America in the Philippines
A "London Times" correspondent, in the weekly issue of that journal of November 25, 1910, has the following to say of what has been done for the city of Manila: Manila is already a beautiful city with many attractions as a place of residence. The bay and the river, the quaint walled city, and the picturesque Spanish streets, with some immensely interesting buildings in the old convents and churches, are enough in themselves to give it both character and charm. Now, by an Aladdin-like process of pure miracle, around and about this old city of 200,000 people the new city planned for 2,000,000 is rising, and rising, as the American way is, all at once. As a prerequisite, of course, the whole city had to be made sanitary; and if the Americans were to evacuate the Philippines tomorrow, in the improvement which they have wrought in the sanitary conditions of the islands they would leave a monument for which they would deserve to be held in grateful remembrance. Not only in Manila, but throughout the provinces, the twin scourges of the Filipino in the past — cholera and smallpox — have been almost exterminated. The great weapon with which the former of these has been fought has been the digging of artesian wells, over 900 of which are now flowing, and the number is being steadily increased. And wherever the artesian well comes to replace the old surface water, which furnished the general drinking supply, cholera disappears and the ratio of mortality decreases by over fifty per cent.