During the holiday season, just over, foreign business has been suspended and everyone socially inclined. Shopping has been in vogue, and on one of my expeditions for photographic materials I was introduced to the "Botica Inglesa," or English chemist's shop, which seems to be the largest variety-store in town. Here it is possible to buy anything from a glass of soda to a full-fledged lawn-mower, including all the intermediates that reach from tooth-brushes to photographic cameras. And speaking of shopping brings mo to the "chit" system, which has been such a curse to the Far East. In making purchases, no one pays cash for anything, since the heavy Mexican dollars--which are the only currency of the islands--are too heavy to lug around in the thin suits made of white sheeting. One simply signs an "I.O.U." for the amount of the bill in any shop that he may choose to patronize, and thinks no more about it till at the end of the month all the "chits" which bear his name are sent around for collection. Result: one never feels as if he were spending anything until the first day of the incoming month ushers in a host of these big or little reminders. If your chits at one single shop run into large amounts, the collector generally brings along with him a coolie or a wheelbarrow with which to lug away the weight of dollars that you pour into his hands, and when two or three collectors come in together the office reminds one of a "money-'changer's. Counterfeit money is so prevalent that one after the other of your callers bites the silver or drops it on the floor to detect lead, and to listen to the resulting sound is not to feel complimented by their opinion of your integrity. So it goes, many of the shop-keepers being swindled out of their dues by debtors who choose to skip off rather than to pay, and waking up at the end of the month to find their supposed profits existing only in the chits whose signers have skedaddled to Hong Kong or Singapore. New Year's Eve was celebrated with due hilarity and elaborate provisions. The club bill of fare was remarkable, and when it is realized there are no stoves in Manila, the wonder is that the cooking is so complex. A Manila stove is no more nor less than a good-sized earthen jar, shaped something like an old shoe. The vamp of the shoe represents the hearth; the opening in front, the place for putting in the small sticks of wood; and the enclosing upper, the rim on which rests the single big pot or kettle. In a well-regulated kitchen, there may be a dozen of these stoves, one for each course, and their cost being only a peseta, it is a simple matter to keep a few extra ones on hand in the bread-closet. And so, as one goes through the streets where native huts predominate, he sees a family meal being cooked in sections, and is forced to admire the complexity of the greasy dishes that are evolved from so simple a contrivance.