Manila at the Turn of the 20th Century

[Joe Carillo]

Sometime in mid-September, Beth Carillo Taye (no relation to me), a Filipina based in Germany, copy furnished me an e-mail with a set of old photos of Manila at the turn of the 20th century. The photos appear to have been originally e-mailed by Mila Marzo to her friends and contacts, including Beth.

I am posting these century-old photos here to share with Forum members my quaint, indescribable experience of viewing these slices of life long gone by in “The City of Our Affections.”

1 – Binondo circa early 1900s

2 – Escolta 1899

3 – Gate to Intramuros late 1800s

4 – Gateway to Fort Santiago

5 – General Otis 1898

6 – Helping Nanay (Mother) iron clothes

7 – Luneta Park (Now Rizal Park) 1900s

8 – Pasig River 1900s

9 – San Sebastian Church and old Hidalgo St. (now Carlos Palanca St.)

10 – Tram 1900s

11 – Malacañang Palace

[maxsims]

Except for the vehicles and mode of dress, not much has changed!

[renzphotography]

You must be stuck in time Maxims    By the way, take a look at the way the word "entrance" was spelled in photo 11.

[hill roberts]

Certainly a much gentler life. Shame we got rid of the trams. 

[maxsims]

Come to Melbourne, Hill.    We kept ours!     

[hill roberts]

Thanks, max,
Hopefully, someday, although Prague and Budapest do have electric trams>cheap, clean,
efficient, reliable, safe...Manchester also brought it back, and it would be nice if these trams became the major  mode of transport in Philippine cities. Somehow, there's a bit of good old romance attached to
this mode of transport...and thrillers, of course, like Matt Damon's Bourne Series. Now, now, I'm getting carrie away, Max. Take care!

[Joe Carillo]

You must be stuck in time Maxims    By the way, take a look at the way the word "entrance" was spelled in photo 11.

Attention, all ye tram lovers!

Regarding the word "entranse," I stumbled upon the entry below in Webster's 1828 English Dictionary. Who knows, in the English at the turn of the 20th century, maybe that was what the caption writer--probably lovestruck--inadvertently meant!

ENTR`ANSE, v.t. or i. [L. transeo.]
1. To put in a transe; to withdraw the soul, and leave the body in a kind of dead sleep or insensibility; to make insensible to present objects. The verb is seldom used, but the participle, entransed, is common.
2. To put in an ecstasy; to ravish the soul with delight or wonder.
And I so ravish'd with her heavenly note,
I stood entransed, and had no room for thought.

[hill roberts]

Thanks, Joe. Oh,what can we do without you? You're a great academic, Profe! (Profe is how the Spanish students call their teachers---a term of endearment.)

[maxsims]

"...And I so ravish'd with her heavenly note..."

Golly!    You have to be careful how you read that line!     

[Joe Carillo]

Thanks, Joe. Oh,what can we do without you? You're a great academic, Profe! (Profe is how the Spanish students call their teachers---a term of endearment.)

Thanks for the compliment, Hill! But please, please neither call me an academic nor "Profe"! Just call me Joe. I'll have none of academe and academe will have none of me. I have a few highly accomplished friends in academe whom I truly respect, but I simply can't brook the  gobbledygook that many academics often pass off as good English or--even worse--as wisdom. Let's just say that I'm an accidental but passionate advocate of good English usage, that's all.

And as for you, Max, what naughty thing did the line "...And I so ravish'd with her heavenly note..." evoke in your mind? Until now I still couldn't get it. Is it up front or down under? You ought to share it with everybody in this Forum!

[renzphotography]

If those are the definitions of entranse then there must be New Age people back then who would like to be "in trance".

In any case, "...And I so ravish'd with her heavenly note..." sounds scandalously disconcerting to me--and I thought people of olden days were more prudish.

[Joe Carillo]

I just received the e-mailed note below from from Mark Thomas (http://sorabji.com) in response to my request for more information about the verse cited in the old Webster's Dictionary definition of "entranse": 

I found a fuller citation under the more modern spelling of "entrance" in Webster's 1913 Dictionary. The quote is from Dryden:

http://www.wordswarm.net/web-1913/entrance.html

I found a fuller verse here:

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/cooper/hours/hours.html

"A goldfinch there I saw with gaudy pride
Of painted plumes, that hopp'd from side to side
Still perching as she paused, and still she drew
The sweet from every flower, and suck'd the dew;
Suffic'd at length, she warbl'd in her throat,
And tuned her voice to many a merry note,
But indistinct, and neither sweet, nor clear.
Her short performance was no sooner tried,
When she, I thought, the nightingale replied:
So sweet, so shrill, so variously she sung,
That the grove echoed, and the valleys rung;
And I so ravish'd with her heavenly note,
I stood entranc'd and had no room for thought;
But all o'erpower'd with an ecstacy of bliss,
Was in a pleasing dream of Paradise."

Now that we have the cited verse in its full and true context, we can now lay Max Sims's naughty thoughts to rest.

Thank you, Mark! We're most obliged to you for helping us settle a ticklish semantic issue!

[hill roberts]

See how beautiful it is when a poem rhymes? Nowadays, even the previous British poet laureate
(whose name escapes me) and now replaced recently by a certain Miss ....whose name also  escapes me,) writes gibberish poetry and to this day, not a single pupil could quote any of his poems. None of his poems rhyme.
Max, naughty lad! Enjoy that beautiful poem without the.....ahhhhh..never mind. Joe has already replied to that query, ahem...

[maxsims]

"...Now that we have the cited verse in it's full and true context, we can now lay Max Sim's naughty thoughts to rest..."

Hey!   I was referring only to the lack of a comma after "I".......!

(And it's Max Sims's, please.     See what happens when you muck around with the old established rules of pos s placement?    )

[Joe Carillo]

Good try, Max! But sorry for my having mucked up with the pos s for your name in my posting. I acknowledge the grammar error; if you check, you'd find that it's now fixed.