The majority of the young are abandoned entirely to the Indian servants, who soon familiarize them with all that is vicious. They know but little of their parents more than as the master and mistress of the house, whose hand they must kiss, kneeling, every morning and evening. By five years of age they smoke cigars, ride out at night by moonlight, abuse the Indians, and not unfrequently their parents. At 12 they are debauched. At 18 or 20 they marry, and then form the citizens for which such an education has prepared them. They are seldom or ever taught any useful employment or profession. This the majority of them would look upon with the utmost contempt: "Soy gracias a Dios, de sangre noble," [135] is their reply to any advice of this kind; and this is a passport to a cadetship in the army or colonial marine; which, though attained at the age of 12 or 13, seldom finds them with any vice unlearnt. The girls are educated nearly in the same manner, as far as to the acquirement of any useful knowledge. They are sent to the nunneries till 12 or 14 years, and from thence married. Of household duties they know little or nothing, and of any thing else, still less. The manner of living is nearly as follows: The gentlemen rise about six or seven, and take chocolate. They then lounge about in their shirts and trowsers (the former often outside of the latter) till nine, when they dress, and dictate a letter or two to their writers (they rarely write for themselves); at 10 they breakfast, after which they go out in their carriages to transact any business they may have in town. At 12 or 1 they dine, and from table retire to sleep the siesta, till 4--at 4 chocolate [136]--at 5 drive on the esplanade, or into the country, till 6 or 7, when visits are received or made till 10 or 11; supper is served hot at this hour, and at midnight they retire to sleep. Some of these evening parties (tertulias) are lively and pleasant, but at most of them gambling is carried on with great avidity. Both ladies and gentlemen smoke at these, as well as at balls and other assemblies. They drink but little wine or strong liquors, their ordinary beverage being water, which is handed round in large glasses with sweetmeats, which are always eaten before drinking water. Society in Manila is at a very low standard: in a community, the majority of which are men of inferior classes, no very select assemblies can be expected; and those whose character and education might have given another tone to it, are here, from necessity, amalgamated with the crowd. There are in fact only a few houses where a respectable society can be met with; at others the stranger is disgusted with a coarseness of manners, and with unfeeling or often excessively indelicate conversation, and an ignorance of the most common branches of knowledge that must be heard to be credited.