Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/47

 20

among the native people of the higher class, a servant who has dared to leave his house as to their relations to the lower classes. The and service against his will. similar situationto that in these in Europe Islands during is the somewhat middle. Acts of this character may be accounted for by the callousness of the public mind ages,—the great families rule the land. The as to anything pertaining to the rights of the Lazuriaggas, the Mapas, the Lacsons, are common people. The primary principle of the Capulets and Montagues of the Island English law guaranteeing protection of life, of Negros. So it is throughout the Philip liberty and property to the meanest subject pines,-—the rich families are everything, the or citizen of England or the United States, people are nothing. The rich Philippino is not only unknown but utterly unappreci can say like Louis XIV." I am the State," and ated in this country. Their very trend of the poor are too simple and ignorant to con thought is out of sympathy with it. Life is test his supremacy. Notwithstanding what lightly regarded by the Malay-Philippino. we have done to ameliorate the condition of Property is limited to a few aristocratic the mass of the population, and relieve them families, and closely held by them. Liberty from superstition, slavery and poverty, these is mouthed over by prominent Philippinos, very men would rise against us en masse at prating, after the style of the French Revo lution, of liberty, equality and fraternity, in the instigation of those from whose oppres public assemblies, where certain would-be sion we are seeking to liberate them, and would restore their masters to power. It leaders are ever anxious to air their elo has been said, and I think with "truth, that quence for the edification of the public and we are disliked by both Spaniard and Philitheir own glorification. pino, by the former for reasons which are There is probably no section of Europe obvious, by the latter for the reason that we where the spirit of the feudal ages lingers as will not permit them to take the place of in the Philippine Archipelago. This is the Spaniard and rule and oppress their manifested in the monasteries, the religious countrymen. There seems to prevail in the fiestas, with the long procession of priests provinces of the Archipelago, or some of and people bearing lighted candles. Look them, a svstem of slavery, somewhat similar ing on thepadres walking along the Lunetta to the peonage of Mexico. Servants will or marching in the solemn procession, I am get debtor in debt throughout to theirlife. master, I have andbeen remain told his by | reminded of the lines of Scott: an official of the court, one of the most reli able men I have found in the Island, that it sometimes occurs that, when a servant leaves the service against his master's will, the lat ter trumps up a criminal charge against him of stealing and taking with him personal property of the master or his family. This condition of the moral world of the Philip pines makes it exceedingly difficult to ad minister the criminal law in such way as to do justice to State and individual. Some times it is well nigh impossible to determine whether the alleged criminal at the bar is a thief, as charged, or the victim of an un scrupulous master, who is trying to wreak his vengeance through the criminal law, on

"The holy fathers, two and two, In long procession came." And certainly the peasants of England, France and Germany were imprisoned in the dungeons of the nobility with no greater disregard of justice than has been done right here in the Philippine Islands during the past two years. At the present time a woman is confined in the public prison awaiting sentence: she has been there some twelve months, waiting judgment, not trial; she has been tried, the only remaining step being to find her guilty or not guilty, and if the former, to pass sentence, if the latter to order her discharge. The woman was a house servant who left the employ of her