparent fineness and snow-white purity. From the waist down is worn drapery of brightly - striped cloth (saya), which falls in broad folds, and is lightly compressed as far as the knee with a shawl closely drawn around the figure; so that the rich, variegated folds of the saya burst out beneath like the blossoms of the pomegranate. This swathing allows the young girls to take only short steps, and the dovelike timidity of gait, in conjunction with their downcast eyes, lends an aspect of great mod. esty, though often belied in practice. On the tiny, naked feet are worn embroidered slippers, so small that the toes often protrude for want of room.

The poorer women go about clothed in a saya and a shirt so extremely short that it frequently does not reach the first fold of the former. In the more eastern islands grownup girls and women wear, with the exception of an amulet, nothing but these two gar ments, which, when newly washed, are quite transparent.

This is no inviting picture, yet Manila life has a bright and picturesque side, which interests the eye of the stranger. In the beauty of the women, who lend animation to the streets, Manila surpasses all other towns of the Indian Archipelago. Not a few French travelers have depicted these in glowing words. Alexandre Dumas wrote a charming description of Manila street-life in the very amusing " Aventures d'un Gentilhomme Breton," the materials of which were furnished by a French planter, M. de la Gironière, himself the author of a very entertaining book on life in the Philippines. De la Gironière, who married a beautiful and wealthy Spanish half-caste lady, however, saw life generally couleur de rose, and paints with a warm, richments, and used both as an umbrella and suncoloring, very different from the keen, prosaic method of observing characteristic of our present author, Mr. Jagor, though the lat ter indulges in a qualified admiration of the noticeable comeliness of the Tagal women.

HOUSE ON THE PASIG.

A hat, trousers, and shirt, worn outside, made of coarse cloth, compose the dress of the men of the poorer classes, while the wealthy use an expensive homespun material, woven from the fibres of the pineapple or banana, and ornamented with silk stripes. The hat is a round piece of home-made plaiting, often adorned with valuable silver orna

shade. The Manila dandies bring out the inherent ludicrousness of the European costume by illustrating its travesty. The Tagal "swell" of the Philippines adorns his naked feet with patent-leather shoes, wears tight

fitting trousers of glaringly contrasted colors, a starched and plaited shirt, and, with a light cane twirling in his fingers, sails along in full-blown complacency, a most laughable caricature of his French or English congener, who strolls through the Boulevard des Italiens, or Rotten

Row, "the glass of fashion and the mould of form." Many of the half-caste women

are married to Europeans, and adopt the full dress of the latter class. As a rule, these are prudent and thrifty, faithful wives, good mothers, and clever business-women, but in conversation awkward and tedious.

This can hardly be ascribed to lack of education, for many of the Spanish ladies, who know nothing but the breviary, are charming talkers, full of tact and grace of manner. The cause lies in the equivocal position of the half-castes, haughtily repelled by their white sisters, while they themselves disown their mother's kin. They are entirely lacking in the ease and social management characteristic of the women of Spain in every relation of life.

While the immediate environs of Manila can boast many beautiful spots, they are not the resort of the local rank and fashion, the object of whose promenade is the display of the toilet, not the enjoyment of Nature. All the wealthier people are driven every evening during the hot season along the beach promenade, where the band of a native regiment plays capital music. All the Spaniards are in uniform or black frock-coats. One. moment the air is musical with the gay buzz of conversation and laughter. Suddenly the convent-bells ring out the signal for vesper service. Instantly every soul yields to the magic call, no less potent than the solemn cry of the muezzin, which subdues the soul of the Mussulman: carriages, horsemen, pedestrians, all stand motionless. The men take off their hats, and everybody seems absorbed in earnest prayer. Another moment, and the careless chatter again swells on the evening air. Whatever taint of formalism and hypocrisy may lie at the heart of the custom, it has a certain pathos and beauty, which strongly affect the stranger, and sweep him irresistibly into doing the like. Among the places of public interest, there was once a magnificent botanical garden at Manila, in which there was a vast deal of local pride. But it has not flourished under Spanish auspicies, and it has now gone to rack and ruin, a mere inclosure overgrown with giant weeds.

The amusements in the capital of the Philippines are limited in number and not over-choice as to quality. Plays both in Spanish and the Tagal tongue are often done at the theatres, but these are for the most part ineffably stupid, and would send any European or American auditor infallibly to sleep-even could he understand the inanities of the dialogue, and unravel the thread of the plot. Even the Chinese plays, enacted for the benefit of the almond-eyed residents, who make up a very considerable portion of the population, are preferable: as the latter are at least unique and entertaining for a little while from their oddity, and the absorbed interest with which the placid Celestials watch the nightly development of the interminable loves of the heroes and heroines. In fact, the pompous and showy religious festivals are the principal events which enliven the dull monotony of existence. The natives, it may be added, have an unfailing resource in cock-fighting, to which they are devoted with a passionate eagerness.

Nearly every Tagal who would have any

consideration with his fellows breeds fighting-cocks, and many of them are rarely seen out-of-doors without pugnacious pets under their arms, ready at any time to give or receive a challenge. The question of pedigree is watched with as keen an interest as in the racing-steeds of Ascot or Newmarket. Of tentimes fifty dollars or more are paid for single birds of choice breed, and a celebrated victor of many battles commands almost any price the envied owner chooses to exact. A Tagal cock-fight is a curious and suggestive sight, repulsive though it be to the European eye.

The ring around the cock-pit is crowded with natives, perspiring at every pore, ejaculating thanksgivings to the saints, or curses, as the case may be, and with the ugliest passions imprinted on their faces. Each bird is armed with a sharp, curved, steel spur, capable of inflicting the most serious wounds. At the slightest sign of flinching the recreant cock is plucked alive, and torn to pieces by the enraged spectators. Incredibly large sums are bet on the results oftentimes, and the Tagal does not hesitate to impoverish

which experience has inspired the native in his dealings with the Spanish and foreign residents, our traveler mentions that the Tagal hackmen always demanded the fare before permitting him to ride, in spite of the fact that he was known to be the guest of one of the most wealthy and respected merchants of the city. Most of the Spanish officials in the Philippines are adventurers whose standing at home compelled them to seek the colonies as a sort of social Botany Bay. Too lazy to acquaint themselves with the language or the customs of the natives, they yet arrogate an idle superiority, which by no means imposes on the shrewd-witted Tagals, who are generally acquainted with the Spanish tongue, while their masters are ignorant of that spoken by the Indians. A secret feeling of contempt hidden under the mask of deference is thus engendered, and the natives always remain an enigma to their indiscreet masters, which their conceit prevents them from deciphering. The respect of the natives for Europeans is thus diminished by the character of the extravagant, indolent, and improvident Spaniards. Yet on the whole the races

himself and his family to back his favorite fighting-bird. The demoralizing effect on a people addicted to idleness and dissipation can be easily imagined, as it makes them unable to resist the temptation of procuring money without working for it. The malign passion leads frequently to theft, embezzlement, and highway robbery, and most of the land and sea pirates who infest the country are ruined gamesters, who seek thereby to repair their broken fortunes.

In such a land, of course, the higher fruits of civilization are not to be looked for. Manila furnishes but few readable books, and such a thing as a club is unknown, though the foreign colonies in the Chinese and Japanese cities are abundantly supplied with these adjuncts of enjoyment. The feeble newspapers are rarely enlivened with any excitement, and the fortnightly news from Hong-Kong, at the time of Mr. Jagor's visit, was so industriously sifted by priestly censors that little remained except the chronicles of the Spanish and French courts to feed the

barren columns.

As an illustration of the distrust with

of the Philippines rest lightly under the Spanish yoke, which in these islands was never cemented by any such cruel and barbarous policy as cursed the early history of Spanish America. The Tagals have adopted the religion, manners, and customs of their rulers, and there has been a permanent and fruitful amalgamation between them-a result largely owing, perhaps, to the celibacy of the priesthood, the tenets of whose faith, prescribing the law of universal love, as Mr. Jagor slyly intimates, may have been widely illustrated in practice.

Distinctly-marked national customs, such as may be found in most isolated portions of the world, in spite of the force of civilizing agencies, have here entirely disappeared. There seems to be an utter lack of originality in the Tagal mind. The natives quickly adopted all the rites and forms of the new religion, copied the personal externals of the conquering race, and learned to despise their own manners as heathenish and uncouth. The result is ludicrous, and not unworthy of philosophical comment. They sing Andalusian ditties and dance Spanish dances, but