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From the present outlook everything should remain quiet in the relations of the Americans and insurgents until we hear the result of the Paris Peace Commission's meeting. The only intercourse will be of an informal diplomatic nature.
If the Spainards are allowed to reoccupy these islands the natives will fight to the last and nobody will blame them As -between Spanish and native rule I am inclined to think that the latter might be preferable to the former provided only some friendly power would protect the islands from being swooped down upon and seized by Germany or some nation that would take the first opportunity to do so.
The United States forces have now been organised by new arrangements as required by promotion of commanding officers and the arrival of recent reinforcements. The entire body forms the Eighth Army Corps under It is command of Major-General Otis. separated into two divisions, respectively com. manded by Major-General T. M. Anderson and Major-General Arthur MacArthur The first division is made up of one brigade com. manded by Brigadier General Harrison G. Otis, U. S. Volunteers, and consisting of three battalions of the 1st Montana Volunteer Infantry; three battalions, 1st South Dakota Volunteer Infantry; detachment Batteries A and D California Volnuteer Heavy Artillery, Light Battery G 6th U. S. Artillery regulars; six troops, 4th U. S. Cavalry regulars.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
AGUINALDO'S DISINTERESTED-
The second division under General MacArthur consists of two brigades. The first is com- manded by Brigader General Samuel Ovenshine, U. S. Volunteers, and consists of three battalions 14th U. S. Infantry regulars; 1st California Volunteer Infantry of three battalions; two battalions 1st North Dakota Volunteer Infantry; two battalions lat Idaho Volunteer Infantry; one battalion 1st Wyoning Volunteer Infantry; Light Battery D 6th U. S. Artillery regulars; Astor Battery. The second brigade is commanded by Brigadier Geueral Irving Hale and consists of: two battalions 3rd U. S. Artillery regulars; two battalions 18th U. S. Infantry regulars; three battalions 1st Colorado Volunteer Infantry; three battalions 1st Nebraska Volunteer In- fantry; two battalions 10th Peunsylvania Vo- lunteer Infantry; battalion, Utah Light Artil- lery, U. S. Volunteers, two batteries."
Aside from the above, the following regiments constitute the Provost Guard of the city of Manila under command of Brigadier General R. P. Hughes, U. S. Volunteers, Provost Mar- shal General: 23rd U. S. Infantry, regulars; 2nd Oregon Volunteer Infantry; and 13th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. The Engineers, Company A, battalion of Engineers, U. S. Army, are attached to the second division of the corps and report to General MacArthur.
The total American land force now in the Philippines is over 15.000 men. Aside from these are over 2,000 on the vessels of Admiral Dewey's fleet. There is some typhoid fever, but in view of all the conditions the health of the men is excellent.
AGUINALDO GIVES WAY.
Hongkong, 20th September.
The United States gunboat Petrel, which arrived from Manila yesterday, reports that Aguinaldo has complied with the ultimatum of General Otis and that collision with the Americans and the insurgents has thus been avoided. One of the insurgent chiefs, however, stationed at Pasay declined to remove his troops at the time that Aguinaldo removed his, and Aguinaldo, knowing what would be the outcome of his officer's stubbornness, asked General Otis for three or four days' grace so that he might commune with the man and endeavour to get him to listen to reason. Apparently there is some prospect of the differences between the Americans and the natives being satisfactorily arranged, for a correspondent at Manila writes: "The natives are very friendly towards the Americans, and simply delighted with the prospect of becoming Americanos. Vessels which few weeks ago flew the insurgent flag are now adorned with the Stars and Stripes" Apparently, however, the American soldiers in Manila are heartily sick of the place, and would be only too glad to hear that they had been ordered to return home.
NESS.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT,
On unimpeachable authority, direct from a high Filipino source, the Singapore Free Press is enabled to give details of an incident important in its possible future bearing on the question of the internal administration of the Philippines.
General Emilio Aguinaldo quite recently commissioned a prominent and capable Filipino, the head of one of the most important pro- vinces, to have an interview with Don Caye tano Arellano, the celebrated Philippine law- yer, who is legal adviser to the Spanish government in the Philippines, as well as to most of the leading commercial firms in Manila, in particular to the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. This gentle- man, although a Filipino native from the Province of Bataan, holds the very highest rank in legal circles in Manila, and is especially looked upon, on account of his eloquence and forensic ability, as one of the leading lights of the Spanish bar in the Philippines.
The mission of Aguinaldo's emissary was to invite Don Cayetano Arellano, on behalf of the Kevolutionary Government, to accept the position of President of the Philippine Govern ment.
Don Cayetano, on the matter being submitted to him, acknowledged the high compliment thus paid to him, but stated that he felt impelled to refuse this flattering offer, on the ground that the man at present required by the nature of the situation must necessarily be a military leader; and he declared that none better than Aguinaldo could fulfil this condition, as to him was due the liberation of the country.
Again being urged to reconsider this decision, Don Cayetano Arellano finally yielded so far as to say that, before committing himself to a definite statement at that moment, he would advise that the question should be allowed to stand over pending the result of the deliberations of the Paris Peace Conference. Should that result have as one of its elements the granting of a sanction to the Filipino people to peace. fully regulate their own affairs, his services would, in that case be hold at the disposal of
the nation.
It is important to add, at this conjuncture, that General Wesley S. Merritt, the American Military Governor, also subsequently sent for Señor Arellano, and had a long private confer- ence with that eminent Filipino gentleman.
It is very possible that that interview may have some direct influence on the nature of the views to be laid by General Merritt before his colleagues of the Conference at Paris.
SUPREME COURT.
September 19th.
CRIMINAL SESSIONS.
[September 24, 1898.
The Acting Attorney-General said the pri- soner in this case was charged with unlawfully killing a woman called Chon Yun Sing. The bad blood betwen the parties which led to the killing of this unfortunate woman seemed to have originated through a small boy, about three years old, the son of a concubine, or secondary wife, of an earth coolie. Decensed was the mother of the concubine and prisoner The was the first wife of the earth coolie.
quarrel which unfortunately led to the death of this woman seemed to have originated through prisoner being jealous of the concubine. Pri- soner had no small boy of her own and was jealous of the concubine in consequence. How- ever, for some time after this boy was born things seemed to have gone on smoothly in the family, for they found that for a period of about two years, terminating about the third of June of this year, the husband and the prisoner and the concubine and her mother, and also 'the husband's mother were all living in a house at No. 3, Third Street. June, this year, this harmony seemed to have
come to an end.
But about the third of
Prisoner seemed to have bad some quarrel with the concubine over this little boy, the result of that quarrel being that the husband set the concubine and her mother up in a separate establishment in Kwong Fung Laue, lie and prisoner and his mother remaining at 3, Third Street. After the split up the husband's mother seemed to have been in the habit of fetching the boy from Kwong Fung Lane and taking him to Third Street, returning with him in the evening. That arrangement went on smoothly until the fifth of September. On that day, for some reason or other, the hus- band's mother did not go for the little boy until late in the day. When the concubine got home she was told that the boy had been taken away, so she asked her mother to fetch him back. The mother went, the concubine subsequently follow- ing her to Third Street. The evidence was that deceased went up to the first floor and told prisoner she wanted to take back the little boy. Prisoner replied, "Go away; this is not your child. I do not want you." Deceased said, "If we go away we must have the child." Prisoner, getting enraged, then seized a piece of firewood and struck deceased several blows with it. De- ceased subsequently fell down stairs and lay stunned at the bottom. The concubine at once rushed out of the house and went for the police. The injured woman was removed to the hospital, where she subsequently died. With regard to the medical evidence Dr. Bell would tell the jury that on the evening in question deceased was ad- mitted to the hospital suffering from a wound
on
the right side of her head, and that she subsequently died from hemorrhage on the brain as the result of the injury. He would also say that the injuries might have been caused by a blow or blows with a piece of firewood. The doctor did not consider it very likely that they were caused by the fall downstairs. At the police station prisoner,said the concubine pulled deceased downstairs-that she fell downstairs and was stunned.
E. M. Hazeland, assistant engineer in the
BEFORE SIR JOHN CARRINGTON (CHIEF Public Works Department, produced a plan of
JUSTICE.)
A DILATORY JUROR. Mr. F. P. de Soares, who had been summoned as a juror was not in court when his name was called. On his arrival
His Lordship said-Your name was called as a juror and you were not in attendance.
Mr. Soares-I just finished my work at the
office.
His Lordship-You were summoned for ten o'clock. Why were you not here? I cannot excuse you. You must remain in attendance daring this sitting, and I will see what I will
do at two o'clock.
A WOMAN CHARGED WITH MANSLAUGHTER,
A woman named Mak Oi Sik was charged with the manslaughter of another woman named Chon Yun Sing.
The jury was composed of Messrs. R. Aitken, H. Hyndman, Man Cheuk Hing, E. A. da Silva, M. Mehta, B. F. 8. Remedios, and D. M. Langrana.
The Acting Attorney-General (Mr. Pollock), instructed by the Crown Solicitor (Mr. H. L. Dennys), appeared for the prosecution.
Prisoner pleaded not guilty.
the room at No. 3, Third Street.
The concubine,who appeared with her boy strap- ped to her back, said that on June 3rd prisoner claimed the boy as her own and then tried to turn witness away from the house. On account of this quarrel the husband took a room in Kwong Fung Lane, and she and her mother and boy occupied it; prisoner and the husband and bis mother remaining at No. 3, Third Street. She and her mother, and also prisoner, worked as earth coolies, and each day her mother-in-law fetched the boy at seven or eight o'clock in the morning and brought him back at about five o'clock at night, Ön the fifth September, at about half-past five at night her mother-
Was
in-law came for the child when she out. On her arrival at home at about
sent ber half-past six she
mother to Third Street for the child, and shortly after she went too. She pushed open the door of prisoner's room, a cubicle near the head of the stairs. Then she saw her boy asleep on the bed, She told prisoner she wanted to take the boy back to her room, and prisoner replied, "No, no; you cannot do that, as the child is mine," and told her to go away. Then witneRS'S mother said, If you want me to leave this house I must take away the child with me.'
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