The land-owning aristocracy, though it must have been in possession
of its advantages for several generations, seems deficient in jealous
exclusiveness on the score of birth. I do not remember to have heard
once here the expression "of good family," as we hear it in America,
and especially in the South. But I have heard "He is a rich man" so
used as to indicate that this good fortune carried with it unquestioned
social prerogative. Yet there must be some clannishness based upon
birth, for your true Filipino never repudiates his poor relations
or apologizes for them. At every social function there is a crowd of
them in all stages of modest apparel, and with manners born of social
obscurity, asserting their right to be considered among the elect. I am
inclined to think that Filipinos concern themselves with the present
rather than the past, and that the _parvenu_ finds it even easier to
win his way with them than with us. Even under Spanish rule poor men
had a chance, and sometimes rose to the top. I remember the case, in
particular, of one family which claimed and held social leadership in
Capiz. Its head was a long-headed, cautious, shrewd old fellow, with so
many Yankee traits that I sometimes almost forgot, and addressed him
in English. My landlady, who was an heiress in her own right, and the
last of a family of former repute, told me that the old financier came
to Capiz "poor as wood.
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