No news yet from Washington, excepting a dispatch that the President is in Philadelphia, and promising instructions sometime today.
At our morning meeting, Mr. Parnow, a German merchant long resident in the Philippines, appeared. He had presented letters of introduction to Secretary Day and myself from Andrew D. White of Berlin, who commended him highly. [He] had been put off for a day or two on account of our engagements with the Spaniards. His testimony was not taken quite so formally as that of previous witnesses about the Philippines. It proved confirmatory of much that had already been told, and developed one or two interesting new points. One was that the Philippines, according to a financial statement which he had presented, had paid the expenses of their own administration and also the cost of the entire consular and diplomatic service of Spain in the East, as well as of the Department of Colonies at Madrid, pensions to soldiers and civilians, who had been in the Philippine service, pensions paid the Duke of Veragua and others on account of their relationship to Columbus, etc.
He said only a small proportion of the Philippine loan had been taken by the individuals and this was in the nature of a forced loan. He spoke well of the natives, both in Luzon and in the Visayas, and was distinctly of opinion that it would be a mistake to divide the archipelago.
All the talk among people one meets and in the newspapers is about the possibility of war with Great Britain over the ridiculous Fashoda incident. . .