COTTON TEXTILES IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 151 



of the Chinese merchants have quite large and attractive stores, but the 

 majority are the little dens just described. They fill one entire side of 

 a wide street less than a quarter of a mile long, called the Kosario, a 

 small portion of the Escolta, and one side of a block of Calle Nueva. 

 Many of them sell at wholesale to, or supply on commission, hundreds 

 of Chinamen who plod about the streets of the city and suburbs with 

 packs of prints and white goods on their backs, or follow a coolie 

 who carries a load of cotton goods large enough for a horse at each end 

 of a bamboo pole resting on his shoulders. They sell to Europeans as 

 well as to natives, and by far the greater portion of the cotton goods 

 sold at retail are disposed of in this way, for the climate is not favorable 

 to " shopping/ 7 and white goods can frequently be bought more cheaply 

 from the Chinese peddlers than at the stores or shops. The peddler 

 usually fixes his price at from 50 to 100 per cent, more than he expects 

 to receive, and trusts to the ignorance or indifference of his customer to 

 regulate the amount of his profit. 



I was somewhat surprised to learn that the average profit made by 

 one of these peddlers on a piece of cotton goods of 30 or 40 yards was 

 not more than 5 or 6 cents; that the profit made by the Chinese jobber 

 was from 2j to 3 cents a piece, and that the importer was quite well 

 satisfied if he made from 5 to 8 per cent* on his stock. For instance, a 

 piece of gingham, 24 yards long, of the best English or German 

 make, costs $5, list ; the Chinese jobber gets a discount of 5 per cent, 

 by paying cash and divides this discount with the peddler. The latter 

 will at first ask $7.50 for the piece but will sell it for $5 rather than 

 lose the sale. It has become a fixed rule among people who have re- 

 sided here any length of time never to pay the first price asked, but to 

 offer from 50 to 100 per cent. less. Occasionally a peddler will meet a 

 stranger who will pay him a profit of a dollar or more on a piece of cot- 

 ton goods, but this is always considered an unexpected bit of good luck. 

 But the profit of the importer and jobber is invariable, and the mar- 

 gins being so small it will be seen why the extra price said to be asked 

 for American goods may act as a bar to their importation. 



DUTIES. 



The import duty on cotton goods is as follows: 



Up to 25 threads counted under a six-millimeter glass, per kilogram 10 



From 26 to 35 threads, inclusive 16 



From 36 upward 22 



Diaphanous cotton goods up to 30 threads 22 



From 31 threads up 34 



Added to this is 20 per cent, for the construction of the new port. 



EXPERIMENTS IN COTTON GROWING. 



Until a comparatively few years ago considerable bush cotton was 

 raised in the Philippine archipelago, and nearly all of it was made into 



