The Mitchell Capital

THE WOMEN OF MANILA'S
MANY
OF THEM ARE VERY HANDSOME
AND INTELLIGENT.

They Are Experts at the Sewing Machine
and in Making Toys—They Dress Prettily,
but Do Not Lace—Many Superior
Brass
Bands in Manila.

Perhaps one of the most interesting
studies in this part of the world is the
native and the development of his racial
features. Those who are given to the
study of physiognomy are impressed at
once with the intellectual superiority of
the female native over the male. She
shows it plainly in her face and manner,
and when she speaks it is even more un-
mistakably apparent. As a rule the na-
tive women are modest, industrious, anx-
ious to acquire a knowledge of lan-
guages, and make most excellent house
servants.
They are very expert with
the needle and learn music with scarcely
an effort; in fact the whole race is natu-
rally musical, and there are probably
more really excellent brass bands in
Manila than in any other city of its size
on the face of the earth. Nearly every
district has its brass band, and each reg-
iment of soldiers has one that would do
credit to any country. That attached to
the artillery regiment received the first
prize at the last Paris exposition, and
several cities in the orient have bands
of natives of the Philippines who fur-
nish the best music to be had.

EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.

Some years ago sewing machines were
introduced here and the native women
very soon learned to run them as easily
as any white woman. Now no well
regulated household is completely
equipped without a sewing machine and
a native woman to run it. An excellent
seamstress can be had for twenty cents a
day, and nearly every European family
has one the year round. Of course, they
lose quite a number of days, as the church
feasts are numerous and they are most
devout in their religious duties; they
never work when there is a chance to go
to church, so that, taking it altogether,
they probably are paid for less than two-
thirds of the year.
They live in their own homes—little
nipa huts, with one or two rooms—and
are in the houses of their employers from
about 8 a. m. to 5:30 or 6 p. m. Large
numbers of the native women work in
the tobacco factories and other manu-
facturing establishments about the city,
while many of them occupy themselves
at home, making toys, fancy articles and
embroidery for the shops. Some of their
toys are very curious and give evidence
of wonderful dexterity and delicacy of
touch, and are quite as valuable as curios
as those of the Chinese or Japanese. Full
sets of dolls' furniture, ships, houses, na-
tive canoes, carriages, etc., are repro-
duced in miniature with great expert-
ness and are sold at very low prices.

STREETS FULL OF BEAUTIES.

The natives are a branch of the Malay
race, and none are much darker than a
very dark brown. They have some of
the characteristics of the American In-
dian, among which are the high cheek
bones, which, however, are not as a rule
prominent in the female face. A native
belle has a bright, expressive face, soft
black eyes full of animation, and a
mouth that would be beautiful but for a
suggestion of sensuality. Yet she is
modest and drops her eyes bashfully in
the presence of strangers, but has for her
intimate friends a smile fascinating in
the extreme. And there are many such
faces among the natives; one can see
them at almost any hour of the day on
the streets selling goods of various kinds,
returning to or from their places of em-
ployment or peeping coyly out of the
one window of a nipa hut. These girls
are never tall nor awkward, but their
forms are just as nature made them, for
they are not distorted and deformed by
the fashionable dress appliances of civil-
ized life. They are ignorant of the ways
of the western world, are guileless and
confiding, and it is not strange, consider-
ing the class of foreigners who usually
come to this far off place, that the Eu-
rasian, or half cast element, is constantly
growing.
What would be called Eurasians in
other parts of the east are called Mestizos
or Mestizas; that is, the offspring of
white fathers and native mothers. A
fair type of the Spanish Mestiza dress,
which is peculiar to this class, consists
of a long skirt of heavy silk and a waist
and neckkerchief made of the fibers of
the pineapple plant and embroidered
with white silk linen or cotton. This
costume is calculated to greatly enhance
the attractiveness of the face and neck,
and therefore the Mestizas as class have
a reputation for beauty which they prob-
ably would not have if they wore Euro-
pean attire. Some of the skirts are beau-
tifully painted and embroidered and cost
fabulous sums, for there are many very
wealthy people among the Mestizo class.
who, although they could not be wel-
comed in the best society, form an aris-
tocracy of their own, which is very ex-
clusive.—Manila Letter in St. Louis Re-
public.