To be able to describe with accuracy and vigour a life and death struggle between two men is no easy task. To do the same for two bodies of men' fighting in a limited area requires most careful observation, profound memory, and a graphic pen. Tt is well-nigh impossible if the struggle be carried on, under varying conditions, over a considerable tract of country. Small marvel then that the general idea of what has taken place in the Philippines within the last few months, between the Spaniards and the rebels, is distinctly hazy, merely from lack of observers and recorders. The authorities of His Most Catholic Majesty thicken the haze into a dense cloud by their policy of concealing, distorting, suppressing, and adding to the truth, so that the reports which reach the outside world, except from unofficial sources, become pure fiction. The press of Manila is of course under a strict censorship; the telegraphic service is under the Government thumb; the post office passes no
ed of telling other than the official "truth Intter, private or otherwise, that is suspect nay, the people of the Philippines themselves fear to speak the truth, lest the spy or the confessional should lead them into trouble with the all-ruling priests. The outside world is dependent on non-Catholic foreigners for true accounts of what has taken place, and what is the situation of affairs.
Manila and the Philippines teem with natural wealth, the soil is fertile in the extreme, the climate is genial, minerals abound, and there is a vast population to furnish' labour. Its people ought to be the happiest in the world, the richest, and the most contented. But. they are poor, miserable, and discontented.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.