The troops bundled themselves back to quarters, and it all ended in a laugh.  Only the commanding officer leaned out of his window to chuckle at me.

“Well, did you get your chicken?” and I went home and vowed that Miss C——­ should perish four times over before I would stir up an excitement about her again.

If we lived in a slightly hysterical state as concerns the possibilities of war and bloodshed, we soon learned to be phlegmatic enough about disease and pestilence.  Nearly five hundred starving people had gathered in Capiz, and their emaciated bodies and cavernous eyes mocked all talk of the brotherhood of man.  This condition did not represent the normal one of the whole province,—­but rather these people represented the aggregate of starvation.  Of course, following the war, there was a short crop and no little distress.  But a certain Capiz politician with his eyes on the future caused word to be sent out through the province that if the needy would come into Capiz he would see that they were fed.  Of course he did no such thing.  They came and starved to death; but meanwhile the report of his generosity was spread abroad, and nobody took any pains to tell the story of how the miserable wretches had been cheated.  So the politician profited and the poor died.

No one whose life has been passed in American rural prosperity can wholly realize one’s helplessness in the face of these conditions.  Capiz was a town of twenty-five thousand people rejoicing in many commodious and luxurious homes and a fine old church.  It would seem a small affair to tide over the distress of so small a number as five hundred starving.  But the greatest obstacle was the fact that they were not temporarily starving.  They represented a portion of the inhabitants who either from voluntary or involuntary helplessness would always need assistance, and the people of the town did not see a clear way of assuming the burden.

I confess in my unsophistication I went out among them consuming with fine altruistic zeal.  A woman with a starving child in her arms begged of me in the plaza.  Instantly my purse was out, and instantly I was mobbed by the howling, filthy crowd.  My purse was almost torn out of my hand, my hat was knocked over my eyes, and a hundred eager claws tugged and pulled at my garments.  I had fairly to fight my way out of the mob, and learned to bestow no more alms in public.  Then I took to throwing pennies out of the window, and found as a consequence that there was no rest day or night from the wailing and howling in the street.  Little by little the fountain of my philanthropy dried up, and I contented myself with giving what I could to the Church to be bestowed in regular channels.

At that time there was not a single hospital (American military hospital excepted) in the Philippine Islands outside of the city of Manila, and with the exception of one or two missionary establishments, no poorhouses, no orphan asylums,—­in short, no properly organized eleemosynary institutions conducted by the State.  The result was one at which we Americans were first appalled, then indignant, then, through sheer helplessness, indifferent.  We simply became hardened to sights and sounds which in our own land would stir up a blaze of excitement and bring forth wagon-loads of provisions.