Chapter V.Tagal Crime and Spanish Justice.The murder of a Spaniard—Promptitude of the Courts—The case of Juan de la Cruz—Twelve years in prison waiting trial—Piratical outrage in Luzon—Culprits never tried; several die in prison.The penal code of the Philippines, which came into force in 1884, declares it impossible to consider as an aggravation of an offence the circumstance of colour or race in the offender, for the criminal is to be punished for his crime and not for the condition of inferiority to which nature has condemned him.It goes on to say that on the other hand his condition should not be allowed to attenuate the sentence, for that would constitute an odious privilege, an unbearable inequality.It therefore proudly proclaims the equality of all races before the law. These are noble words; we shall see how they work out in practice.The case of Juan de la Cruz shows us that a criminal investigation can drag on for twelve years without coming on for trial when the victims are natives and of lowly station. I could cite cases where the victims were British subjects, and the murderers were never punished, and another case where a Frenchman was the victim. The murderer in this case was to have been pardoned by the Governor-General, but the French consul threatened to haul down his flag and leave the islands unless the assassin was executed; and he was executed, the consul attending to see the sentence carried outThe British Foreign Office does not encourage its agents to such energetic acts. To obtain the good graces of the Foreign Office a consul should be devoid of talent or originality. Mediocrity is the condition sought for. It is never advisable for one of Her Britannic Majesty’s consulsto be active in protecting Her Britannic Majesty’s subjects. What he must aim at if he wishes for consideration and promotion is to give the Foreign Office no trouble. The ideal consul would be he who is only heard of once a quarter, when he certifies that he is alive, and asks that his salary may be paid.I will relate a murder that made an impression on me at the time, where the victim was a Spaniard. In June of 1881, I was at Santa Cruz in the Laguna Province for several days, making experiments with some patent centrifugals, steaming and drying the fine Laguna sugar. Quite close to thecamarin, where the machines were at work, lived an elderly Spaniard who was a government employé in some subordinate position. I think he was the Subdelegado de Hacienda, or sub-provincial treasurer. I had once or twice called upon the old gentleman, whose appearance and manners were above his official rank, and had been politely received by him. On completing my experiments, I called to take leave of him, and was sorry to find him suffering from fever, and very weak.I returned to Manila, and next day was horrified to read in a newspaper that he had been murdered in the night by his two servants. This atrocious crime, committed on a helpless and infirm old man, with every circumstance of premeditation and barbarity, and with the object of robbery, roused the indignation of every European. The culprits were soon apprehended, and such expedition was used by the Promotor Fiscal and the court, that within a week from the perpetration of the murder the two servants were garrotted on a scaffold erected near the scene of their barbarous crime.Such is the rapidity with which the Philippine courts could act when a Spaniard was the victim and when public opinion was deeply stirred by some shocking tragedy.The case of Juan de la Cruz.The following narrative of events, which occurred in 1886, will give the reader a good idea of the furious passions that may lurk under the inscrutable features of the Philippine Malay, and will also serve to illustrate the procedure of the Spanish criminal courts when the victims are natives and when nothing can be made out of the case.Four of the five actors or victims in the tragedy were well known to me, and I learned all the particulars at first hand and at the time, from those who took steps to deliver over the culprit to justice.The decked steam launchLaguimanocbelonged to Gustav Brown, a ship carpenter, and was hired by the Varadero, or Slipway Company of Cañacao, near Cavite, to keep up communication with Manila, whilst the slip was being constructed.I was consulting engineer to the company, and Mr. J. L. Houston was the resident engineer in charge of the work. Both of us made frequent voyages in this launch between Cañacao and Manila. The crew consisted of a patron (coxswain) named Juan de la Cruz, an engine-driver, a stoker, and a boy, all Tagals.Juan de la Cruz was an elderly man with grey hair, and in figure thin and wiry. He was a good man at his duty, one of the silent Indians whom I have always found to be the best. A thorough sailor, he had served under many a flag, and sailed o’er many a sea, both in tropic and in northern climes.The engine-driver and the stoker were brothers, strong and well-built young fellows, and smart at their work. The boy was an active lad, quite pleased to be employed on a steam-boat.One day, the stoker, going through the blacksmith’s shop, saw a piece of square steel, which had been cut off a long bar, lying on the floor, and it struck him that it would be better than a hammer for breaking coal. So he annexed it without leave, and got one end drawn out and rounded so that he could easily hold it. This made a very efficient coal-breaker, the sharp edges divided the lumps with great ease. It was about eighteen inches long, and one and three-quarter inches square. The patron was married, and his wife lived in Manila, but, sailor-like, he had provided himself with a sweetheart, at the other end of his run, where he spent more time than in the Pasig, and had become intimate with a damsel of San Roque, a village between the Varadero and Cavite. Things went on apparently all right for some time; the launch making almost daily trips between Cañacao and Manila, and the elderly patron alternating between the conjugal domicile and the dwelling of his mistress. She was young, and, as native girls go, a pretty woman. Come of a strange andunknown mixture of races, and bred up amongst a community noted for its profligacy, she knew how to make the best use of her charms and was well fitted to captivate the weather-beaten seaman.He, if not desirable in himself, held a well paid post, and was able to place her above want.Already fifty years old, he was as susceptible as a youth and far more in earnest. Day by day, as he basked in her smiles, his infatuation increased till he became violently enamoured of his charmer.What could be more natural than that the crew of the launch should become acquainted with the patron’s mistress? Soon the engine-driver and the stoker were her constant visitors. The damsel had a kind word and a smile for both, and doubtless contrasted their vigorous youth and shapely forms with the shrunken figure of her elderly protector, and their lively conversation with his glum silence.In the end, no doubt, the damsel refused them nothing.Trouble was now brewing. The grim sailor was not the man to let himself be wronged with impunity. All the elements of a tragedy were present. Things no longer went smoothly on board theLaguimanoc, and her voyages lost their regularity. Something was perpetually going wrong with the engines, pieces or fittings disappeared unaccountably, usually pieces of copper or brass. The engine-driver was blamed, but he succeeded in averting his impending discharge. Could he have foreseen the consequences of remaining, he would have promptly discharged himself.On board the launch mutual distrust prevailed. The engine-driver must have known that it was the patron who had thrown overboard the fittings in his absence, hoping to get him discharged, but he held his peace.The silent figure at the tiller made no sign; no trace of emotion could be seen on the Sphinx-like face, no reproaches passed his lips, not the slightest manifestation of resentment. But underneath that imperturbable calm there existed the steadfast determination to have a full and bloody revenge on all who had offended him. TheLaguimanocmade a voyage to Manila one Saturday to take up the resident engineer who often spent his Sundays there, the launch remaining in the river. On Monday morning when he came down to the launch he found thatthe safety valve was missing from its seat, and was delayed till another could be procured.No explanations of the loss of this piece could be got, and theLaguimanocproceeded with the resident engineer to Cañacao and made fast to the jetty.A crisis was now reached. The abstraction of the safety-valve could not be overlooked, and some one would have to go. An inquiry was to be made, but on Tuesday morning the patron walked up the jetty, and reported to Mr. Gustav Brown, who was the foreman of the works, that the engine-driver and stoker were absent. He stated that they had gone ashore in the night, and had not returned. Nothing could be learned about them; nobody had seen them; their kits were still on board. As the day wore on they did not come nor send any message; so a report of their disappearance was sent to the judge at Cavite.An engine-fitter from the works was sent on board to take charge of the engine, and another stoker was engaged; the launch resuming her running. The work of the Varadero proceeded as usual; divers were preparing the foundations to receive the immense gridiron which was shortly to be launched and sunk in place. It was a busy scene of organised labour under a skilful resident engineer; every difficulty foreseen and provided for, materials delivered in good time, notwithstanding obstructions; not an unnecessary auger-hole bored, not a stroke of an adze thrown away.From the Sleepy Hollow of the naval arsenal opposite jealous eyes watched the work proceed. Every art of vexation and obstruction that bitter envy could devise had for years been employed to prevent the building of this slip, and onerous and unfair conditions had been inserted in the concession. But Anglo-American persistence and industry had succeeded so far, and in the hands of Messrs. Peel, Hubbell & Co. and their advisers, the work was now well advanced.The obsolete corvetteDoña Maria Molinawas moored off the coaling-wharf adjoining the Varadero, and when one of her boats was going on shore the sailors noticed two dead bodies floating in the water, and reported this to the officer of the watch, who ordered them to tow the bodies to the shore towards Punta Sangley, and drag them up on the sand above high-water mark. The bodies were lashed together with a piece of new rope having a blue strand inthe centre, and had a good-sized piece of white granite attached as a sinker. On looking at the lashings no one could doubt that the work had been done by an able seaman. The bodies presented ghastly wounds, both had fractures of the skull, and gaping cuts on the throat and abdomen; they had also been gnawed by fishes. The swelling of the bodies had sufficed to bring them to the surface, stone and all.The news of the finding of the corpses did not immediately reach the Varadero, and they were conveyed to Cavite, and buried just as they were found, tied together with the ropes and stone, without being identified. It seemed nobody’s business to trouble about them, notwithstanding the evident fact that they had been murdered. The Manila newspapers did not mention the circumstance.But at this time other events happened. The patron of the launch disappeared without taking his kit with him. Then the boy disappeared, and I may as well at once say that, from that time to this, that boy has never been heard of by the Varadero Company, who were his employers. Next, that gay and lascivious damsel of San Roque, whose unbridled sensuality had wrought the trouble, also disappeared as mysteriously as the others.Dr. Juan Perez, of Cavite, was the medical attendant to the staff of the Varadero, and used to call there every afternoon. On hearing from him about the discovery of the bodies, the resident engineer at once thought of his missing men, and the flight of the patron confirmed his suspicions. A minute examination of the launch was made, and revealed some stains of blood which had not been entirely removed by the usual washing down. Several small cuts such as might be made with the point of abolowere found in the flat skylight of the cabin, and a deeper cut on the bulwark rail, starboard side forward, opposite the skylight. A working rope was missing from the launch. It had only recently been supplied to it, and had been cut off a whole coil purchased a few weeks before from a sailing-vessel, for the use of the Varadero. That rope had a blue strand in the centre. Gustav Brown put on a diving-dress, and went down at the head of the northern jetty, where the launch used to lie, and carefully examined the bottom. Presently his eye rested on an object that he recognised. It was the square steel coal-breaker used by the stoker, and he brought it up.Meanwhile, a new coxswain had been found for the launch, and as the old patron had left his vessel illegally, there was ground for his arrest on that score, so orders were given to the new patron and to the engine-driver to give him into custody if he came to claim his kit. Next time the launch arrived in Manila, sure enough the old patron appeared to fetch his belongings, and was taken to the calaboose of the captain of the port. The resident engineer called on that official, and, as a result of their conversation, the prisoner was put on board the launch to be conveyed to Cavite.With all the stoicism of the Malay, he sat quite still and silent; his impassive features betrayed no sign of anxiety or remorse.But if the principal actor in this bloody tragedy could thus compose his mind, it was not so with others who knew more or less what had happened, but whose dread and hatred of the law and its myrmidons had kept their tongues quiet.When the launch approached the Varadero near enough for the prisoner to be recognised, an unusual commotion occurred amongst the swarm of native workmen. A mysterious magnetism, an inexplicable vibration, pervaded the crowd. Unfelt by the senses, it acted on the mind, and seemed simultaneously to convey to each individual an identical idea.The patron was a prisoner, therefore his crime was known; no good could be done by keeping silent. Before this nobody knew anything about the disappearance of the two men. Now it leaked out, but only in confidence to Gustav Brown, whom they trusted. The native divers had seen the bodies when at their work on the foundations, and had moved them farther off out of their way. Men working at the jetties had seen them when they floated, but had looked in another direction. In fact, the corpses had been recognised, and the crime was known to scores of native and Chinese workmen, but no word or hint ever reached the foreman or the engineer till the culprit was arrested.Now there were sufficient details to reconstitute the tragic scene.The amour of the brothers with the San Roque girl was known, and also the well-founded jealousy of the patron, who at first endeavoured to obtain the engine-driver’s discharge by the means already mentioned. This notsucceeding, he determined to kill both of them, and without showing a sign of the deadly hatred that possessed him, calmly awaited his opportunity.On the Monday night, 7th June, after the incident of the safety-valve, the launch was moored alongside the Varadero jetty, and the two brothers lay fast asleep on the flat top of the cabin skylight, each wrapped in his blanket.A native sleeps hard, and is not easily awakened, nor when aroused does he quickly regain his faculties. It is an important point in the Malay code of manners never to awaken any person suddenly, for it is believed that, during sleep, the soul is absent from the body, wandering around, and must be given time to return, otherwise serious, even fatal consequences, may ensue. The awakened person may become an idiot, or some great harm may happen to the unmannerly one who awakened him. Many natives have as great a fear of the wandering soul of a sleeping person as of an evil spirit or ghost. The soul is said to return to the body in the form of a small black ball, which enters the mouth.Moreover, one of the greatest, in fact, the most terrible, curse that can be uttered by many tribes, is, “May you die sleeping,” for it means death to body and soul. That, however, was the fate reserved for the brothers. Towards midnight, when the cooking-fires in the coolie quarters had burnt down, and the chatter of the Chinese had subsided, when the last lights in the Europeans’ houses had been extinguished, and not a sound broke the stillness of the night, the patron addressed himself to the performance of his bloody task. Slipping his sharpenedbolothrough his belt, he descended into the engine-room, and, seizing the coal-breaker, crept forward to where the doomed men slumbered, perhaps dreaming of the charms of that dark damsel, the enjoyment of whose embraces was to cost them so dear. Meanwhile, their fate approached; their time was come.The patron was past his prime; privations at sea and dissipation on shore had sapped his strength. But bitter hatred nerving his arm, with lightning rapidity and terrific force he discharged a blow on each sleeper’s unprotected head. The sharp edge of the steel bar crashed deep into their skulls, driving in the splintered bone upon the brain. One agonised shudder from each, then all was still. A European murderer might have been satisfied with this.Not so a Tagal. A ceremony still remained to be accomplished. Their blood must flow; they must suffer mutilation. Seizing hisbolo, the assassin now vented his rage in cutting and thrusting at the bodies. The heavy and keen-edged blade fell repeatedly, cutting great gashes on the throats and bellies of the victims, whilst streams of gore ran down the waterways, and trickled out at the scuppers, staining the white sides of the launch with crimson streaks.His blood-thirst assuaged, his vengeance partly accomplished, and his spirit comforted by his desperate deed, the murderer probably paused for a time, and began to consider how he could conceal his crime. No sign of movement anywhere. Apparently the dull sounds of the blows had fallen on no mortal ear. Presently, taking up one of his working ropes, he mounted the jetty, and walked to the shore, where there lay a pile of stone ballast. It was white granite, discharged from a sailing-ship that had come from Hong Kong in ballast, and it had been purchased for the Varadero. Selecting a suitable piece, he carried it to the end of the jetty, and lowered it by the rope into the launch. Then, descending, he firmly lashed the two bodies together, and fastened the stone to them. Then he drew the bodies to the side, preparatory to launching them overboard. Now an incident occurred. It is thought that one of the two men was not quite dead, notwithstanding his dreadful wounds, and that recovering consciousness, and perceiving what awaited him, seized the rail in his death-grasp, and resisted the attempt to throw him over.The patron must once again have had recourse to his murderousbolo, bringing it down on the clenched hand, for a deep cut was found on the rail with blood driven into the pores of the wood by that savage blow. The tendons severed, the hand unclasped, and next moment the bodies slid over the rail and down underneath the keel of the launch in some four fathoms of water. Throwing the steel coal-breaker after them, the patron’s next task was to wash away the traces of his crime, and this he did fairly well so that nothing was noticed, till, suspicion being aroused, a careful scrutiny was made, with the result already mentioned. It is not known whether the boy knew anything of the tragedy performed so near him, for he was never questioned, having apparently disappeared off the face of the earth as soon as the bodies were found. What the patron did afterwards can only be conjectured. Guilty oftwo atrocious murders, and of savage mutilation of the slain, could he have composed himself to a quiet and dreamless slumber? Or was his imagination fired to further revenge by dream-pictures of his once-loved mistress in the arms of her youthful lovers? All that is known is that he presented himself to the foreman early on the Tuesday morning, and reported the absence of the two men without showing on his dark visage the slightest sign of trouble or emotion.We left the patron a prisoner on the launch. Now it became necessary to give him in charge to the judicial authorities, for it was getting late in the afternoon. They did not show any undue eagerness to receive him. The judge first applied to explained that he was only acting temporarily, that the judge had departed, having been transferred to another place, and that the new judge had not yet arrived, therefore he much regretted he could not take up the case. An appeal was then made to the Gobernador-Politico-Militar, who most courteously explained that a civil court was established in the province with full jurisdiction, both criminal and civil, so that he could not interfere. It was now nearly sunset, and the prisoner had been on the launch all day. The resident engineer then called on the Commandante of Cañacao—a naval officer who had a few marines at his disposal—and obtained as a personal favour that the prisoner should be temporarily secured in the guard-room. The next day the resident engineer proceeded to Cavite, and, accompanied by Dr. Juan Perez, visited the principal authorities, and eventually succeeded in getting the prisoner lodged in jail, and a charge of murder entered against him. The bodies of the victims were never exhumed for examination. The resident engineer made a declaration, which was taken down in writing, and on one of his busiest days he was peremptorily summoned to appear before the judge, and solemnly ratify his testimony.About three days after Juan de la Cruz was lodged in Cavite jail, the dead body of the San Roque damsel, gashed by savage blows of the fatalbolo, was left by the ebb on the sands of Parañaque, a village just across the little Bay of Bacoor opposite to San Roque. She had paid with her life for her frailty as many another woman has done in every clime. From the appearance of the body it was thought it had been several days in the water.No legal evidence was forthcoming to fix the crime on any one, although few of those who knew the story harboured a doubt that the assassin of the two brothers was the murderer of the girl also.Juan de la Cruz remained in prison, and from time to time, but with increasing intervals, the resident engineer, the foreman and others were cited by the judge, interrogated, then cited again to ratify their declarations.Theespediente, a pile of stamped paper, grew thicker and thicker, but the trial seemed no nearer. Month after month rolled on, the Varadero was finished, ships were drawn up, repaired and launched, Juan continued in prison.The resident engineer departed to other climes, and was soon expending his energy in building the great harbour at La Guayra. I was the means of obtaining an order for six gun-boats for the Varadero Company. They were built, launched, tried and delivered, and steamed away to overawe the piratical Moros. Still Juan continued in prison. Judges came and judges went, but the trial came no nearer. Year after year a judge of the Audiencia came in state to inspect the prisoners, and year after year Juan was set down as awaiting his trial.In December, 1892, I left the Philippines for Cuba and Juan de la Cruz was still in Cavite jail.Dr. Juan Perez, the surgeon who had examined the corpses, died, having wrongly diagnosed his own case, and Dr. Hugo Perez, a half caste, was appointed in his stead. Gustav Brown, the foreman, wearied of the monotony of ship repairing, became possessed by a longing to resume his nomadic life amongst the palm-clad islands of the Pacific. He purchased a schooner and embarked with his wife and family. First running down to Singapore to take in trade-goods for bartering with the natives, he sailed away for the Carolines where his wife’s home lay. He never reached them; for, soon after leaving Singapore, he came to a bloody end at the hands of his Chinese crew, who killed and decapitated him.The insurrection broke out in Cavite Province, Colonel Mattone’s column was defeated by the insurgents with great slaughter. Dr. Hugo Perez, the successor of Dr. Juan Perez, was suspected of sympathising with the rebels, and, needless to say,hesoon came to a bloody end.Hedid not have to wait long for his trial.In 1896, Mr. George Gilchrist, the engineer at the Varadero, who was not in the Philippines when the murders were committed, was cited by the judge, and asked if he couldidentify the prisoner ten years after his arrest! Two years more passed, and in April, 1898, Mr. Gilchrist returned to Scotland for a well-earned holiday. When he left Cañacao, Juan de la Cruz was still in prison awaiting his trial.He may have escaped when the rebels occupied Cavite after Admiral Dewey’s victory over the Spanish Squadron in the Bay of Bacoor.For the murderer no pity need be felt, he certainly had nothing to gain and all to lose by a trial. A double murder, premeditated, accompanied by acts of great barbarity, and committed at night, constitutes by the Penal Code a capital offence with three aggravating circumstances which would forbid all hope of clemency.But what can be thought of courts so remiss in their duty? How many innocent prisoners have waited years for their trial? How many have died in prison?Piratical Outrage in Luzon.At Laguimanóc, a port and village in the Province of Tayabas, there resided an Englishman, Mr. H. G. Brown, who had been many years in the Philippines. By the exercise of untiring industry, by braving the malaria of the primeval forests, and by his never-failing tact in dealing with the officials of the Woods and Forests on the one hand, and with the semi-barbarous and entirely lawless wood-cutters on the other, he had built up an extensive business in cutting timber in the state forests of Southern Luzon and the adjacent islands. He was owner of several sailing vessels, had a well-appointed saw-mill, and a comfortable residence at Languimanóc. He employed large numbers of wood-cutters; all under advances of pay, who were scattered about the Provinces of Tayabas, and Camarines Norte over a considerable area.His business was so considerable that he paid the Government fully $30,000 per year as royalty on timber which was mostly shipped to Hong Kong and Shanghai.In order to facilitate a business so profitable to them the Government placed a Custom House official at Atimónan, in the Bay of Lamon on the Pacific coast, to clear anddespatch his timber vessels loaded at Atimónan, Gumacas, Lopez, Alabat Island, or other places. To show how little Mr. Brown spared himself, I may mention that not even the dreaded jungle-fever of Mindoro prevented him from personally superintending the loading of several vessels at different ports of that pestilential island. In persistence and pluck he was a worthy predecessor of Professor D. C. Worcester, who years afterwards showed his Anglo-Saxon determination in the same fearsome spot.One day in December of 1884, Mr. Brown being absent in Hong Kong, and his manager, Mr. Anderson, busy on the Pacific coast, looking after the loading of a vessel, the out-door superintendent, a Swede named Alfred Olsen, was in charge of the house, office, and saw-mill at Laguimanóc, and was attending to the loading of theTartar, one of Mr. Brown’s ships which was anchored in the bay taking in timber for China. She had a native crew who occasionally of an evening, when ashore to enjoy themselves, got up a disturbance with the villagers. On board this vessel there were, as is usual, two Carabineros or Custom House guards to prevent smuggling.Although no one in the village suspected it, two large canoes full of armed men were lying concealed behind a point in Capuluan Cove on the opposite side of the Bay. At eight o’clock in the evening, it being quite dark, they came across, and in perfect order, according to a pre-arranged plan advanced in silence on the village. The assailants numbered twenty-eight men, and were variously armed with lances,bolosand daggers. Only the leader bore a revolver. A guard was left on the canoes, four of the gang were stationed at the door of Mr. Brown’s house, and others at strategic points, whilst the main body attacked theTribunalclose by which was also theestancowhere there was some Government money, postage stamps and stamped paper. At allTribunalesthere are a couple ofcuadrilleros, or village constables on guard, armed usually with lance andbolo. These men did their duty and manfully resisted the pirates. In the combat which ensued, the sergeant of the Cuadrilleros was killed and some on both sides were wounded, but the pirates got the best of the fight, and plundered theestanco.In the meantime, Olsen, having heard the uproar, may have thought that the crew of theTartarwere again making a disturbance. At all events he left the house unarmedand unsuspicious, thus walking into the trap laid for him. The Tagals have a great respect for fire-arms, more especially for the revolvers and repeating rifles of the foreigner, thus they did not venture to enter the house, but the moment Olsen stepped out into the darkness and before he could see round about him, he was attacked by two men on each side, who plunged their daggers into his body, piercing his lungs. Bleeding profusely and vomiting blood he rushed back into the house towards his bedroom to get his revolver which was under the bed. His assailants, however, followed him into the room and butchered him before he could grasp it. At least the revolver was afterwards found in its case with the perfect impress of his blood-stained hand upon the oaken lid. A native boy named Pablo, about eight years old, was in the house at the time, and in his terror squeezed himself into a narrow space behind the door and escaped discovery, although he was an eye-witness of the crime.By this time the alarm had spread all over the little village, and the noise was heard on board theTartar. The two Carabineros, taking their Remingtons and cartridge boxes, had themselves paddled on shore, and marching up the stairs which led to the rocky eminence on which the village stands, bravely advanced against the pirates although out-numbered by more than ten to one. They fired their rifles, but the gang rushed upon them and in a moment they were cut down, and according to Tagal custom, their bellies were ripped open. The pirates having now overcome all opposition and having plundered theestanco, and the inevitable Chinaman’s shop, transferred their attention to Mr. Brown’s house, which they ransacked, taking the contents of the safe, a collection of gold and silver coins, seven Martini-Henry rifles with ammunition, and two revolvers, as well as any other things they deemed of value. They burst open the desks, drawers, and wardrobes, cutting and hacking the furniture with theirbolosin wanton mischief. Then embarking their spoil, they sailed away with the land breeze.Information had been sent off to the nearest post of the Guardia Civil, and on its receipt, an officer with a force of that corps instantly set off and captured one party of the pirates red-handed as they beached their canoe. Within a week twenty-six had been captured and one shot dead whilst escaping. There only remained the leader. He, asit was afterwards discovered, was concealed in a secluded wood a few miles from Sariaya, and one night he was speared by the Captain of Cuadrilleros of that town, who is said to have had valid reasons for getting him out of the way.This band of pirates were a mixed lot; some of them wereprincipalesor members of the town council of Sariaya, a picturesque little place on the southern slope of Mount Banajao, and some from San Juan de Boc-boc; others were ordinary inhabitants, a few were outlaws from the San Juan mountains, and four or five were fishermen whom the gang had met on their passage by sea and had invited to accompany them. This custom ofConvitesis explained inChapter XXV. Of course the fishermen, when interrogated, declared they had been pressed into the service, but in fact very few natives have the moral courage to decline so pleasing an entertainment, as it appeals to a feeling deeply seated in their hearts, the love of rapine, only to be restrained by the heavy hand of a military police “who do not hesitate to shoot.” The provincial doctor arrived next morning with the judge who was to take the depositions of the villagers and draw up thesumario. Olsen was dead, the sergeant of Cuadrilleros also and one of theCarabineros, but strange to say, in spite of a dozen ghastly wounds, the other one was still alive, though his bowels were protruding, having fallen out through the gash which it is the Tagal custom to finish off with.When the provincial doctor saw him, he said, “Nothing can possibly be done for him,” and departed. So, abandoned to his own resources, he replaced the bowels himself, and getting one of the villagers to bind him up, he eventually recovered. He was seen by Mr. Brown a year or two later, and is probably alive now. This seems extraordinary, but a similar case occurred to a man who had worked under me. An English bricklayer named John Heath had been employed building furnaces and kilns in Manila, and having completed his work, took to farming and rented some grass meadows (sacate lands) at Mandaloyan. One night he and another Englishman staying with him were attacked in his house by a party of Tagals with drawnbolos. The visitor, although wounded, leaped from the window and escaped, but Heath was cut down, then lifted on to the window sill, hacked about, and finally, according to Tagal custom, ripped open and left for dead. Yet this man also entirelyrecovered, and after a year seemed as strong as ever, although he was advised not to exert his strength. This outrage was clearly agrarian, and was, I feel sure, committed by those who had previously rented these lands and had been turned out. No one was ever punished for it.To return to the gang of pirates; two had been killed, the rest were in prison. Year after year passed, still they remained in prison; judges came, stayed their term, were promoted and went, but still these men were never sentenced.In 1889, I visited Laguimanóc to make a plan and valuation of the property, as the business was about to be taken over by a Limited Liability Company, established in Hong Kong. This wasfive yearsafter the date of the murders, some of the prisoners had died in prison, the others were awaiting their sentence. But I found that the Government had established a sergeant’s post of the Guardia Civil in the village, which effectually prevented a repetition of the outrage.A year later I again visited Laguimanóc, but the trial of the prisoners was no further advanced. No less than nine of them died in prison, still no sentence was pronounced. Even for a Philippine Court this was extraordinary, for the gang had committed the unpardonable crime “Resistencia a fuerza armada” (Resistance to an armed force), and could have been tried by Court-martial and summarily shot. They had also dared to lay their profane hands on the sacred money-box containing a portion of the “Real Haber” (Government money), so that it was not only a question of murder and robbery of private people. But the Civil Court, negligent, slothful, and corrupt, could not be got to convict, and a few years ago, Mr. Brown having left the islands, the surviving prisoners werepardonedby the Queen Regent on the occasion of the young King’s birthday.The contrast between the military and civil elements in this case is very strong.The military element performed its duties thoroughly well, under great difficulties, and promptly arrested the malefactors. In my experience this has been always the case, and I draw from it the conclusion that military Government is essential to the pacification of the Philippines and that authority must be backed up by a nativeforce of constabulary under American officers who must be young and active.Such offences as piracy or gang-robbery should never come before a Civil Court, but should be promptly settled by court-martial before which no technicalities or legal subtleties need be taken into account.A firm, nay, a heavy hand over the Philippines is the most merciful in the long run.I am sorry to have to relate that the Company which took over Mr. Brown’s business did not long prosper. Whilst he remained at the head of it, all went well, but as soon as he left to take a much-needed rest, it began to fail. The personality of the individual is everything in most Spanish countries and especially in the Philippines. No manager could be found who could keep on terms with the officials, control the wild wood-cutters or risk jungle-fever by entering the forests to personally inspect the work.The organization decayed and the business went to pieces. Let intending investors take note.
Chapter V.Tagal Crime and Spanish Justice.The murder of a Spaniard—Promptitude of the Courts—The case of Juan de la Cruz—Twelve years in prison waiting trial—Piratical outrage in Luzon—Culprits never tried; several die in prison.The penal code of the Philippines, which came into force in 1884, declares it impossible to consider as an aggravation of an offence the circumstance of colour or race in the offender, for the criminal is to be punished for his crime and not for the condition of inferiority to which nature has condemned him.It goes on to say that on the other hand his condition should not be allowed to attenuate the sentence, for that would constitute an odious privilege, an unbearable inequality.It therefore proudly proclaims the equality of all races before the law. These are noble words; we shall see how they work out in practice.The case of Juan de la Cruz shows us that a criminal investigation can drag on for twelve years without coming on for trial when the victims are natives and of lowly station. I could cite cases where the victims were British subjects, and the murderers were never punished, and another case where a Frenchman was the victim. The murderer in this case was to have been pardoned by the Governor-General, but the French consul threatened to haul down his flag and leave the islands unless the assassin was executed; and he was executed, the consul attending to see the sentence carried outThe British Foreign Office does not encourage its agents to such energetic acts. To obtain the good graces of the Foreign Office a consul should be devoid of talent or originality. Mediocrity is the condition sought for. It is never advisable for one of Her Britannic Majesty’s consulsto be active in protecting Her Britannic Majesty’s subjects. What he must aim at if he wishes for consideration and promotion is to give the Foreign Office no trouble. The ideal consul would be he who is only heard of once a quarter, when he certifies that he is alive, and asks that his salary may be paid.I will relate a murder that made an impression on me at the time, where the victim was a Spaniard. In June of 1881, I was at Santa Cruz in the Laguna Province for several days, making experiments with some patent centrifugals, steaming and drying the fine Laguna sugar. Quite close to thecamarin, where the machines were at work, lived an elderly Spaniard who was a government employé in some subordinate position. I think he was the Subdelegado de Hacienda, or sub-provincial treasurer. I had once or twice called upon the old gentleman, whose appearance and manners were above his official rank, and had been politely received by him. On completing my experiments, I called to take leave of him, and was sorry to find him suffering from fever, and very weak.I returned to Manila, and next day was horrified to read in a newspaper that he had been murdered in the night by his two servants. This atrocious crime, committed on a helpless and infirm old man, with every circumstance of premeditation and barbarity, and with the object of robbery, roused the indignation of every European. The culprits were soon apprehended, and such expedition was used by the Promotor Fiscal and the court, that within a week from the perpetration of the murder the two servants were garrotted on a scaffold erected near the scene of their barbarous crime.Such is the rapidity with which the Philippine courts could act when a Spaniard was the victim and when public opinion was deeply stirred by some shocking tragedy.The case of Juan de la Cruz.The following narrative of events, which occurred in 1886, will give the reader a good idea of the furious passions that may lurk under the inscrutable features of the Philippine Malay, and will also serve to illustrate the procedure of the Spanish criminal courts when the victims are natives and when nothing can be made out of the case.Four of the five actors or victims in the tragedy were well known to me, and I learned all the particulars at first hand and at the time, from those who took steps to deliver over the culprit to justice.The decked steam launchLaguimanocbelonged to Gustav Brown, a ship carpenter, and was hired by the Varadero, or Slipway Company of Cañacao, near Cavite, to keep up communication with Manila, whilst the slip was being constructed.I was consulting engineer to the company, and Mr. J. L. Houston was the resident engineer in charge of the work. Both of us made frequent voyages in this launch between Cañacao and Manila. The crew consisted of a patron (coxswain) named Juan de la Cruz, an engine-driver, a stoker, and a boy, all Tagals.Juan de la Cruz was an elderly man with grey hair, and in figure thin and wiry. He was a good man at his duty, one of the silent Indians whom I have always found to be the best. A thorough sailor, he had served under many a flag, and sailed o’er many a sea, both in tropic and in northern climes.The engine-driver and the stoker were brothers, strong and well-built young fellows, and smart at their work. The boy was an active lad, quite pleased to be employed on a steam-boat.One day, the stoker, going through the blacksmith’s shop, saw a piece of square steel, which had been cut off a long bar, lying on the floor, and it struck him that it would be better than a hammer for breaking coal. So he annexed it without leave, and got one end drawn out and rounded so that he could easily hold it. This made a very efficient coal-breaker, the sharp edges divided the lumps with great ease. It was about eighteen inches long, and one and three-quarter inches square. The patron was married, and his wife lived in Manila, but, sailor-like, he had provided himself with a sweetheart, at the other end of his run, where he spent more time than in the Pasig, and had become intimate with a damsel of San Roque, a village between the Varadero and Cavite. Things went on apparently all right for some time; the launch making almost daily trips between Cañacao and Manila, and the elderly patron alternating between the conjugal domicile and the dwelling of his mistress. She was young, and, as native girls go, a pretty woman. Come of a strange andunknown mixture of races, and bred up amongst a community noted for its profligacy, she knew how to make the best use of her charms and was well fitted to captivate the weather-beaten seaman.He, if not desirable in himself, held a well paid post, and was able to place her above want.Already fifty years old, he was as susceptible as a youth and far more in earnest. Day by day, as he basked in her smiles, his infatuation increased till he became violently enamoured of his charmer.What could be more natural than that the crew of the launch should become acquainted with the patron’s mistress? Soon the engine-driver and the stoker were her constant visitors. The damsel had a kind word and a smile for both, and doubtless contrasted their vigorous youth and shapely forms with the shrunken figure of her elderly protector, and their lively conversation with his glum silence.In the end, no doubt, the damsel refused them nothing.Trouble was now brewing. The grim sailor was not the man to let himself be wronged with impunity. All the elements of a tragedy were present. Things no longer went smoothly on board theLaguimanoc, and her voyages lost their regularity. Something was perpetually going wrong with the engines, pieces or fittings disappeared unaccountably, usually pieces of copper or brass. The engine-driver was blamed, but he succeeded in averting his impending discharge. Could he have foreseen the consequences of remaining, he would have promptly discharged himself.On board the launch mutual distrust prevailed. The engine-driver must have known that it was the patron who had thrown overboard the fittings in his absence, hoping to get him discharged, but he held his peace.The silent figure at the tiller made no sign; no trace of emotion could be seen on the Sphinx-like face, no reproaches passed his lips, not the slightest manifestation of resentment. But underneath that imperturbable calm there existed the steadfast determination to have a full and bloody revenge on all who had offended him. TheLaguimanocmade a voyage to Manila one Saturday to take up the resident engineer who often spent his Sundays there, the launch remaining in the river. On Monday morning when he came down to the launch he found thatthe safety valve was missing from its seat, and was delayed till another could be procured.No explanations of the loss of this piece could be got, and theLaguimanocproceeded with the resident engineer to Cañacao and made fast to the jetty.A crisis was now reached. The abstraction of the safety-valve could not be overlooked, and some one would have to go. An inquiry was to be made, but on Tuesday morning the patron walked up the jetty, and reported to Mr. Gustav Brown, who was the foreman of the works, that the engine-driver and stoker were absent. He stated that they had gone ashore in the night, and had not returned. Nothing could be learned about them; nobody had seen them; their kits were still on board. As the day wore on they did not come nor send any message; so a report of their disappearance was sent to the judge at Cavite.An engine-fitter from the works was sent on board to take charge of the engine, and another stoker was engaged; the launch resuming her running. The work of the Varadero proceeded as usual; divers were preparing the foundations to receive the immense gridiron which was shortly to be launched and sunk in place. It was a busy scene of organised labour under a skilful resident engineer; every difficulty foreseen and provided for, materials delivered in good time, notwithstanding obstructions; not an unnecessary auger-hole bored, not a stroke of an adze thrown away.From the Sleepy Hollow of the naval arsenal opposite jealous eyes watched the work proceed. Every art of vexation and obstruction that bitter envy could devise had for years been employed to prevent the building of this slip, and onerous and unfair conditions had been inserted in the concession. But Anglo-American persistence and industry had succeeded so far, and in the hands of Messrs. Peel, Hubbell & Co. and their advisers, the work was now well advanced.The obsolete corvetteDoña Maria Molinawas moored off the coaling-wharf adjoining the Varadero, and when one of her boats was going on shore the sailors noticed two dead bodies floating in the water, and reported this to the officer of the watch, who ordered them to tow the bodies to the shore towards Punta Sangley, and drag them up on the sand above high-water mark. The bodies were lashed together with a piece of new rope having a blue strand inthe centre, and had a good-sized piece of white granite attached as a sinker. On looking at the lashings no one could doubt that the work had been done by an able seaman. The bodies presented ghastly wounds, both had fractures of the skull, and gaping cuts on the throat and abdomen; they had also been gnawed by fishes. The swelling of the bodies had sufficed to bring them to the surface, stone and all.The news of the finding of the corpses did not immediately reach the Varadero, and they were conveyed to Cavite, and buried just as they were found, tied together with the ropes and stone, without being identified. It seemed nobody’s business to trouble about them, notwithstanding the evident fact that they had been murdered. The Manila newspapers did not mention the circumstance.But at this time other events happened. The patron of the launch disappeared without taking his kit with him. Then the boy disappeared, and I may as well at once say that, from that time to this, that boy has never been heard of by the Varadero Company, who were his employers. Next, that gay and lascivious damsel of San Roque, whose unbridled sensuality had wrought the trouble, also disappeared as mysteriously as the others.Dr. Juan Perez, of Cavite, was the medical attendant to the staff of the Varadero, and used to call there every afternoon. On hearing from him about the discovery of the bodies, the resident engineer at once thought of his missing men, and the flight of the patron confirmed his suspicions. A minute examination of the launch was made, and revealed some stains of blood which had not been entirely removed by the usual washing down. Several small cuts such as might be made with the point of abolowere found in the flat skylight of the cabin, and a deeper cut on the bulwark rail, starboard side forward, opposite the skylight. A working rope was missing from the launch. It had only recently been supplied to it, and had been cut off a whole coil purchased a few weeks before from a sailing-vessel, for the use of the Varadero. That rope had a blue strand in the centre. Gustav Brown put on a diving-dress, and went down at the head of the northern jetty, where the launch used to lie, and carefully examined the bottom. Presently his eye rested on an object that he recognised. It was the square steel coal-breaker used by the stoker, and he brought it up.Meanwhile, a new coxswain had been found for the launch, and as the old patron had left his vessel illegally, there was ground for his arrest on that score, so orders were given to the new patron and to the engine-driver to give him into custody if he came to claim his kit. Next time the launch arrived in Manila, sure enough the old patron appeared to fetch his belongings, and was taken to the calaboose of the captain of the port. The resident engineer called on that official, and, as a result of their conversation, the prisoner was put on board the launch to be conveyed to Cavite.With all the stoicism of the Malay, he sat quite still and silent; his impassive features betrayed no sign of anxiety or remorse.But if the principal actor in this bloody tragedy could thus compose his mind, it was not so with others who knew more or less what had happened, but whose dread and hatred of the law and its myrmidons had kept their tongues quiet.When the launch approached the Varadero near enough for the prisoner to be recognised, an unusual commotion occurred amongst the swarm of native workmen. A mysterious magnetism, an inexplicable vibration, pervaded the crowd. Unfelt by the senses, it acted on the mind, and seemed simultaneously to convey to each individual an identical idea.The patron was a prisoner, therefore his crime was known; no good could be done by keeping silent. Before this nobody knew anything about the disappearance of the two men. Now it leaked out, but only in confidence to Gustav Brown, whom they trusted. The native divers had seen the bodies when at their work on the foundations, and had moved them farther off out of their way. Men working at the jetties had seen them when they floated, but had looked in another direction. In fact, the corpses had been recognised, and the crime was known to scores of native and Chinese workmen, but no word or hint ever reached the foreman or the engineer till the culprit was arrested.Now there were sufficient details to reconstitute the tragic scene.The amour of the brothers with the San Roque girl was known, and also the well-founded jealousy of the patron, who at first endeavoured to obtain the engine-driver’s discharge by the means already mentioned. This notsucceeding, he determined to kill both of them, and without showing a sign of the deadly hatred that possessed him, calmly awaited his opportunity.On the Monday night, 7th June, after the incident of the safety-valve, the launch was moored alongside the Varadero jetty, and the two brothers lay fast asleep on the flat top of the cabin skylight, each wrapped in his blanket.A native sleeps hard, and is not easily awakened, nor when aroused does he quickly regain his faculties. It is an important point in the Malay code of manners never to awaken any person suddenly, for it is believed that, during sleep, the soul is absent from the body, wandering around, and must be given time to return, otherwise serious, even fatal consequences, may ensue. The awakened person may become an idiot, or some great harm may happen to the unmannerly one who awakened him. Many natives have as great a fear of the wandering soul of a sleeping person as of an evil spirit or ghost. The soul is said to return to the body in the form of a small black ball, which enters the mouth.Moreover, one of the greatest, in fact, the most terrible, curse that can be uttered by many tribes, is, “May you die sleeping,” for it means death to body and soul. That, however, was the fate reserved for the brothers. Towards midnight, when the cooking-fires in the coolie quarters had burnt down, and the chatter of the Chinese had subsided, when the last lights in the Europeans’ houses had been extinguished, and not a sound broke the stillness of the night, the patron addressed himself to the performance of his bloody task. Slipping his sharpenedbolothrough his belt, he descended into the engine-room, and, seizing the coal-breaker, crept forward to where the doomed men slumbered, perhaps dreaming of the charms of that dark damsel, the enjoyment of whose embraces was to cost them so dear. Meanwhile, their fate approached; their time was come.The patron was past his prime; privations at sea and dissipation on shore had sapped his strength. But bitter hatred nerving his arm, with lightning rapidity and terrific force he discharged a blow on each sleeper’s unprotected head. The sharp edge of the steel bar crashed deep into their skulls, driving in the splintered bone upon the brain. One agonised shudder from each, then all was still. A European murderer might have been satisfied with this.Not so a Tagal. A ceremony still remained to be accomplished. Their blood must flow; they must suffer mutilation. Seizing hisbolo, the assassin now vented his rage in cutting and thrusting at the bodies. The heavy and keen-edged blade fell repeatedly, cutting great gashes on the throats and bellies of the victims, whilst streams of gore ran down the waterways, and trickled out at the scuppers, staining the white sides of the launch with crimson streaks.His blood-thirst assuaged, his vengeance partly accomplished, and his spirit comforted by his desperate deed, the murderer probably paused for a time, and began to consider how he could conceal his crime. No sign of movement anywhere. Apparently the dull sounds of the blows had fallen on no mortal ear. Presently, taking up one of his working ropes, he mounted the jetty, and walked to the shore, where there lay a pile of stone ballast. It was white granite, discharged from a sailing-ship that had come from Hong Kong in ballast, and it had been purchased for the Varadero. Selecting a suitable piece, he carried it to the end of the jetty, and lowered it by the rope into the launch. Then, descending, he firmly lashed the two bodies together, and fastened the stone to them. Then he drew the bodies to the side, preparatory to launching them overboard. Now an incident occurred. It is thought that one of the two men was not quite dead, notwithstanding his dreadful wounds, and that recovering consciousness, and perceiving what awaited him, seized the rail in his death-grasp, and resisted the attempt to throw him over.The patron must once again have had recourse to his murderousbolo, bringing it down on the clenched hand, for a deep cut was found on the rail with blood driven into the pores of the wood by that savage blow. The tendons severed, the hand unclasped, and next moment the bodies slid over the rail and down underneath the keel of the launch in some four fathoms of water. Throwing the steel coal-breaker after them, the patron’s next task was to wash away the traces of his crime, and this he did fairly well so that nothing was noticed, till, suspicion being aroused, a careful scrutiny was made, with the result already mentioned. It is not known whether the boy knew anything of the tragedy performed so near him, for he was never questioned, having apparently disappeared off the face of the earth as soon as the bodies were found. What the patron did afterwards can only be conjectured. Guilty oftwo atrocious murders, and of savage mutilation of the slain, could he have composed himself to a quiet and dreamless slumber? Or was his imagination fired to further revenge by dream-pictures of his once-loved mistress in the arms of her youthful lovers? All that is known is that he presented himself to the foreman early on the Tuesday morning, and reported the absence of the two men without showing on his dark visage the slightest sign of trouble or emotion.We left the patron a prisoner on the launch. Now it became necessary to give him in charge to the judicial authorities, for it was getting late in the afternoon. They did not show any undue eagerness to receive him. The judge first applied to explained that he was only acting temporarily, that the judge had departed, having been transferred to another place, and that the new judge had not yet arrived, therefore he much regretted he could not take up the case. An appeal was then made to the Gobernador-Politico-Militar, who most courteously explained that a civil court was established in the province with full jurisdiction, both criminal and civil, so that he could not interfere. It was now nearly sunset, and the prisoner had been on the launch all day. The resident engineer then called on the Commandante of Cañacao—a naval officer who had a few marines at his disposal—and obtained as a personal favour that the prisoner should be temporarily secured in the guard-room. The next day the resident engineer proceeded to Cavite, and, accompanied by Dr. Juan Perez, visited the principal authorities, and eventually succeeded in getting the prisoner lodged in jail, and a charge of murder entered against him. The bodies of the victims were never exhumed for examination. The resident engineer made a declaration, which was taken down in writing, and on one of his busiest days he was peremptorily summoned to appear before the judge, and solemnly ratify his testimony.About three days after Juan de la Cruz was lodged in Cavite jail, the dead body of the San Roque damsel, gashed by savage blows of the fatalbolo, was left by the ebb on the sands of Parañaque, a village just across the little Bay of Bacoor opposite to San Roque. She had paid with her life for her frailty as many another woman has done in every clime. From the appearance of the body it was thought it had been several days in the water.No legal evidence was forthcoming to fix the crime on any one, although few of those who knew the story harboured a doubt that the assassin of the two brothers was the murderer of the girl also.Juan de la Cruz remained in prison, and from time to time, but with increasing intervals, the resident engineer, the foreman and others were cited by the judge, interrogated, then cited again to ratify their declarations.Theespediente, a pile of stamped paper, grew thicker and thicker, but the trial seemed no nearer. Month after month rolled on, the Varadero was finished, ships were drawn up, repaired and launched, Juan continued in prison.The resident engineer departed to other climes, and was soon expending his energy in building the great harbour at La Guayra. I was the means of obtaining an order for six gun-boats for the Varadero Company. They were built, launched, tried and delivered, and steamed away to overawe the piratical Moros. Still Juan continued in prison. Judges came and judges went, but the trial came no nearer. Year after year a judge of the Audiencia came in state to inspect the prisoners, and year after year Juan was set down as awaiting his trial.In December, 1892, I left the Philippines for Cuba and Juan de la Cruz was still in Cavite jail.Dr. Juan Perez, the surgeon who had examined the corpses, died, having wrongly diagnosed his own case, and Dr. Hugo Perez, a half caste, was appointed in his stead. Gustav Brown, the foreman, wearied of the monotony of ship repairing, became possessed by a longing to resume his nomadic life amongst the palm-clad islands of the Pacific. He purchased a schooner and embarked with his wife and family. First running down to Singapore to take in trade-goods for bartering with the natives, he sailed away for the Carolines where his wife’s home lay. He never reached them; for, soon after leaving Singapore, he came to a bloody end at the hands of his Chinese crew, who killed and decapitated him.The insurrection broke out in Cavite Province, Colonel Mattone’s column was defeated by the insurgents with great slaughter. Dr. Hugo Perez, the successor of Dr. Juan Perez, was suspected of sympathising with the rebels, and, needless to say,hesoon came to a bloody end.Hedid not have to wait long for his trial.In 1896, Mr. George Gilchrist, the engineer at the Varadero, who was not in the Philippines when the murders were committed, was cited by the judge, and asked if he couldidentify the prisoner ten years after his arrest! Two years more passed, and in April, 1898, Mr. Gilchrist returned to Scotland for a well-earned holiday. When he left Cañacao, Juan de la Cruz was still in prison awaiting his trial.He may have escaped when the rebels occupied Cavite after Admiral Dewey’s victory over the Spanish Squadron in the Bay of Bacoor.For the murderer no pity need be felt, he certainly had nothing to gain and all to lose by a trial. A double murder, premeditated, accompanied by acts of great barbarity, and committed at night, constitutes by the Penal Code a capital offence with three aggravating circumstances which would forbid all hope of clemency.But what can be thought of courts so remiss in their duty? How many innocent prisoners have waited years for their trial? How many have died in prison?Piratical Outrage in Luzon.At Laguimanóc, a port and village in the Province of Tayabas, there resided an Englishman, Mr. H. G. Brown, who had been many years in the Philippines. By the exercise of untiring industry, by braving the malaria of the primeval forests, and by his never-failing tact in dealing with the officials of the Woods and Forests on the one hand, and with the semi-barbarous and entirely lawless wood-cutters on the other, he had built up an extensive business in cutting timber in the state forests of Southern Luzon and the adjacent islands. He was owner of several sailing vessels, had a well-appointed saw-mill, and a comfortable residence at Languimanóc. He employed large numbers of wood-cutters; all under advances of pay, who were scattered about the Provinces of Tayabas, and Camarines Norte over a considerable area.His business was so considerable that he paid the Government fully $30,000 per year as royalty on timber which was mostly shipped to Hong Kong and Shanghai.In order to facilitate a business so profitable to them the Government placed a Custom House official at Atimónan, in the Bay of Lamon on the Pacific coast, to clear anddespatch his timber vessels loaded at Atimónan, Gumacas, Lopez, Alabat Island, or other places. To show how little Mr. Brown spared himself, I may mention that not even the dreaded jungle-fever of Mindoro prevented him from personally superintending the loading of several vessels at different ports of that pestilential island. In persistence and pluck he was a worthy predecessor of Professor D. C. Worcester, who years afterwards showed his Anglo-Saxon determination in the same fearsome spot.One day in December of 1884, Mr. Brown being absent in Hong Kong, and his manager, Mr. Anderson, busy on the Pacific coast, looking after the loading of a vessel, the out-door superintendent, a Swede named Alfred Olsen, was in charge of the house, office, and saw-mill at Laguimanóc, and was attending to the loading of theTartar, one of Mr. Brown’s ships which was anchored in the bay taking in timber for China. She had a native crew who occasionally of an evening, when ashore to enjoy themselves, got up a disturbance with the villagers. On board this vessel there were, as is usual, two Carabineros or Custom House guards to prevent smuggling.Although no one in the village suspected it, two large canoes full of armed men were lying concealed behind a point in Capuluan Cove on the opposite side of the Bay. At eight o’clock in the evening, it being quite dark, they came across, and in perfect order, according to a pre-arranged plan advanced in silence on the village. The assailants numbered twenty-eight men, and were variously armed with lances,bolosand daggers. Only the leader bore a revolver. A guard was left on the canoes, four of the gang were stationed at the door of Mr. Brown’s house, and others at strategic points, whilst the main body attacked theTribunalclose by which was also theestancowhere there was some Government money, postage stamps and stamped paper. At allTribunalesthere are a couple ofcuadrilleros, or village constables on guard, armed usually with lance andbolo. These men did their duty and manfully resisted the pirates. In the combat which ensued, the sergeant of the Cuadrilleros was killed and some on both sides were wounded, but the pirates got the best of the fight, and plundered theestanco.In the meantime, Olsen, having heard the uproar, may have thought that the crew of theTartarwere again making a disturbance. At all events he left the house unarmedand unsuspicious, thus walking into the trap laid for him. The Tagals have a great respect for fire-arms, more especially for the revolvers and repeating rifles of the foreigner, thus they did not venture to enter the house, but the moment Olsen stepped out into the darkness and before he could see round about him, he was attacked by two men on each side, who plunged their daggers into his body, piercing his lungs. Bleeding profusely and vomiting blood he rushed back into the house towards his bedroom to get his revolver which was under the bed. His assailants, however, followed him into the room and butchered him before he could grasp it. At least the revolver was afterwards found in its case with the perfect impress of his blood-stained hand upon the oaken lid. A native boy named Pablo, about eight years old, was in the house at the time, and in his terror squeezed himself into a narrow space behind the door and escaped discovery, although he was an eye-witness of the crime.By this time the alarm had spread all over the little village, and the noise was heard on board theTartar. The two Carabineros, taking their Remingtons and cartridge boxes, had themselves paddled on shore, and marching up the stairs which led to the rocky eminence on which the village stands, bravely advanced against the pirates although out-numbered by more than ten to one. They fired their rifles, but the gang rushed upon them and in a moment they were cut down, and according to Tagal custom, their bellies were ripped open. The pirates having now overcome all opposition and having plundered theestanco, and the inevitable Chinaman’s shop, transferred their attention to Mr. Brown’s house, which they ransacked, taking the contents of the safe, a collection of gold and silver coins, seven Martini-Henry rifles with ammunition, and two revolvers, as well as any other things they deemed of value. They burst open the desks, drawers, and wardrobes, cutting and hacking the furniture with theirbolosin wanton mischief. Then embarking their spoil, they sailed away with the land breeze.Information had been sent off to the nearest post of the Guardia Civil, and on its receipt, an officer with a force of that corps instantly set off and captured one party of the pirates red-handed as they beached their canoe. Within a week twenty-six had been captured and one shot dead whilst escaping. There only remained the leader. He, asit was afterwards discovered, was concealed in a secluded wood a few miles from Sariaya, and one night he was speared by the Captain of Cuadrilleros of that town, who is said to have had valid reasons for getting him out of the way.This band of pirates were a mixed lot; some of them wereprincipalesor members of the town council of Sariaya, a picturesque little place on the southern slope of Mount Banajao, and some from San Juan de Boc-boc; others were ordinary inhabitants, a few were outlaws from the San Juan mountains, and four or five were fishermen whom the gang had met on their passage by sea and had invited to accompany them. This custom ofConvitesis explained inChapter XXV. Of course the fishermen, when interrogated, declared they had been pressed into the service, but in fact very few natives have the moral courage to decline so pleasing an entertainment, as it appeals to a feeling deeply seated in their hearts, the love of rapine, only to be restrained by the heavy hand of a military police “who do not hesitate to shoot.” The provincial doctor arrived next morning with the judge who was to take the depositions of the villagers and draw up thesumario. Olsen was dead, the sergeant of Cuadrilleros also and one of theCarabineros, but strange to say, in spite of a dozen ghastly wounds, the other one was still alive, though his bowels were protruding, having fallen out through the gash which it is the Tagal custom to finish off with.When the provincial doctor saw him, he said, “Nothing can possibly be done for him,” and departed. So, abandoned to his own resources, he replaced the bowels himself, and getting one of the villagers to bind him up, he eventually recovered. He was seen by Mr. Brown a year or two later, and is probably alive now. This seems extraordinary, but a similar case occurred to a man who had worked under me. An English bricklayer named John Heath had been employed building furnaces and kilns in Manila, and having completed his work, took to farming and rented some grass meadows (sacate lands) at Mandaloyan. One night he and another Englishman staying with him were attacked in his house by a party of Tagals with drawnbolos. The visitor, although wounded, leaped from the window and escaped, but Heath was cut down, then lifted on to the window sill, hacked about, and finally, according to Tagal custom, ripped open and left for dead. Yet this man also entirelyrecovered, and after a year seemed as strong as ever, although he was advised not to exert his strength. This outrage was clearly agrarian, and was, I feel sure, committed by those who had previously rented these lands and had been turned out. No one was ever punished for it.To return to the gang of pirates; two had been killed, the rest were in prison. Year after year passed, still they remained in prison; judges came, stayed their term, were promoted and went, but still these men were never sentenced.In 1889, I visited Laguimanóc to make a plan and valuation of the property, as the business was about to be taken over by a Limited Liability Company, established in Hong Kong. This wasfive yearsafter the date of the murders, some of the prisoners had died in prison, the others were awaiting their sentence. But I found that the Government had established a sergeant’s post of the Guardia Civil in the village, which effectually prevented a repetition of the outrage.A year later I again visited Laguimanóc, but the trial of the prisoners was no further advanced. No less than nine of them died in prison, still no sentence was pronounced. Even for a Philippine Court this was extraordinary, for the gang had committed the unpardonable crime “Resistencia a fuerza armada” (Resistance to an armed force), and could have been tried by Court-martial and summarily shot. They had also dared to lay their profane hands on the sacred money-box containing a portion of the “Real Haber” (Government money), so that it was not only a question of murder and robbery of private people. But the Civil Court, negligent, slothful, and corrupt, could not be got to convict, and a few years ago, Mr. Brown having left the islands, the surviving prisoners werepardonedby the Queen Regent on the occasion of the young King’s birthday.The contrast between the military and civil elements in this case is very strong.The military element performed its duties thoroughly well, under great difficulties, and promptly arrested the malefactors. In my experience this has been always the case, and I draw from it the conclusion that military Government is essential to the pacification of the Philippines and that authority must be backed up by a nativeforce of constabulary under American officers who must be young and active.Such offences as piracy or gang-robbery should never come before a Civil Court, but should be promptly settled by court-martial before which no technicalities or legal subtleties need be taken into account.A firm, nay, a heavy hand over the Philippines is the most merciful in the long run.I am sorry to have to relate that the Company which took over Mr. Brown’s business did not long prosper. Whilst he remained at the head of it, all went well, but as soon as he left to take a much-needed rest, it began to fail. The personality of the individual is everything in most Spanish countries and especially in the Philippines. No manager could be found who could keep on terms with the officials, control the wild wood-cutters or risk jungle-fever by entering the forests to personally inspect the work.The organization decayed and the business went to pieces. Let intending investors take note.
Chapter V.Tagal Crime and Spanish Justice.The murder of a Spaniard—Promptitude of the Courts—The case of Juan de la Cruz—Twelve years in prison waiting trial—Piratical outrage in Luzon—Culprits never tried; several die in prison.The penal code of the Philippines, which came into force in 1884, declares it impossible to consider as an aggravation of an offence the circumstance of colour or race in the offender, for the criminal is to be punished for his crime and not for the condition of inferiority to which nature has condemned him.It goes on to say that on the other hand his condition should not be allowed to attenuate the sentence, for that would constitute an odious privilege, an unbearable inequality.It therefore proudly proclaims the equality of all races before the law. These are noble words; we shall see how they work out in practice.The case of Juan de la Cruz shows us that a criminal investigation can drag on for twelve years without coming on for trial when the victims are natives and of lowly station. I could cite cases where the victims were British subjects, and the murderers were never punished, and another case where a Frenchman was the victim. The murderer in this case was to have been pardoned by the Governor-General, but the French consul threatened to haul down his flag and leave the islands unless the assassin was executed; and he was executed, the consul attending to see the sentence carried outThe British Foreign Office does not encourage its agents to such energetic acts. To obtain the good graces of the Foreign Office a consul should be devoid of talent or originality. Mediocrity is the condition sought for. It is never advisable for one of Her Britannic Majesty’s consulsto be active in protecting Her Britannic Majesty’s subjects. What he must aim at if he wishes for consideration and promotion is to give the Foreign Office no trouble. The ideal consul would be he who is only heard of once a quarter, when he certifies that he is alive, and asks that his salary may be paid.I will relate a murder that made an impression on me at the time, where the victim was a Spaniard. In June of 1881, I was at Santa Cruz in the Laguna Province for several days, making experiments with some patent centrifugals, steaming and drying the fine Laguna sugar. Quite close to thecamarin, where the machines were at work, lived an elderly Spaniard who was a government employé in some subordinate position. I think he was the Subdelegado de Hacienda, or sub-provincial treasurer. I had once or twice called upon the old gentleman, whose appearance and manners were above his official rank, and had been politely received by him. On completing my experiments, I called to take leave of him, and was sorry to find him suffering from fever, and very weak.I returned to Manila, and next day was horrified to read in a newspaper that he had been murdered in the night by his two servants. This atrocious crime, committed on a helpless and infirm old man, with every circumstance of premeditation and barbarity, and with the object of robbery, roused the indignation of every European. The culprits were soon apprehended, and such expedition was used by the Promotor Fiscal and the court, that within a week from the perpetration of the murder the two servants were garrotted on a scaffold erected near the scene of their barbarous crime.Such is the rapidity with which the Philippine courts could act when a Spaniard was the victim and when public opinion was deeply stirred by some shocking tragedy.The case of Juan de la Cruz.The following narrative of events, which occurred in 1886, will give the reader a good idea of the furious passions that may lurk under the inscrutable features of the Philippine Malay, and will also serve to illustrate the procedure of the Spanish criminal courts when the victims are natives and when nothing can be made out of the case.Four of the five actors or victims in the tragedy were well known to me, and I learned all the particulars at first hand and at the time, from those who took steps to deliver over the culprit to justice.The decked steam launchLaguimanocbelonged to Gustav Brown, a ship carpenter, and was hired by the Varadero, or Slipway Company of Cañacao, near Cavite, to keep up communication with Manila, whilst the slip was being constructed.I was consulting engineer to the company, and Mr. J. L. Houston was the resident engineer in charge of the work. Both of us made frequent voyages in this launch between Cañacao and Manila. The crew consisted of a patron (coxswain) named Juan de la Cruz, an engine-driver, a stoker, and a boy, all Tagals.Juan de la Cruz was an elderly man with grey hair, and in figure thin and wiry. He was a good man at his duty, one of the silent Indians whom I have always found to be the best. A thorough sailor, he had served under many a flag, and sailed o’er many a sea, both in tropic and in northern climes.The engine-driver and the stoker were brothers, strong and well-built young fellows, and smart at their work. The boy was an active lad, quite pleased to be employed on a steam-boat.One day, the stoker, going through the blacksmith’s shop, saw a piece of square steel, which had been cut off a long bar, lying on the floor, and it struck him that it would be better than a hammer for breaking coal. So he annexed it without leave, and got one end drawn out and rounded so that he could easily hold it. This made a very efficient coal-breaker, the sharp edges divided the lumps with great ease. It was about eighteen inches long, and one and three-quarter inches square. The patron was married, and his wife lived in Manila, but, sailor-like, he had provided himself with a sweetheart, at the other end of his run, where he spent more time than in the Pasig, and had become intimate with a damsel of San Roque, a village between the Varadero and Cavite. Things went on apparently all right for some time; the launch making almost daily trips between Cañacao and Manila, and the elderly patron alternating between the conjugal domicile and the dwelling of his mistress. She was young, and, as native girls go, a pretty woman. Come of a strange andunknown mixture of races, and bred up amongst a community noted for its profligacy, she knew how to make the best use of her charms and was well fitted to captivate the weather-beaten seaman.He, if not desirable in himself, held a well paid post, and was able to place her above want.Already fifty years old, he was as susceptible as a youth and far more in earnest. Day by day, as he basked in her smiles, his infatuation increased till he became violently enamoured of his charmer.What could be more natural than that the crew of the launch should become acquainted with the patron’s mistress? Soon the engine-driver and the stoker were her constant visitors. The damsel had a kind word and a smile for both, and doubtless contrasted their vigorous youth and shapely forms with the shrunken figure of her elderly protector, and their lively conversation with his glum silence.In the end, no doubt, the damsel refused them nothing.Trouble was now brewing. The grim sailor was not the man to let himself be wronged with impunity. All the elements of a tragedy were present. Things no longer went smoothly on board theLaguimanoc, and her voyages lost their regularity. Something was perpetually going wrong with the engines, pieces or fittings disappeared unaccountably, usually pieces of copper or brass. The engine-driver was blamed, but he succeeded in averting his impending discharge. Could he have foreseen the consequences of remaining, he would have promptly discharged himself.On board the launch mutual distrust prevailed. The engine-driver must have known that it was the patron who had thrown overboard the fittings in his absence, hoping to get him discharged, but he held his peace.The silent figure at the tiller made no sign; no trace of emotion could be seen on the Sphinx-like face, no reproaches passed his lips, not the slightest manifestation of resentment. But underneath that imperturbable calm there existed the steadfast determination to have a full and bloody revenge on all who had offended him. TheLaguimanocmade a voyage to Manila one Saturday to take up the resident engineer who often spent his Sundays there, the launch remaining in the river. On Monday morning when he came down to the launch he found thatthe safety valve was missing from its seat, and was delayed till another could be procured.No explanations of the loss of this piece could be got, and theLaguimanocproceeded with the resident engineer to Cañacao and made fast to the jetty.A crisis was now reached. The abstraction of the safety-valve could not be overlooked, and some one would have to go. An inquiry was to be made, but on Tuesday morning the patron walked up the jetty, and reported to Mr. Gustav Brown, who was the foreman of the works, that the engine-driver and stoker were absent. He stated that they had gone ashore in the night, and had not returned. Nothing could be learned about them; nobody had seen them; their kits were still on board. As the day wore on they did not come nor send any message; so a report of their disappearance was sent to the judge at Cavite.An engine-fitter from the works was sent on board to take charge of the engine, and another stoker was engaged; the launch resuming her running. The work of the Varadero proceeded as usual; divers were preparing the foundations to receive the immense gridiron which was shortly to be launched and sunk in place. It was a busy scene of organised labour under a skilful resident engineer; every difficulty foreseen and provided for, materials delivered in good time, notwithstanding obstructions; not an unnecessary auger-hole bored, not a stroke of an adze thrown away.From the Sleepy Hollow of the naval arsenal opposite jealous eyes watched the work proceed. Every art of vexation and obstruction that bitter envy could devise had for years been employed to prevent the building of this slip, and onerous and unfair conditions had been inserted in the concession. But Anglo-American persistence and industry had succeeded so far, and in the hands of Messrs. Peel, Hubbell & Co. and their advisers, the work was now well advanced.The obsolete corvetteDoña Maria Molinawas moored off the coaling-wharf adjoining the Varadero, and when one of her boats was going on shore the sailors noticed two dead bodies floating in the water, and reported this to the officer of the watch, who ordered them to tow the bodies to the shore towards Punta Sangley, and drag them up on the sand above high-water mark. The bodies were lashed together with a piece of new rope having a blue strand inthe centre, and had a good-sized piece of white granite attached as a sinker. On looking at the lashings no one could doubt that the work had been done by an able seaman. The bodies presented ghastly wounds, both had fractures of the skull, and gaping cuts on the throat and abdomen; they had also been gnawed by fishes. The swelling of the bodies had sufficed to bring them to the surface, stone and all.The news of the finding of the corpses did not immediately reach the Varadero, and they were conveyed to Cavite, and buried just as they were found, tied together with the ropes and stone, without being identified. It seemed nobody’s business to trouble about them, notwithstanding the evident fact that they had been murdered. The Manila newspapers did not mention the circumstance.But at this time other events happened. The patron of the launch disappeared without taking his kit with him. Then the boy disappeared, and I may as well at once say that, from that time to this, that boy has never been heard of by the Varadero Company, who were his employers. Next, that gay and lascivious damsel of San Roque, whose unbridled sensuality had wrought the trouble, also disappeared as mysteriously as the others.Dr. Juan Perez, of Cavite, was the medical attendant to the staff of the Varadero, and used to call there every afternoon. On hearing from him about the discovery of the bodies, the resident engineer at once thought of his missing men, and the flight of the patron confirmed his suspicions. A minute examination of the launch was made, and revealed some stains of blood which had not been entirely removed by the usual washing down. Several small cuts such as might be made with the point of abolowere found in the flat skylight of the cabin, and a deeper cut on the bulwark rail, starboard side forward, opposite the skylight. A working rope was missing from the launch. It had only recently been supplied to it, and had been cut off a whole coil purchased a few weeks before from a sailing-vessel, for the use of the Varadero. That rope had a blue strand in the centre. Gustav Brown put on a diving-dress, and went down at the head of the northern jetty, where the launch used to lie, and carefully examined the bottom. Presently his eye rested on an object that he recognised. It was the square steel coal-breaker used by the stoker, and he brought it up.Meanwhile, a new coxswain had been found for the launch, and as the old patron had left his vessel illegally, there was ground for his arrest on that score, so orders were given to the new patron and to the engine-driver to give him into custody if he came to claim his kit. Next time the launch arrived in Manila, sure enough the old patron appeared to fetch his belongings, and was taken to the calaboose of the captain of the port. The resident engineer called on that official, and, as a result of their conversation, the prisoner was put on board the launch to be conveyed to Cavite.With all the stoicism of the Malay, he sat quite still and silent; his impassive features betrayed no sign of anxiety or remorse.But if the principal actor in this bloody tragedy could thus compose his mind, it was not so with others who knew more or less what had happened, but whose dread and hatred of the law and its myrmidons had kept their tongues quiet.When the launch approached the Varadero near enough for the prisoner to be recognised, an unusual commotion occurred amongst the swarm of native workmen. A mysterious magnetism, an inexplicable vibration, pervaded the crowd. Unfelt by the senses, it acted on the mind, and seemed simultaneously to convey to each individual an identical idea.The patron was a prisoner, therefore his crime was known; no good could be done by keeping silent. Before this nobody knew anything about the disappearance of the two men. Now it leaked out, but only in confidence to Gustav Brown, whom they trusted. The native divers had seen the bodies when at their work on the foundations, and had moved them farther off out of their way. Men working at the jetties had seen them when they floated, but had looked in another direction. In fact, the corpses had been recognised, and the crime was known to scores of native and Chinese workmen, but no word or hint ever reached the foreman or the engineer till the culprit was arrested.Now there were sufficient details to reconstitute the tragic scene.The amour of the brothers with the San Roque girl was known, and also the well-founded jealousy of the patron, who at first endeavoured to obtain the engine-driver’s discharge by the means already mentioned. This notsucceeding, he determined to kill both of them, and without showing a sign of the deadly hatred that possessed him, calmly awaited his opportunity.On the Monday night, 7th June, after the incident of the safety-valve, the launch was moored alongside the Varadero jetty, and the two brothers lay fast asleep on the flat top of the cabin skylight, each wrapped in his blanket.A native sleeps hard, and is not easily awakened, nor when aroused does he quickly regain his faculties. It is an important point in the Malay code of manners never to awaken any person suddenly, for it is believed that, during sleep, the soul is absent from the body, wandering around, and must be given time to return, otherwise serious, even fatal consequences, may ensue. The awakened person may become an idiot, or some great harm may happen to the unmannerly one who awakened him. Many natives have as great a fear of the wandering soul of a sleeping person as of an evil spirit or ghost. The soul is said to return to the body in the form of a small black ball, which enters the mouth.Moreover, one of the greatest, in fact, the most terrible, curse that can be uttered by many tribes, is, “May you die sleeping,” for it means death to body and soul. That, however, was the fate reserved for the brothers. Towards midnight, when the cooking-fires in the coolie quarters had burnt down, and the chatter of the Chinese had subsided, when the last lights in the Europeans’ houses had been extinguished, and not a sound broke the stillness of the night, the patron addressed himself to the performance of his bloody task. Slipping his sharpenedbolothrough his belt, he descended into the engine-room, and, seizing the coal-breaker, crept forward to where the doomed men slumbered, perhaps dreaming of the charms of that dark damsel, the enjoyment of whose embraces was to cost them so dear. Meanwhile, their fate approached; their time was come.The patron was past his prime; privations at sea and dissipation on shore had sapped his strength. But bitter hatred nerving his arm, with lightning rapidity and terrific force he discharged a blow on each sleeper’s unprotected head. The sharp edge of the steel bar crashed deep into their skulls, driving in the splintered bone upon the brain. One agonised shudder from each, then all was still. A European murderer might have been satisfied with this.Not so a Tagal. A ceremony still remained to be accomplished. Their blood must flow; they must suffer mutilation. Seizing hisbolo, the assassin now vented his rage in cutting and thrusting at the bodies. The heavy and keen-edged blade fell repeatedly, cutting great gashes on the throats and bellies of the victims, whilst streams of gore ran down the waterways, and trickled out at the scuppers, staining the white sides of the launch with crimson streaks.His blood-thirst assuaged, his vengeance partly accomplished, and his spirit comforted by his desperate deed, the murderer probably paused for a time, and began to consider how he could conceal his crime. No sign of movement anywhere. Apparently the dull sounds of the blows had fallen on no mortal ear. Presently, taking up one of his working ropes, he mounted the jetty, and walked to the shore, where there lay a pile of stone ballast. It was white granite, discharged from a sailing-ship that had come from Hong Kong in ballast, and it had been purchased for the Varadero. Selecting a suitable piece, he carried it to the end of the jetty, and lowered it by the rope into the launch. Then, descending, he firmly lashed the two bodies together, and fastened the stone to them. Then he drew the bodies to the side, preparatory to launching them overboard. Now an incident occurred. It is thought that one of the two men was not quite dead, notwithstanding his dreadful wounds, and that recovering consciousness, and perceiving what awaited him, seized the rail in his death-grasp, and resisted the attempt to throw him over.The patron must once again have had recourse to his murderousbolo, bringing it down on the clenched hand, for a deep cut was found on the rail with blood driven into the pores of the wood by that savage blow. The tendons severed, the hand unclasped, and next moment the bodies slid over the rail and down underneath the keel of the launch in some four fathoms of water. Throwing the steel coal-breaker after them, the patron’s next task was to wash away the traces of his crime, and this he did fairly well so that nothing was noticed, till, suspicion being aroused, a careful scrutiny was made, with the result already mentioned. It is not known whether the boy knew anything of the tragedy performed so near him, for he was never questioned, having apparently disappeared off the face of the earth as soon as the bodies were found. What the patron did afterwards can only be conjectured. Guilty oftwo atrocious murders, and of savage mutilation of the slain, could he have composed himself to a quiet and dreamless slumber? Or was his imagination fired to further revenge by dream-pictures of his once-loved mistress in the arms of her youthful lovers? All that is known is that he presented himself to the foreman early on the Tuesday morning, and reported the absence of the two men without showing on his dark visage the slightest sign of trouble or emotion.We left the patron a prisoner on the launch. Now it became necessary to give him in charge to the judicial authorities, for it was getting late in the afternoon. They did not show any undue eagerness to receive him. The judge first applied to explained that he was only acting temporarily, that the judge had departed, having been transferred to another place, and that the new judge had not yet arrived, therefore he much regretted he could not take up the case. An appeal was then made to the Gobernador-Politico-Militar, who most courteously explained that a civil court was established in the province with full jurisdiction, both criminal and civil, so that he could not interfere. It was now nearly sunset, and the prisoner had been on the launch all day. The resident engineer then called on the Commandante of Cañacao—a naval officer who had a few marines at his disposal—and obtained as a personal favour that the prisoner should be temporarily secured in the guard-room. The next day the resident engineer proceeded to Cavite, and, accompanied by Dr. Juan Perez, visited the principal authorities, and eventually succeeded in getting the prisoner lodged in jail, and a charge of murder entered against him. The bodies of the victims were never exhumed for examination. The resident engineer made a declaration, which was taken down in writing, and on one of his busiest days he was peremptorily summoned to appear before the judge, and solemnly ratify his testimony.About three days after Juan de la Cruz was lodged in Cavite jail, the dead body of the San Roque damsel, gashed by savage blows of the fatalbolo, was left by the ebb on the sands of Parañaque, a village just across the little Bay of Bacoor opposite to San Roque. She had paid with her life for her frailty as many another woman has done in every clime. From the appearance of the body it was thought it had been several days in the water.No legal evidence was forthcoming to fix the crime on any one, although few of those who knew the story harboured a doubt that the assassin of the two brothers was the murderer of the girl also.Juan de la Cruz remained in prison, and from time to time, but with increasing intervals, the resident engineer, the foreman and others were cited by the judge, interrogated, then cited again to ratify their declarations.Theespediente, a pile of stamped paper, grew thicker and thicker, but the trial seemed no nearer. Month after month rolled on, the Varadero was finished, ships were drawn up, repaired and launched, Juan continued in prison.The resident engineer departed to other climes, and was soon expending his energy in building the great harbour at La Guayra. I was the means of obtaining an order for six gun-boats for the Varadero Company. They were built, launched, tried and delivered, and steamed away to overawe the piratical Moros. Still Juan continued in prison. Judges came and judges went, but the trial came no nearer. Year after year a judge of the Audiencia came in state to inspect the prisoners, and year after year Juan was set down as awaiting his trial.In December, 1892, I left the Philippines for Cuba and Juan de la Cruz was still in Cavite jail.Dr. Juan Perez, the surgeon who had examined the corpses, died, having wrongly diagnosed his own case, and Dr. Hugo Perez, a half caste, was appointed in his stead. Gustav Brown, the foreman, wearied of the monotony of ship repairing, became possessed by a longing to resume his nomadic life amongst the palm-clad islands of the Pacific. He purchased a schooner and embarked with his wife and family. First running down to Singapore to take in trade-goods for bartering with the natives, he sailed away for the Carolines where his wife’s home lay. He never reached them; for, soon after leaving Singapore, he came to a bloody end at the hands of his Chinese crew, who killed and decapitated him.The insurrection broke out in Cavite Province, Colonel Mattone’s column was defeated by the insurgents with great slaughter. Dr. Hugo Perez, the successor of Dr. Juan Perez, was suspected of sympathising with the rebels, and, needless to say,hesoon came to a bloody end.Hedid not have to wait long for his trial.In 1896, Mr. George Gilchrist, the engineer at the Varadero, who was not in the Philippines when the murders were committed, was cited by the judge, and asked if he couldidentify the prisoner ten years after his arrest! Two years more passed, and in April, 1898, Mr. Gilchrist returned to Scotland for a well-earned holiday. When he left Cañacao, Juan de la Cruz was still in prison awaiting his trial.He may have escaped when the rebels occupied Cavite after Admiral Dewey’s victory over the Spanish Squadron in the Bay of Bacoor.For the murderer no pity need be felt, he certainly had nothing to gain and all to lose by a trial. A double murder, premeditated, accompanied by acts of great barbarity, and committed at night, constitutes by the Penal Code a capital offence with three aggravating circumstances which would forbid all hope of clemency.But what can be thought of courts so remiss in their duty? How many innocent prisoners have waited years for their trial? How many have died in prison?Piratical Outrage in Luzon.At Laguimanóc, a port and village in the Province of Tayabas, there resided an Englishman, Mr. H. G. Brown, who had been many years in the Philippines. By the exercise of untiring industry, by braving the malaria of the primeval forests, and by his never-failing tact in dealing with the officials of the Woods and Forests on the one hand, and with the semi-barbarous and entirely lawless wood-cutters on the other, he had built up an extensive business in cutting timber in the state forests of Southern Luzon and the adjacent islands. He was owner of several sailing vessels, had a well-appointed saw-mill, and a comfortable residence at Languimanóc. He employed large numbers of wood-cutters; all under advances of pay, who were scattered about the Provinces of Tayabas, and Camarines Norte over a considerable area.His business was so considerable that he paid the Government fully $30,000 per year as royalty on timber which was mostly shipped to Hong Kong and Shanghai.In order to facilitate a business so profitable to them the Government placed a Custom House official at Atimónan, in the Bay of Lamon on the Pacific coast, to clear anddespatch his timber vessels loaded at Atimónan, Gumacas, Lopez, Alabat Island, or other places. To show how little Mr. Brown spared himself, I may mention that not even the dreaded jungle-fever of Mindoro prevented him from personally superintending the loading of several vessels at different ports of that pestilential island. In persistence and pluck he was a worthy predecessor of Professor D. C. Worcester, who years afterwards showed his Anglo-Saxon determination in the same fearsome spot.One day in December of 1884, Mr. Brown being absent in Hong Kong, and his manager, Mr. Anderson, busy on the Pacific coast, looking after the loading of a vessel, the out-door superintendent, a Swede named Alfred Olsen, was in charge of the house, office, and saw-mill at Laguimanóc, and was attending to the loading of theTartar, one of Mr. Brown’s ships which was anchored in the bay taking in timber for China. She had a native crew who occasionally of an evening, when ashore to enjoy themselves, got up a disturbance with the villagers. On board this vessel there were, as is usual, two Carabineros or Custom House guards to prevent smuggling.Although no one in the village suspected it, two large canoes full of armed men were lying concealed behind a point in Capuluan Cove on the opposite side of the Bay. At eight o’clock in the evening, it being quite dark, they came across, and in perfect order, according to a pre-arranged plan advanced in silence on the village. The assailants numbered twenty-eight men, and were variously armed with lances,bolosand daggers. Only the leader bore a revolver. A guard was left on the canoes, four of the gang were stationed at the door of Mr. Brown’s house, and others at strategic points, whilst the main body attacked theTribunalclose by which was also theestancowhere there was some Government money, postage stamps and stamped paper. At allTribunalesthere are a couple ofcuadrilleros, or village constables on guard, armed usually with lance andbolo. These men did their duty and manfully resisted the pirates. In the combat which ensued, the sergeant of the Cuadrilleros was killed and some on both sides were wounded, but the pirates got the best of the fight, and plundered theestanco.In the meantime, Olsen, having heard the uproar, may have thought that the crew of theTartarwere again making a disturbance. At all events he left the house unarmedand unsuspicious, thus walking into the trap laid for him. The Tagals have a great respect for fire-arms, more especially for the revolvers and repeating rifles of the foreigner, thus they did not venture to enter the house, but the moment Olsen stepped out into the darkness and before he could see round about him, he was attacked by two men on each side, who plunged their daggers into his body, piercing his lungs. Bleeding profusely and vomiting blood he rushed back into the house towards his bedroom to get his revolver which was under the bed. His assailants, however, followed him into the room and butchered him before he could grasp it. At least the revolver was afterwards found in its case with the perfect impress of his blood-stained hand upon the oaken lid. A native boy named Pablo, about eight years old, was in the house at the time, and in his terror squeezed himself into a narrow space behind the door and escaped discovery, although he was an eye-witness of the crime.By this time the alarm had spread all over the little village, and the noise was heard on board theTartar. The two Carabineros, taking their Remingtons and cartridge boxes, had themselves paddled on shore, and marching up the stairs which led to the rocky eminence on which the village stands, bravely advanced against the pirates although out-numbered by more than ten to one. They fired their rifles, but the gang rushed upon them and in a moment they were cut down, and according to Tagal custom, their bellies were ripped open. The pirates having now overcome all opposition and having plundered theestanco, and the inevitable Chinaman’s shop, transferred their attention to Mr. Brown’s house, which they ransacked, taking the contents of the safe, a collection of gold and silver coins, seven Martini-Henry rifles with ammunition, and two revolvers, as well as any other things they deemed of value. They burst open the desks, drawers, and wardrobes, cutting and hacking the furniture with theirbolosin wanton mischief. Then embarking their spoil, they sailed away with the land breeze.Information had been sent off to the nearest post of the Guardia Civil, and on its receipt, an officer with a force of that corps instantly set off and captured one party of the pirates red-handed as they beached their canoe. Within a week twenty-six had been captured and one shot dead whilst escaping. There only remained the leader. He, asit was afterwards discovered, was concealed in a secluded wood a few miles from Sariaya, and one night he was speared by the Captain of Cuadrilleros of that town, who is said to have had valid reasons for getting him out of the way.This band of pirates were a mixed lot; some of them wereprincipalesor members of the town council of Sariaya, a picturesque little place on the southern slope of Mount Banajao, and some from San Juan de Boc-boc; others were ordinary inhabitants, a few were outlaws from the San Juan mountains, and four or five were fishermen whom the gang had met on their passage by sea and had invited to accompany them. This custom ofConvitesis explained inChapter XXV. Of course the fishermen, when interrogated, declared they had been pressed into the service, but in fact very few natives have the moral courage to decline so pleasing an entertainment, as it appeals to a feeling deeply seated in their hearts, the love of rapine, only to be restrained by the heavy hand of a military police “who do not hesitate to shoot.” The provincial doctor arrived next morning with the judge who was to take the depositions of the villagers and draw up thesumario. Olsen was dead, the sergeant of Cuadrilleros also and one of theCarabineros, but strange to say, in spite of a dozen ghastly wounds, the other one was still alive, though his bowels were protruding, having fallen out through the gash which it is the Tagal custom to finish off with.When the provincial doctor saw him, he said, “Nothing can possibly be done for him,” and departed. So, abandoned to his own resources, he replaced the bowels himself, and getting one of the villagers to bind him up, he eventually recovered. He was seen by Mr. Brown a year or two later, and is probably alive now. This seems extraordinary, but a similar case occurred to a man who had worked under me. An English bricklayer named John Heath had been employed building furnaces and kilns in Manila, and having completed his work, took to farming and rented some grass meadows (sacate lands) at Mandaloyan. One night he and another Englishman staying with him were attacked in his house by a party of Tagals with drawnbolos. The visitor, although wounded, leaped from the window and escaped, but Heath was cut down, then lifted on to the window sill, hacked about, and finally, according to Tagal custom, ripped open and left for dead. Yet this man also entirelyrecovered, and after a year seemed as strong as ever, although he was advised not to exert his strength. This outrage was clearly agrarian, and was, I feel sure, committed by those who had previously rented these lands and had been turned out. No one was ever punished for it.To return to the gang of pirates; two had been killed, the rest were in prison. Year after year passed, still they remained in prison; judges came, stayed their term, were promoted and went, but still these men were never sentenced.In 1889, I visited Laguimanóc to make a plan and valuation of the property, as the business was about to be taken over by a Limited Liability Company, established in Hong Kong. This wasfive yearsafter the date of the murders, some of the prisoners had died in prison, the others were awaiting their sentence. But I found that the Government had established a sergeant’s post of the Guardia Civil in the village, which effectually prevented a repetition of the outrage.A year later I again visited Laguimanóc, but the trial of the prisoners was no further advanced. No less than nine of them died in prison, still no sentence was pronounced. Even for a Philippine Court this was extraordinary, for the gang had committed the unpardonable crime “Resistencia a fuerza armada” (Resistance to an armed force), and could have been tried by Court-martial and summarily shot. They had also dared to lay their profane hands on the sacred money-box containing a portion of the “Real Haber” (Government money), so that it was not only a question of murder and robbery of private people. But the Civil Court, negligent, slothful, and corrupt, could not be got to convict, and a few years ago, Mr. Brown having left the islands, the surviving prisoners werepardonedby the Queen Regent on the occasion of the young King’s birthday.The contrast between the military and civil elements in this case is very strong.The military element performed its duties thoroughly well, under great difficulties, and promptly arrested the malefactors. In my experience this has been always the case, and I draw from it the conclusion that military Government is essential to the pacification of the Philippines and that authority must be backed up by a nativeforce of constabulary under American officers who must be young and active.Such offences as piracy or gang-robbery should never come before a Civil Court, but should be promptly settled by court-martial before which no technicalities or legal subtleties need be taken into account.A firm, nay, a heavy hand over the Philippines is the most merciful in the long run.I am sorry to have to relate that the Company which took over Mr. Brown’s business did not long prosper. Whilst he remained at the head of it, all went well, but as soon as he left to take a much-needed rest, it began to fail. The personality of the individual is everything in most Spanish countries and especially in the Philippines. No manager could be found who could keep on terms with the officials, control the wild wood-cutters or risk jungle-fever by entering the forests to personally inspect the work.The organization decayed and the business went to pieces. Let intending investors take note.
Chapter V.Tagal Crime and Spanish Justice.The murder of a Spaniard—Promptitude of the Courts—The case of Juan de la Cruz—Twelve years in prison waiting trial—Piratical outrage in Luzon—Culprits never tried; several die in prison.
The murder of a Spaniard—Promptitude of the Courts—The case of Juan de la Cruz—Twelve years in prison waiting trial—Piratical outrage in Luzon—Culprits never tried; several die in prison.
The murder of a Spaniard—Promptitude of the Courts—The case of Juan de la Cruz—Twelve years in prison waiting trial—Piratical outrage in Luzon—Culprits never tried; several die in prison.
The penal code of the Philippines, which came into force in 1884, declares it impossible to consider as an aggravation of an offence the circumstance of colour or race in the offender, for the criminal is to be punished for his crime and not for the condition of inferiority to which nature has condemned him.It goes on to say that on the other hand his condition should not be allowed to attenuate the sentence, for that would constitute an odious privilege, an unbearable inequality.It therefore proudly proclaims the equality of all races before the law. These are noble words; we shall see how they work out in practice.The case of Juan de la Cruz shows us that a criminal investigation can drag on for twelve years without coming on for trial when the victims are natives and of lowly station. I could cite cases where the victims were British subjects, and the murderers were never punished, and another case where a Frenchman was the victim. The murderer in this case was to have been pardoned by the Governor-General, but the French consul threatened to haul down his flag and leave the islands unless the assassin was executed; and he was executed, the consul attending to see the sentence carried outThe British Foreign Office does not encourage its agents to such energetic acts. To obtain the good graces of the Foreign Office a consul should be devoid of talent or originality. Mediocrity is the condition sought for. It is never advisable for one of Her Britannic Majesty’s consulsto be active in protecting Her Britannic Majesty’s subjects. What he must aim at if he wishes for consideration and promotion is to give the Foreign Office no trouble. The ideal consul would be he who is only heard of once a quarter, when he certifies that he is alive, and asks that his salary may be paid.I will relate a murder that made an impression on me at the time, where the victim was a Spaniard. In June of 1881, I was at Santa Cruz in the Laguna Province for several days, making experiments with some patent centrifugals, steaming and drying the fine Laguna sugar. Quite close to thecamarin, where the machines were at work, lived an elderly Spaniard who was a government employé in some subordinate position. I think he was the Subdelegado de Hacienda, or sub-provincial treasurer. I had once or twice called upon the old gentleman, whose appearance and manners were above his official rank, and had been politely received by him. On completing my experiments, I called to take leave of him, and was sorry to find him suffering from fever, and very weak.I returned to Manila, and next day was horrified to read in a newspaper that he had been murdered in the night by his two servants. This atrocious crime, committed on a helpless and infirm old man, with every circumstance of premeditation and barbarity, and with the object of robbery, roused the indignation of every European. The culprits were soon apprehended, and such expedition was used by the Promotor Fiscal and the court, that within a week from the perpetration of the murder the two servants were garrotted on a scaffold erected near the scene of their barbarous crime.Such is the rapidity with which the Philippine courts could act when a Spaniard was the victim and when public opinion was deeply stirred by some shocking tragedy.The case of Juan de la Cruz.The following narrative of events, which occurred in 1886, will give the reader a good idea of the furious passions that may lurk under the inscrutable features of the Philippine Malay, and will also serve to illustrate the procedure of the Spanish criminal courts when the victims are natives and when nothing can be made out of the case.Four of the five actors or victims in the tragedy were well known to me, and I learned all the particulars at first hand and at the time, from those who took steps to deliver over the culprit to justice.The decked steam launchLaguimanocbelonged to Gustav Brown, a ship carpenter, and was hired by the Varadero, or Slipway Company of Cañacao, near Cavite, to keep up communication with Manila, whilst the slip was being constructed.I was consulting engineer to the company, and Mr. J. L. Houston was the resident engineer in charge of the work. Both of us made frequent voyages in this launch between Cañacao and Manila. The crew consisted of a patron (coxswain) named Juan de la Cruz, an engine-driver, a stoker, and a boy, all Tagals.Juan de la Cruz was an elderly man with grey hair, and in figure thin and wiry. He was a good man at his duty, one of the silent Indians whom I have always found to be the best. A thorough sailor, he had served under many a flag, and sailed o’er many a sea, both in tropic and in northern climes.The engine-driver and the stoker were brothers, strong and well-built young fellows, and smart at their work. The boy was an active lad, quite pleased to be employed on a steam-boat.One day, the stoker, going through the blacksmith’s shop, saw a piece of square steel, which had been cut off a long bar, lying on the floor, and it struck him that it would be better than a hammer for breaking coal. So he annexed it without leave, and got one end drawn out and rounded so that he could easily hold it. This made a very efficient coal-breaker, the sharp edges divided the lumps with great ease. It was about eighteen inches long, and one and three-quarter inches square. The patron was married, and his wife lived in Manila, but, sailor-like, he had provided himself with a sweetheart, at the other end of his run, where he spent more time than in the Pasig, and had become intimate with a damsel of San Roque, a village between the Varadero and Cavite. Things went on apparently all right for some time; the launch making almost daily trips between Cañacao and Manila, and the elderly patron alternating between the conjugal domicile and the dwelling of his mistress. She was young, and, as native girls go, a pretty woman. Come of a strange andunknown mixture of races, and bred up amongst a community noted for its profligacy, she knew how to make the best use of her charms and was well fitted to captivate the weather-beaten seaman.He, if not desirable in himself, held a well paid post, and was able to place her above want.Already fifty years old, he was as susceptible as a youth and far more in earnest. Day by day, as he basked in her smiles, his infatuation increased till he became violently enamoured of his charmer.What could be more natural than that the crew of the launch should become acquainted with the patron’s mistress? Soon the engine-driver and the stoker were her constant visitors. The damsel had a kind word and a smile for both, and doubtless contrasted their vigorous youth and shapely forms with the shrunken figure of her elderly protector, and their lively conversation with his glum silence.In the end, no doubt, the damsel refused them nothing.Trouble was now brewing. The grim sailor was not the man to let himself be wronged with impunity. All the elements of a tragedy were present. Things no longer went smoothly on board theLaguimanoc, and her voyages lost their regularity. Something was perpetually going wrong with the engines, pieces or fittings disappeared unaccountably, usually pieces of copper or brass. The engine-driver was blamed, but he succeeded in averting his impending discharge. Could he have foreseen the consequences of remaining, he would have promptly discharged himself.On board the launch mutual distrust prevailed. The engine-driver must have known that it was the patron who had thrown overboard the fittings in his absence, hoping to get him discharged, but he held his peace.The silent figure at the tiller made no sign; no trace of emotion could be seen on the Sphinx-like face, no reproaches passed his lips, not the slightest manifestation of resentment. But underneath that imperturbable calm there existed the steadfast determination to have a full and bloody revenge on all who had offended him. TheLaguimanocmade a voyage to Manila one Saturday to take up the resident engineer who often spent his Sundays there, the launch remaining in the river. On Monday morning when he came down to the launch he found thatthe safety valve was missing from its seat, and was delayed till another could be procured.No explanations of the loss of this piece could be got, and theLaguimanocproceeded with the resident engineer to Cañacao and made fast to the jetty.A crisis was now reached. The abstraction of the safety-valve could not be overlooked, and some one would have to go. An inquiry was to be made, but on Tuesday morning the patron walked up the jetty, and reported to Mr. Gustav Brown, who was the foreman of the works, that the engine-driver and stoker were absent. He stated that they had gone ashore in the night, and had not returned. Nothing could be learned about them; nobody had seen them; their kits were still on board. As the day wore on they did not come nor send any message; so a report of their disappearance was sent to the judge at Cavite.An engine-fitter from the works was sent on board to take charge of the engine, and another stoker was engaged; the launch resuming her running. The work of the Varadero proceeded as usual; divers were preparing the foundations to receive the immense gridiron which was shortly to be launched and sunk in place. It was a busy scene of organised labour under a skilful resident engineer; every difficulty foreseen and provided for, materials delivered in good time, notwithstanding obstructions; not an unnecessary auger-hole bored, not a stroke of an adze thrown away.From the Sleepy Hollow of the naval arsenal opposite jealous eyes watched the work proceed. Every art of vexation and obstruction that bitter envy could devise had for years been employed to prevent the building of this slip, and onerous and unfair conditions had been inserted in the concession. But Anglo-American persistence and industry had succeeded so far, and in the hands of Messrs. Peel, Hubbell & Co. and their advisers, the work was now well advanced.The obsolete corvetteDoña Maria Molinawas moored off the coaling-wharf adjoining the Varadero, and when one of her boats was going on shore the sailors noticed two dead bodies floating in the water, and reported this to the officer of the watch, who ordered them to tow the bodies to the shore towards Punta Sangley, and drag them up on the sand above high-water mark. The bodies were lashed together with a piece of new rope having a blue strand inthe centre, and had a good-sized piece of white granite attached as a sinker. On looking at the lashings no one could doubt that the work had been done by an able seaman. The bodies presented ghastly wounds, both had fractures of the skull, and gaping cuts on the throat and abdomen; they had also been gnawed by fishes. The swelling of the bodies had sufficed to bring them to the surface, stone and all.The news of the finding of the corpses did not immediately reach the Varadero, and they were conveyed to Cavite, and buried just as they were found, tied together with the ropes and stone, without being identified. It seemed nobody’s business to trouble about them, notwithstanding the evident fact that they had been murdered. The Manila newspapers did not mention the circumstance.But at this time other events happened. The patron of the launch disappeared without taking his kit with him. Then the boy disappeared, and I may as well at once say that, from that time to this, that boy has never been heard of by the Varadero Company, who were his employers. Next, that gay and lascivious damsel of San Roque, whose unbridled sensuality had wrought the trouble, also disappeared as mysteriously as the others.Dr. Juan Perez, of Cavite, was the medical attendant to the staff of the Varadero, and used to call there every afternoon. On hearing from him about the discovery of the bodies, the resident engineer at once thought of his missing men, and the flight of the patron confirmed his suspicions. A minute examination of the launch was made, and revealed some stains of blood which had not been entirely removed by the usual washing down. Several small cuts such as might be made with the point of abolowere found in the flat skylight of the cabin, and a deeper cut on the bulwark rail, starboard side forward, opposite the skylight. A working rope was missing from the launch. It had only recently been supplied to it, and had been cut off a whole coil purchased a few weeks before from a sailing-vessel, for the use of the Varadero. That rope had a blue strand in the centre. Gustav Brown put on a diving-dress, and went down at the head of the northern jetty, where the launch used to lie, and carefully examined the bottom. Presently his eye rested on an object that he recognised. It was the square steel coal-breaker used by the stoker, and he brought it up.Meanwhile, a new coxswain had been found for the launch, and as the old patron had left his vessel illegally, there was ground for his arrest on that score, so orders were given to the new patron and to the engine-driver to give him into custody if he came to claim his kit. Next time the launch arrived in Manila, sure enough the old patron appeared to fetch his belongings, and was taken to the calaboose of the captain of the port. The resident engineer called on that official, and, as a result of their conversation, the prisoner was put on board the launch to be conveyed to Cavite.With all the stoicism of the Malay, he sat quite still and silent; his impassive features betrayed no sign of anxiety or remorse.But if the principal actor in this bloody tragedy could thus compose his mind, it was not so with others who knew more or less what had happened, but whose dread and hatred of the law and its myrmidons had kept their tongues quiet.When the launch approached the Varadero near enough for the prisoner to be recognised, an unusual commotion occurred amongst the swarm of native workmen. A mysterious magnetism, an inexplicable vibration, pervaded the crowd. Unfelt by the senses, it acted on the mind, and seemed simultaneously to convey to each individual an identical idea.The patron was a prisoner, therefore his crime was known; no good could be done by keeping silent. Before this nobody knew anything about the disappearance of the two men. Now it leaked out, but only in confidence to Gustav Brown, whom they trusted. The native divers had seen the bodies when at their work on the foundations, and had moved them farther off out of their way. Men working at the jetties had seen them when they floated, but had looked in another direction. In fact, the corpses had been recognised, and the crime was known to scores of native and Chinese workmen, but no word or hint ever reached the foreman or the engineer till the culprit was arrested.Now there were sufficient details to reconstitute the tragic scene.The amour of the brothers with the San Roque girl was known, and also the well-founded jealousy of the patron, who at first endeavoured to obtain the engine-driver’s discharge by the means already mentioned. This notsucceeding, he determined to kill both of them, and without showing a sign of the deadly hatred that possessed him, calmly awaited his opportunity.On the Monday night, 7th June, after the incident of the safety-valve, the launch was moored alongside the Varadero jetty, and the two brothers lay fast asleep on the flat top of the cabin skylight, each wrapped in his blanket.A native sleeps hard, and is not easily awakened, nor when aroused does he quickly regain his faculties. It is an important point in the Malay code of manners never to awaken any person suddenly, for it is believed that, during sleep, the soul is absent from the body, wandering around, and must be given time to return, otherwise serious, even fatal consequences, may ensue. The awakened person may become an idiot, or some great harm may happen to the unmannerly one who awakened him. Many natives have as great a fear of the wandering soul of a sleeping person as of an evil spirit or ghost. The soul is said to return to the body in the form of a small black ball, which enters the mouth.Moreover, one of the greatest, in fact, the most terrible, curse that can be uttered by many tribes, is, “May you die sleeping,” for it means death to body and soul. That, however, was the fate reserved for the brothers. Towards midnight, when the cooking-fires in the coolie quarters had burnt down, and the chatter of the Chinese had subsided, when the last lights in the Europeans’ houses had been extinguished, and not a sound broke the stillness of the night, the patron addressed himself to the performance of his bloody task. Slipping his sharpenedbolothrough his belt, he descended into the engine-room, and, seizing the coal-breaker, crept forward to where the doomed men slumbered, perhaps dreaming of the charms of that dark damsel, the enjoyment of whose embraces was to cost them so dear. Meanwhile, their fate approached; their time was come.The patron was past his prime; privations at sea and dissipation on shore had sapped his strength. But bitter hatred nerving his arm, with lightning rapidity and terrific force he discharged a blow on each sleeper’s unprotected head. The sharp edge of the steel bar crashed deep into their skulls, driving in the splintered bone upon the brain. One agonised shudder from each, then all was still. A European murderer might have been satisfied with this.Not so a Tagal. A ceremony still remained to be accomplished. Their blood must flow; they must suffer mutilation. Seizing hisbolo, the assassin now vented his rage in cutting and thrusting at the bodies. The heavy and keen-edged blade fell repeatedly, cutting great gashes on the throats and bellies of the victims, whilst streams of gore ran down the waterways, and trickled out at the scuppers, staining the white sides of the launch with crimson streaks.His blood-thirst assuaged, his vengeance partly accomplished, and his spirit comforted by his desperate deed, the murderer probably paused for a time, and began to consider how he could conceal his crime. No sign of movement anywhere. Apparently the dull sounds of the blows had fallen on no mortal ear. Presently, taking up one of his working ropes, he mounted the jetty, and walked to the shore, where there lay a pile of stone ballast. It was white granite, discharged from a sailing-ship that had come from Hong Kong in ballast, and it had been purchased for the Varadero. Selecting a suitable piece, he carried it to the end of the jetty, and lowered it by the rope into the launch. Then, descending, he firmly lashed the two bodies together, and fastened the stone to them. Then he drew the bodies to the side, preparatory to launching them overboard. Now an incident occurred. It is thought that one of the two men was not quite dead, notwithstanding his dreadful wounds, and that recovering consciousness, and perceiving what awaited him, seized the rail in his death-grasp, and resisted the attempt to throw him over.The patron must once again have had recourse to his murderousbolo, bringing it down on the clenched hand, for a deep cut was found on the rail with blood driven into the pores of the wood by that savage blow. The tendons severed, the hand unclasped, and next moment the bodies slid over the rail and down underneath the keel of the launch in some four fathoms of water. Throwing the steel coal-breaker after them, the patron’s next task was to wash away the traces of his crime, and this he did fairly well so that nothing was noticed, till, suspicion being aroused, a careful scrutiny was made, with the result already mentioned. It is not known whether the boy knew anything of the tragedy performed so near him, for he was never questioned, having apparently disappeared off the face of the earth as soon as the bodies were found. What the patron did afterwards can only be conjectured. Guilty oftwo atrocious murders, and of savage mutilation of the slain, could he have composed himself to a quiet and dreamless slumber? Or was his imagination fired to further revenge by dream-pictures of his once-loved mistress in the arms of her youthful lovers? All that is known is that he presented himself to the foreman early on the Tuesday morning, and reported the absence of the two men without showing on his dark visage the slightest sign of trouble or emotion.We left the patron a prisoner on the launch. Now it became necessary to give him in charge to the judicial authorities, for it was getting late in the afternoon. They did not show any undue eagerness to receive him. The judge first applied to explained that he was only acting temporarily, that the judge had departed, having been transferred to another place, and that the new judge had not yet arrived, therefore he much regretted he could not take up the case. An appeal was then made to the Gobernador-Politico-Militar, who most courteously explained that a civil court was established in the province with full jurisdiction, both criminal and civil, so that he could not interfere. It was now nearly sunset, and the prisoner had been on the launch all day. The resident engineer then called on the Commandante of Cañacao—a naval officer who had a few marines at his disposal—and obtained as a personal favour that the prisoner should be temporarily secured in the guard-room. The next day the resident engineer proceeded to Cavite, and, accompanied by Dr. Juan Perez, visited the principal authorities, and eventually succeeded in getting the prisoner lodged in jail, and a charge of murder entered against him. The bodies of the victims were never exhumed for examination. The resident engineer made a declaration, which was taken down in writing, and on one of his busiest days he was peremptorily summoned to appear before the judge, and solemnly ratify his testimony.About three days after Juan de la Cruz was lodged in Cavite jail, the dead body of the San Roque damsel, gashed by savage blows of the fatalbolo, was left by the ebb on the sands of Parañaque, a village just across the little Bay of Bacoor opposite to San Roque. She had paid with her life for her frailty as many another woman has done in every clime. From the appearance of the body it was thought it had been several days in the water.No legal evidence was forthcoming to fix the crime on any one, although few of those who knew the story harboured a doubt that the assassin of the two brothers was the murderer of the girl also.Juan de la Cruz remained in prison, and from time to time, but with increasing intervals, the resident engineer, the foreman and others were cited by the judge, interrogated, then cited again to ratify their declarations.Theespediente, a pile of stamped paper, grew thicker and thicker, but the trial seemed no nearer. Month after month rolled on, the Varadero was finished, ships were drawn up, repaired and launched, Juan continued in prison.The resident engineer departed to other climes, and was soon expending his energy in building the great harbour at La Guayra. I was the means of obtaining an order for six gun-boats for the Varadero Company. They were built, launched, tried and delivered, and steamed away to overawe the piratical Moros. Still Juan continued in prison. Judges came and judges went, but the trial came no nearer. Year after year a judge of the Audiencia came in state to inspect the prisoners, and year after year Juan was set down as awaiting his trial.In December, 1892, I left the Philippines for Cuba and Juan de la Cruz was still in Cavite jail.Dr. Juan Perez, the surgeon who had examined the corpses, died, having wrongly diagnosed his own case, and Dr. Hugo Perez, a half caste, was appointed in his stead. Gustav Brown, the foreman, wearied of the monotony of ship repairing, became possessed by a longing to resume his nomadic life amongst the palm-clad islands of the Pacific. He purchased a schooner and embarked with his wife and family. First running down to Singapore to take in trade-goods for bartering with the natives, he sailed away for the Carolines where his wife’s home lay. He never reached them; for, soon after leaving Singapore, he came to a bloody end at the hands of his Chinese crew, who killed and decapitated him.The insurrection broke out in Cavite Province, Colonel Mattone’s column was defeated by the insurgents with great slaughter. Dr. Hugo Perez, the successor of Dr. Juan Perez, was suspected of sympathising with the rebels, and, needless to say,hesoon came to a bloody end.Hedid not have to wait long for his trial.In 1896, Mr. George Gilchrist, the engineer at the Varadero, who was not in the Philippines when the murders were committed, was cited by the judge, and asked if he couldidentify the prisoner ten years after his arrest! Two years more passed, and in April, 1898, Mr. Gilchrist returned to Scotland for a well-earned holiday. When he left Cañacao, Juan de la Cruz was still in prison awaiting his trial.He may have escaped when the rebels occupied Cavite after Admiral Dewey’s victory over the Spanish Squadron in the Bay of Bacoor.For the murderer no pity need be felt, he certainly had nothing to gain and all to lose by a trial. A double murder, premeditated, accompanied by acts of great barbarity, and committed at night, constitutes by the Penal Code a capital offence with three aggravating circumstances which would forbid all hope of clemency.But what can be thought of courts so remiss in their duty? How many innocent prisoners have waited years for their trial? How many have died in prison?Piratical Outrage in Luzon.At Laguimanóc, a port and village in the Province of Tayabas, there resided an Englishman, Mr. H. G. Brown, who had been many years in the Philippines. By the exercise of untiring industry, by braving the malaria of the primeval forests, and by his never-failing tact in dealing with the officials of the Woods and Forests on the one hand, and with the semi-barbarous and entirely lawless wood-cutters on the other, he had built up an extensive business in cutting timber in the state forests of Southern Luzon and the adjacent islands. He was owner of several sailing vessels, had a well-appointed saw-mill, and a comfortable residence at Languimanóc. He employed large numbers of wood-cutters; all under advances of pay, who were scattered about the Provinces of Tayabas, and Camarines Norte over a considerable area.His business was so considerable that he paid the Government fully $30,000 per year as royalty on timber which was mostly shipped to Hong Kong and Shanghai.In order to facilitate a business so profitable to them the Government placed a Custom House official at Atimónan, in the Bay of Lamon on the Pacific coast, to clear anddespatch his timber vessels loaded at Atimónan, Gumacas, Lopez, Alabat Island, or other places. To show how little Mr. Brown spared himself, I may mention that not even the dreaded jungle-fever of Mindoro prevented him from personally superintending the loading of several vessels at different ports of that pestilential island. In persistence and pluck he was a worthy predecessor of Professor D. C. Worcester, who years afterwards showed his Anglo-Saxon determination in the same fearsome spot.One day in December of 1884, Mr. Brown being absent in Hong Kong, and his manager, Mr. Anderson, busy on the Pacific coast, looking after the loading of a vessel, the out-door superintendent, a Swede named Alfred Olsen, was in charge of the house, office, and saw-mill at Laguimanóc, and was attending to the loading of theTartar, one of Mr. Brown’s ships which was anchored in the bay taking in timber for China. She had a native crew who occasionally of an evening, when ashore to enjoy themselves, got up a disturbance with the villagers. On board this vessel there were, as is usual, two Carabineros or Custom House guards to prevent smuggling.Although no one in the village suspected it, two large canoes full of armed men were lying concealed behind a point in Capuluan Cove on the opposite side of the Bay. At eight o’clock in the evening, it being quite dark, they came across, and in perfect order, according to a pre-arranged plan advanced in silence on the village. The assailants numbered twenty-eight men, and were variously armed with lances,bolosand daggers. Only the leader bore a revolver. A guard was left on the canoes, four of the gang were stationed at the door of Mr. Brown’s house, and others at strategic points, whilst the main body attacked theTribunalclose by which was also theestancowhere there was some Government money, postage stamps and stamped paper. At allTribunalesthere are a couple ofcuadrilleros, or village constables on guard, armed usually with lance andbolo. These men did their duty and manfully resisted the pirates. In the combat which ensued, the sergeant of the Cuadrilleros was killed and some on both sides were wounded, but the pirates got the best of the fight, and plundered theestanco.In the meantime, Olsen, having heard the uproar, may have thought that the crew of theTartarwere again making a disturbance. At all events he left the house unarmedand unsuspicious, thus walking into the trap laid for him. The Tagals have a great respect for fire-arms, more especially for the revolvers and repeating rifles of the foreigner, thus they did not venture to enter the house, but the moment Olsen stepped out into the darkness and before he could see round about him, he was attacked by two men on each side, who plunged their daggers into his body, piercing his lungs. Bleeding profusely and vomiting blood he rushed back into the house towards his bedroom to get his revolver which was under the bed. His assailants, however, followed him into the room and butchered him before he could grasp it. At least the revolver was afterwards found in its case with the perfect impress of his blood-stained hand upon the oaken lid. A native boy named Pablo, about eight years old, was in the house at the time, and in his terror squeezed himself into a narrow space behind the door and escaped discovery, although he was an eye-witness of the crime.By this time the alarm had spread all over the little village, and the noise was heard on board theTartar. The two Carabineros, taking their Remingtons and cartridge boxes, had themselves paddled on shore, and marching up the stairs which led to the rocky eminence on which the village stands, bravely advanced against the pirates although out-numbered by more than ten to one. They fired their rifles, but the gang rushed upon them and in a moment they were cut down, and according to Tagal custom, their bellies were ripped open. The pirates having now overcome all opposition and having plundered theestanco, and the inevitable Chinaman’s shop, transferred their attention to Mr. Brown’s house, which they ransacked, taking the contents of the safe, a collection of gold and silver coins, seven Martini-Henry rifles with ammunition, and two revolvers, as well as any other things they deemed of value. They burst open the desks, drawers, and wardrobes, cutting and hacking the furniture with theirbolosin wanton mischief. Then embarking their spoil, they sailed away with the land breeze.Information had been sent off to the nearest post of the Guardia Civil, and on its receipt, an officer with a force of that corps instantly set off and captured one party of the pirates red-handed as they beached their canoe. Within a week twenty-six had been captured and one shot dead whilst escaping. There only remained the leader. He, asit was afterwards discovered, was concealed in a secluded wood a few miles from Sariaya, and one night he was speared by the Captain of Cuadrilleros of that town, who is said to have had valid reasons for getting him out of the way.This band of pirates were a mixed lot; some of them wereprincipalesor members of the town council of Sariaya, a picturesque little place on the southern slope of Mount Banajao, and some from San Juan de Boc-boc; others were ordinary inhabitants, a few were outlaws from the San Juan mountains, and four or five were fishermen whom the gang had met on their passage by sea and had invited to accompany them. This custom ofConvitesis explained inChapter XXV. Of course the fishermen, when interrogated, declared they had been pressed into the service, but in fact very few natives have the moral courage to decline so pleasing an entertainment, as it appeals to a feeling deeply seated in their hearts, the love of rapine, only to be restrained by the heavy hand of a military police “who do not hesitate to shoot.” The provincial doctor arrived next morning with the judge who was to take the depositions of the villagers and draw up thesumario. Olsen was dead, the sergeant of Cuadrilleros also and one of theCarabineros, but strange to say, in spite of a dozen ghastly wounds, the other one was still alive, though his bowels were protruding, having fallen out through the gash which it is the Tagal custom to finish off with.When the provincial doctor saw him, he said, “Nothing can possibly be done for him,” and departed. So, abandoned to his own resources, he replaced the bowels himself, and getting one of the villagers to bind him up, he eventually recovered. He was seen by Mr. Brown a year or two later, and is probably alive now. This seems extraordinary, but a similar case occurred to a man who had worked under me. An English bricklayer named John Heath had been employed building furnaces and kilns in Manila, and having completed his work, took to farming and rented some grass meadows (sacate lands) at Mandaloyan. One night he and another Englishman staying with him were attacked in his house by a party of Tagals with drawnbolos. The visitor, although wounded, leaped from the window and escaped, but Heath was cut down, then lifted on to the window sill, hacked about, and finally, according to Tagal custom, ripped open and left for dead. Yet this man also entirelyrecovered, and after a year seemed as strong as ever, although he was advised not to exert his strength. This outrage was clearly agrarian, and was, I feel sure, committed by those who had previously rented these lands and had been turned out. No one was ever punished for it.To return to the gang of pirates; two had been killed, the rest were in prison. Year after year passed, still they remained in prison; judges came, stayed their term, were promoted and went, but still these men were never sentenced.In 1889, I visited Laguimanóc to make a plan and valuation of the property, as the business was about to be taken over by a Limited Liability Company, established in Hong Kong. This wasfive yearsafter the date of the murders, some of the prisoners had died in prison, the others were awaiting their sentence. But I found that the Government had established a sergeant’s post of the Guardia Civil in the village, which effectually prevented a repetition of the outrage.A year later I again visited Laguimanóc, but the trial of the prisoners was no further advanced. No less than nine of them died in prison, still no sentence was pronounced. Even for a Philippine Court this was extraordinary, for the gang had committed the unpardonable crime “Resistencia a fuerza armada” (Resistance to an armed force), and could have been tried by Court-martial and summarily shot. They had also dared to lay their profane hands on the sacred money-box containing a portion of the “Real Haber” (Government money), so that it was not only a question of murder and robbery of private people. But the Civil Court, negligent, slothful, and corrupt, could not be got to convict, and a few years ago, Mr. Brown having left the islands, the surviving prisoners werepardonedby the Queen Regent on the occasion of the young King’s birthday.The contrast between the military and civil elements in this case is very strong.The military element performed its duties thoroughly well, under great difficulties, and promptly arrested the malefactors. In my experience this has been always the case, and I draw from it the conclusion that military Government is essential to the pacification of the Philippines and that authority must be backed up by a nativeforce of constabulary under American officers who must be young and active.Such offences as piracy or gang-robbery should never come before a Civil Court, but should be promptly settled by court-martial before which no technicalities or legal subtleties need be taken into account.A firm, nay, a heavy hand over the Philippines is the most merciful in the long run.I am sorry to have to relate that the Company which took over Mr. Brown’s business did not long prosper. Whilst he remained at the head of it, all went well, but as soon as he left to take a much-needed rest, it began to fail. The personality of the individual is everything in most Spanish countries and especially in the Philippines. No manager could be found who could keep on terms with the officials, control the wild wood-cutters or risk jungle-fever by entering the forests to personally inspect the work.The organization decayed and the business went to pieces. Let intending investors take note.
The penal code of the Philippines, which came into force in 1884, declares it impossible to consider as an aggravation of an offence the circumstance of colour or race in the offender, for the criminal is to be punished for his crime and not for the condition of inferiority to which nature has condemned him.
It goes on to say that on the other hand his condition should not be allowed to attenuate the sentence, for that would constitute an odious privilege, an unbearable inequality.
It therefore proudly proclaims the equality of all races before the law. These are noble words; we shall see how they work out in practice.
The case of Juan de la Cruz shows us that a criminal investigation can drag on for twelve years without coming on for trial when the victims are natives and of lowly station. I could cite cases where the victims were British subjects, and the murderers were never punished, and another case where a Frenchman was the victim. The murderer in this case was to have been pardoned by the Governor-General, but the French consul threatened to haul down his flag and leave the islands unless the assassin was executed; and he was executed, the consul attending to see the sentence carried out
The British Foreign Office does not encourage its agents to such energetic acts. To obtain the good graces of the Foreign Office a consul should be devoid of talent or originality. Mediocrity is the condition sought for. It is never advisable for one of Her Britannic Majesty’s consulsto be active in protecting Her Britannic Majesty’s subjects. What he must aim at if he wishes for consideration and promotion is to give the Foreign Office no trouble. The ideal consul would be he who is only heard of once a quarter, when he certifies that he is alive, and asks that his salary may be paid.
I will relate a murder that made an impression on me at the time, where the victim was a Spaniard. In June of 1881, I was at Santa Cruz in the Laguna Province for several days, making experiments with some patent centrifugals, steaming and drying the fine Laguna sugar. Quite close to thecamarin, where the machines were at work, lived an elderly Spaniard who was a government employé in some subordinate position. I think he was the Subdelegado de Hacienda, or sub-provincial treasurer. I had once or twice called upon the old gentleman, whose appearance and manners were above his official rank, and had been politely received by him. On completing my experiments, I called to take leave of him, and was sorry to find him suffering from fever, and very weak.
I returned to Manila, and next day was horrified to read in a newspaper that he had been murdered in the night by his two servants. This atrocious crime, committed on a helpless and infirm old man, with every circumstance of premeditation and barbarity, and with the object of robbery, roused the indignation of every European. The culprits were soon apprehended, and such expedition was used by the Promotor Fiscal and the court, that within a week from the perpetration of the murder the two servants were garrotted on a scaffold erected near the scene of their barbarous crime.
Such is the rapidity with which the Philippine courts could act when a Spaniard was the victim and when public opinion was deeply stirred by some shocking tragedy.
The case of Juan de la Cruz.The following narrative of events, which occurred in 1886, will give the reader a good idea of the furious passions that may lurk under the inscrutable features of the Philippine Malay, and will also serve to illustrate the procedure of the Spanish criminal courts when the victims are natives and when nothing can be made out of the case.Four of the five actors or victims in the tragedy were well known to me, and I learned all the particulars at first hand and at the time, from those who took steps to deliver over the culprit to justice.The decked steam launchLaguimanocbelonged to Gustav Brown, a ship carpenter, and was hired by the Varadero, or Slipway Company of Cañacao, near Cavite, to keep up communication with Manila, whilst the slip was being constructed.I was consulting engineer to the company, and Mr. J. L. Houston was the resident engineer in charge of the work. Both of us made frequent voyages in this launch between Cañacao and Manila. The crew consisted of a patron (coxswain) named Juan de la Cruz, an engine-driver, a stoker, and a boy, all Tagals.Juan de la Cruz was an elderly man with grey hair, and in figure thin and wiry. He was a good man at his duty, one of the silent Indians whom I have always found to be the best. A thorough sailor, he had served under many a flag, and sailed o’er many a sea, both in tropic and in northern climes.The engine-driver and the stoker were brothers, strong and well-built young fellows, and smart at their work. The boy was an active lad, quite pleased to be employed on a steam-boat.One day, the stoker, going through the blacksmith’s shop, saw a piece of square steel, which had been cut off a long bar, lying on the floor, and it struck him that it would be better than a hammer for breaking coal. So he annexed it without leave, and got one end drawn out and rounded so that he could easily hold it. This made a very efficient coal-breaker, the sharp edges divided the lumps with great ease. It was about eighteen inches long, and one and three-quarter inches square. The patron was married, and his wife lived in Manila, but, sailor-like, he had provided himself with a sweetheart, at the other end of his run, where he spent more time than in the Pasig, and had become intimate with a damsel of San Roque, a village between the Varadero and Cavite. Things went on apparently all right for some time; the launch making almost daily trips between Cañacao and Manila, and the elderly patron alternating between the conjugal domicile and the dwelling of his mistress. She was young, and, as native girls go, a pretty woman. Come of a strange andunknown mixture of races, and bred up amongst a community noted for its profligacy, she knew how to make the best use of her charms and was well fitted to captivate the weather-beaten seaman.He, if not desirable in himself, held a well paid post, and was able to place her above want.Already fifty years old, he was as susceptible as a youth and far more in earnest. Day by day, as he basked in her smiles, his infatuation increased till he became violently enamoured of his charmer.What could be more natural than that the crew of the launch should become acquainted with the patron’s mistress? Soon the engine-driver and the stoker were her constant visitors. The damsel had a kind word and a smile for both, and doubtless contrasted their vigorous youth and shapely forms with the shrunken figure of her elderly protector, and their lively conversation with his glum silence.In the end, no doubt, the damsel refused them nothing.Trouble was now brewing. The grim sailor was not the man to let himself be wronged with impunity. All the elements of a tragedy were present. Things no longer went smoothly on board theLaguimanoc, and her voyages lost their regularity. Something was perpetually going wrong with the engines, pieces or fittings disappeared unaccountably, usually pieces of copper or brass. The engine-driver was blamed, but he succeeded in averting his impending discharge. Could he have foreseen the consequences of remaining, he would have promptly discharged himself.On board the launch mutual distrust prevailed. The engine-driver must have known that it was the patron who had thrown overboard the fittings in his absence, hoping to get him discharged, but he held his peace.The silent figure at the tiller made no sign; no trace of emotion could be seen on the Sphinx-like face, no reproaches passed his lips, not the slightest manifestation of resentment. But underneath that imperturbable calm there existed the steadfast determination to have a full and bloody revenge on all who had offended him. TheLaguimanocmade a voyage to Manila one Saturday to take up the resident engineer who often spent his Sundays there, the launch remaining in the river. On Monday morning when he came down to the launch he found thatthe safety valve was missing from its seat, and was delayed till another could be procured.No explanations of the loss of this piece could be got, and theLaguimanocproceeded with the resident engineer to Cañacao and made fast to the jetty.A crisis was now reached. The abstraction of the safety-valve could not be overlooked, and some one would have to go. An inquiry was to be made, but on Tuesday morning the patron walked up the jetty, and reported to Mr. Gustav Brown, who was the foreman of the works, that the engine-driver and stoker were absent. He stated that they had gone ashore in the night, and had not returned. Nothing could be learned about them; nobody had seen them; their kits were still on board. As the day wore on they did not come nor send any message; so a report of their disappearance was sent to the judge at Cavite.An engine-fitter from the works was sent on board to take charge of the engine, and another stoker was engaged; the launch resuming her running. The work of the Varadero proceeded as usual; divers were preparing the foundations to receive the immense gridiron which was shortly to be launched and sunk in place. It was a busy scene of organised labour under a skilful resident engineer; every difficulty foreseen and provided for, materials delivered in good time, notwithstanding obstructions; not an unnecessary auger-hole bored, not a stroke of an adze thrown away.From the Sleepy Hollow of the naval arsenal opposite jealous eyes watched the work proceed. Every art of vexation and obstruction that bitter envy could devise had for years been employed to prevent the building of this slip, and onerous and unfair conditions had been inserted in the concession. But Anglo-American persistence and industry had succeeded so far, and in the hands of Messrs. Peel, Hubbell & Co. and their advisers, the work was now well advanced.The obsolete corvetteDoña Maria Molinawas moored off the coaling-wharf adjoining the Varadero, and when one of her boats was going on shore the sailors noticed two dead bodies floating in the water, and reported this to the officer of the watch, who ordered them to tow the bodies to the shore towards Punta Sangley, and drag them up on the sand above high-water mark. The bodies were lashed together with a piece of new rope having a blue strand inthe centre, and had a good-sized piece of white granite attached as a sinker. On looking at the lashings no one could doubt that the work had been done by an able seaman. The bodies presented ghastly wounds, both had fractures of the skull, and gaping cuts on the throat and abdomen; they had also been gnawed by fishes. The swelling of the bodies had sufficed to bring them to the surface, stone and all.The news of the finding of the corpses did not immediately reach the Varadero, and they were conveyed to Cavite, and buried just as they were found, tied together with the ropes and stone, without being identified. It seemed nobody’s business to trouble about them, notwithstanding the evident fact that they had been murdered. The Manila newspapers did not mention the circumstance.But at this time other events happened. The patron of the launch disappeared without taking his kit with him. Then the boy disappeared, and I may as well at once say that, from that time to this, that boy has never been heard of by the Varadero Company, who were his employers. Next, that gay and lascivious damsel of San Roque, whose unbridled sensuality had wrought the trouble, also disappeared as mysteriously as the others.Dr. Juan Perez, of Cavite, was the medical attendant to the staff of the Varadero, and used to call there every afternoon. On hearing from him about the discovery of the bodies, the resident engineer at once thought of his missing men, and the flight of the patron confirmed his suspicions. A minute examination of the launch was made, and revealed some stains of blood which had not been entirely removed by the usual washing down. Several small cuts such as might be made with the point of abolowere found in the flat skylight of the cabin, and a deeper cut on the bulwark rail, starboard side forward, opposite the skylight. A working rope was missing from the launch. It had only recently been supplied to it, and had been cut off a whole coil purchased a few weeks before from a sailing-vessel, for the use of the Varadero. That rope had a blue strand in the centre. Gustav Brown put on a diving-dress, and went down at the head of the northern jetty, where the launch used to lie, and carefully examined the bottom. Presently his eye rested on an object that he recognised. It was the square steel coal-breaker used by the stoker, and he brought it up.Meanwhile, a new coxswain had been found for the launch, and as the old patron had left his vessel illegally, there was ground for his arrest on that score, so orders were given to the new patron and to the engine-driver to give him into custody if he came to claim his kit. Next time the launch arrived in Manila, sure enough the old patron appeared to fetch his belongings, and was taken to the calaboose of the captain of the port. The resident engineer called on that official, and, as a result of their conversation, the prisoner was put on board the launch to be conveyed to Cavite.With all the stoicism of the Malay, he sat quite still and silent; his impassive features betrayed no sign of anxiety or remorse.But if the principal actor in this bloody tragedy could thus compose his mind, it was not so with others who knew more or less what had happened, but whose dread and hatred of the law and its myrmidons had kept their tongues quiet.When the launch approached the Varadero near enough for the prisoner to be recognised, an unusual commotion occurred amongst the swarm of native workmen. A mysterious magnetism, an inexplicable vibration, pervaded the crowd. Unfelt by the senses, it acted on the mind, and seemed simultaneously to convey to each individual an identical idea.The patron was a prisoner, therefore his crime was known; no good could be done by keeping silent. Before this nobody knew anything about the disappearance of the two men. Now it leaked out, but only in confidence to Gustav Brown, whom they trusted. The native divers had seen the bodies when at their work on the foundations, and had moved them farther off out of their way. Men working at the jetties had seen them when they floated, but had looked in another direction. In fact, the corpses had been recognised, and the crime was known to scores of native and Chinese workmen, but no word or hint ever reached the foreman or the engineer till the culprit was arrested.Now there were sufficient details to reconstitute the tragic scene.The amour of the brothers with the San Roque girl was known, and also the well-founded jealousy of the patron, who at first endeavoured to obtain the engine-driver’s discharge by the means already mentioned. This notsucceeding, he determined to kill both of them, and without showing a sign of the deadly hatred that possessed him, calmly awaited his opportunity.On the Monday night, 7th June, after the incident of the safety-valve, the launch was moored alongside the Varadero jetty, and the two brothers lay fast asleep on the flat top of the cabin skylight, each wrapped in his blanket.A native sleeps hard, and is not easily awakened, nor when aroused does he quickly regain his faculties. It is an important point in the Malay code of manners never to awaken any person suddenly, for it is believed that, during sleep, the soul is absent from the body, wandering around, and must be given time to return, otherwise serious, even fatal consequences, may ensue. The awakened person may become an idiot, or some great harm may happen to the unmannerly one who awakened him. Many natives have as great a fear of the wandering soul of a sleeping person as of an evil spirit or ghost. The soul is said to return to the body in the form of a small black ball, which enters the mouth.Moreover, one of the greatest, in fact, the most terrible, curse that can be uttered by many tribes, is, “May you die sleeping,” for it means death to body and soul. That, however, was the fate reserved for the brothers. Towards midnight, when the cooking-fires in the coolie quarters had burnt down, and the chatter of the Chinese had subsided, when the last lights in the Europeans’ houses had been extinguished, and not a sound broke the stillness of the night, the patron addressed himself to the performance of his bloody task. Slipping his sharpenedbolothrough his belt, he descended into the engine-room, and, seizing the coal-breaker, crept forward to where the doomed men slumbered, perhaps dreaming of the charms of that dark damsel, the enjoyment of whose embraces was to cost them so dear. Meanwhile, their fate approached; their time was come.The patron was past his prime; privations at sea and dissipation on shore had sapped his strength. But bitter hatred nerving his arm, with lightning rapidity and terrific force he discharged a blow on each sleeper’s unprotected head. The sharp edge of the steel bar crashed deep into their skulls, driving in the splintered bone upon the brain. One agonised shudder from each, then all was still. A European murderer might have been satisfied with this.Not so a Tagal. A ceremony still remained to be accomplished. Their blood must flow; they must suffer mutilation. Seizing hisbolo, the assassin now vented his rage in cutting and thrusting at the bodies. The heavy and keen-edged blade fell repeatedly, cutting great gashes on the throats and bellies of the victims, whilst streams of gore ran down the waterways, and trickled out at the scuppers, staining the white sides of the launch with crimson streaks.His blood-thirst assuaged, his vengeance partly accomplished, and his spirit comforted by his desperate deed, the murderer probably paused for a time, and began to consider how he could conceal his crime. No sign of movement anywhere. Apparently the dull sounds of the blows had fallen on no mortal ear. Presently, taking up one of his working ropes, he mounted the jetty, and walked to the shore, where there lay a pile of stone ballast. It was white granite, discharged from a sailing-ship that had come from Hong Kong in ballast, and it had been purchased for the Varadero. Selecting a suitable piece, he carried it to the end of the jetty, and lowered it by the rope into the launch. Then, descending, he firmly lashed the two bodies together, and fastened the stone to them. Then he drew the bodies to the side, preparatory to launching them overboard. Now an incident occurred. It is thought that one of the two men was not quite dead, notwithstanding his dreadful wounds, and that recovering consciousness, and perceiving what awaited him, seized the rail in his death-grasp, and resisted the attempt to throw him over.The patron must once again have had recourse to his murderousbolo, bringing it down on the clenched hand, for a deep cut was found on the rail with blood driven into the pores of the wood by that savage blow. The tendons severed, the hand unclasped, and next moment the bodies slid over the rail and down underneath the keel of the launch in some four fathoms of water. Throwing the steel coal-breaker after them, the patron’s next task was to wash away the traces of his crime, and this he did fairly well so that nothing was noticed, till, suspicion being aroused, a careful scrutiny was made, with the result already mentioned. It is not known whether the boy knew anything of the tragedy performed so near him, for he was never questioned, having apparently disappeared off the face of the earth as soon as the bodies were found. What the patron did afterwards can only be conjectured. Guilty oftwo atrocious murders, and of savage mutilation of the slain, could he have composed himself to a quiet and dreamless slumber? Or was his imagination fired to further revenge by dream-pictures of his once-loved mistress in the arms of her youthful lovers? All that is known is that he presented himself to the foreman early on the Tuesday morning, and reported the absence of the two men without showing on his dark visage the slightest sign of trouble or emotion.We left the patron a prisoner on the launch. Now it became necessary to give him in charge to the judicial authorities, for it was getting late in the afternoon. They did not show any undue eagerness to receive him. The judge first applied to explained that he was only acting temporarily, that the judge had departed, having been transferred to another place, and that the new judge had not yet arrived, therefore he much regretted he could not take up the case. An appeal was then made to the Gobernador-Politico-Militar, who most courteously explained that a civil court was established in the province with full jurisdiction, both criminal and civil, so that he could not interfere. It was now nearly sunset, and the prisoner had been on the launch all day. The resident engineer then called on the Commandante of Cañacao—a naval officer who had a few marines at his disposal—and obtained as a personal favour that the prisoner should be temporarily secured in the guard-room. The next day the resident engineer proceeded to Cavite, and, accompanied by Dr. Juan Perez, visited the principal authorities, and eventually succeeded in getting the prisoner lodged in jail, and a charge of murder entered against him. The bodies of the victims were never exhumed for examination. The resident engineer made a declaration, which was taken down in writing, and on one of his busiest days he was peremptorily summoned to appear before the judge, and solemnly ratify his testimony.About three days after Juan de la Cruz was lodged in Cavite jail, the dead body of the San Roque damsel, gashed by savage blows of the fatalbolo, was left by the ebb on the sands of Parañaque, a village just across the little Bay of Bacoor opposite to San Roque. She had paid with her life for her frailty as many another woman has done in every clime. From the appearance of the body it was thought it had been several days in the water.No legal evidence was forthcoming to fix the crime on any one, although few of those who knew the story harboured a doubt that the assassin of the two brothers was the murderer of the girl also.Juan de la Cruz remained in prison, and from time to time, but with increasing intervals, the resident engineer, the foreman and others were cited by the judge, interrogated, then cited again to ratify their declarations.Theespediente, a pile of stamped paper, grew thicker and thicker, but the trial seemed no nearer. Month after month rolled on, the Varadero was finished, ships were drawn up, repaired and launched, Juan continued in prison.The resident engineer departed to other climes, and was soon expending his energy in building the great harbour at La Guayra. I was the means of obtaining an order for six gun-boats for the Varadero Company. They were built, launched, tried and delivered, and steamed away to overawe the piratical Moros. Still Juan continued in prison. Judges came and judges went, but the trial came no nearer. Year after year a judge of the Audiencia came in state to inspect the prisoners, and year after year Juan was set down as awaiting his trial.In December, 1892, I left the Philippines for Cuba and Juan de la Cruz was still in Cavite jail.Dr. Juan Perez, the surgeon who had examined the corpses, died, having wrongly diagnosed his own case, and Dr. Hugo Perez, a half caste, was appointed in his stead. Gustav Brown, the foreman, wearied of the monotony of ship repairing, became possessed by a longing to resume his nomadic life amongst the palm-clad islands of the Pacific. He purchased a schooner and embarked with his wife and family. First running down to Singapore to take in trade-goods for bartering with the natives, he sailed away for the Carolines where his wife’s home lay. He never reached them; for, soon after leaving Singapore, he came to a bloody end at the hands of his Chinese crew, who killed and decapitated him.The insurrection broke out in Cavite Province, Colonel Mattone’s column was defeated by the insurgents with great slaughter. Dr. Hugo Perez, the successor of Dr. Juan Perez, was suspected of sympathising with the rebels, and, needless to say,hesoon came to a bloody end.Hedid not have to wait long for his trial.In 1896, Mr. George Gilchrist, the engineer at the Varadero, who was not in the Philippines when the murders were committed, was cited by the judge, and asked if he couldidentify the prisoner ten years after his arrest! Two years more passed, and in April, 1898, Mr. Gilchrist returned to Scotland for a well-earned holiday. When he left Cañacao, Juan de la Cruz was still in prison awaiting his trial.He may have escaped when the rebels occupied Cavite after Admiral Dewey’s victory over the Spanish Squadron in the Bay of Bacoor.For the murderer no pity need be felt, he certainly had nothing to gain and all to lose by a trial. A double murder, premeditated, accompanied by acts of great barbarity, and committed at night, constitutes by the Penal Code a capital offence with three aggravating circumstances which would forbid all hope of clemency.But what can be thought of courts so remiss in their duty? How many innocent prisoners have waited years for their trial? How many have died in prison?
The case of Juan de la Cruz.
The following narrative of events, which occurred in 1886, will give the reader a good idea of the furious passions that may lurk under the inscrutable features of the Philippine Malay, and will also serve to illustrate the procedure of the Spanish criminal courts when the victims are natives and when nothing can be made out of the case.Four of the five actors or victims in the tragedy were well known to me, and I learned all the particulars at first hand and at the time, from those who took steps to deliver over the culprit to justice.The decked steam launchLaguimanocbelonged to Gustav Brown, a ship carpenter, and was hired by the Varadero, or Slipway Company of Cañacao, near Cavite, to keep up communication with Manila, whilst the slip was being constructed.I was consulting engineer to the company, and Mr. J. L. Houston was the resident engineer in charge of the work. Both of us made frequent voyages in this launch between Cañacao and Manila. The crew consisted of a patron (coxswain) named Juan de la Cruz, an engine-driver, a stoker, and a boy, all Tagals.Juan de la Cruz was an elderly man with grey hair, and in figure thin and wiry. He was a good man at his duty, one of the silent Indians whom I have always found to be the best. A thorough sailor, he had served under many a flag, and sailed o’er many a sea, both in tropic and in northern climes.The engine-driver and the stoker were brothers, strong and well-built young fellows, and smart at their work. The boy was an active lad, quite pleased to be employed on a steam-boat.One day, the stoker, going through the blacksmith’s shop, saw a piece of square steel, which had been cut off a long bar, lying on the floor, and it struck him that it would be better than a hammer for breaking coal. So he annexed it without leave, and got one end drawn out and rounded so that he could easily hold it. This made a very efficient coal-breaker, the sharp edges divided the lumps with great ease. It was about eighteen inches long, and one and three-quarter inches square. The patron was married, and his wife lived in Manila, but, sailor-like, he had provided himself with a sweetheart, at the other end of his run, where he spent more time than in the Pasig, and had become intimate with a damsel of San Roque, a village between the Varadero and Cavite. Things went on apparently all right for some time; the launch making almost daily trips between Cañacao and Manila, and the elderly patron alternating between the conjugal domicile and the dwelling of his mistress. She was young, and, as native girls go, a pretty woman. Come of a strange andunknown mixture of races, and bred up amongst a community noted for its profligacy, she knew how to make the best use of her charms and was well fitted to captivate the weather-beaten seaman.He, if not desirable in himself, held a well paid post, and was able to place her above want.Already fifty years old, he was as susceptible as a youth and far more in earnest. Day by day, as he basked in her smiles, his infatuation increased till he became violently enamoured of his charmer.What could be more natural than that the crew of the launch should become acquainted with the patron’s mistress? Soon the engine-driver and the stoker were her constant visitors. The damsel had a kind word and a smile for both, and doubtless contrasted their vigorous youth and shapely forms with the shrunken figure of her elderly protector, and their lively conversation with his glum silence.In the end, no doubt, the damsel refused them nothing.Trouble was now brewing. The grim sailor was not the man to let himself be wronged with impunity. All the elements of a tragedy were present. Things no longer went smoothly on board theLaguimanoc, and her voyages lost their regularity. Something was perpetually going wrong with the engines, pieces or fittings disappeared unaccountably, usually pieces of copper or brass. The engine-driver was blamed, but he succeeded in averting his impending discharge. Could he have foreseen the consequences of remaining, he would have promptly discharged himself.On board the launch mutual distrust prevailed. The engine-driver must have known that it was the patron who had thrown overboard the fittings in his absence, hoping to get him discharged, but he held his peace.The silent figure at the tiller made no sign; no trace of emotion could be seen on the Sphinx-like face, no reproaches passed his lips, not the slightest manifestation of resentment. But underneath that imperturbable calm there existed the steadfast determination to have a full and bloody revenge on all who had offended him. TheLaguimanocmade a voyage to Manila one Saturday to take up the resident engineer who often spent his Sundays there, the launch remaining in the river. On Monday morning when he came down to the launch he found thatthe safety valve was missing from its seat, and was delayed till another could be procured.No explanations of the loss of this piece could be got, and theLaguimanocproceeded with the resident engineer to Cañacao and made fast to the jetty.A crisis was now reached. The abstraction of the safety-valve could not be overlooked, and some one would have to go. An inquiry was to be made, but on Tuesday morning the patron walked up the jetty, and reported to Mr. Gustav Brown, who was the foreman of the works, that the engine-driver and stoker were absent. He stated that they had gone ashore in the night, and had not returned. Nothing could be learned about them; nobody had seen them; their kits were still on board. As the day wore on they did not come nor send any message; so a report of their disappearance was sent to the judge at Cavite.An engine-fitter from the works was sent on board to take charge of the engine, and another stoker was engaged; the launch resuming her running. The work of the Varadero proceeded as usual; divers were preparing the foundations to receive the immense gridiron which was shortly to be launched and sunk in place. It was a busy scene of organised labour under a skilful resident engineer; every difficulty foreseen and provided for, materials delivered in good time, notwithstanding obstructions; not an unnecessary auger-hole bored, not a stroke of an adze thrown away.From the Sleepy Hollow of the naval arsenal opposite jealous eyes watched the work proceed. Every art of vexation and obstruction that bitter envy could devise had for years been employed to prevent the building of this slip, and onerous and unfair conditions had been inserted in the concession. But Anglo-American persistence and industry had succeeded so far, and in the hands of Messrs. Peel, Hubbell & Co. and their advisers, the work was now well advanced.The obsolete corvetteDoña Maria Molinawas moored off the coaling-wharf adjoining the Varadero, and when one of her boats was going on shore the sailors noticed two dead bodies floating in the water, and reported this to the officer of the watch, who ordered them to tow the bodies to the shore towards Punta Sangley, and drag them up on the sand above high-water mark. The bodies were lashed together with a piece of new rope having a blue strand inthe centre, and had a good-sized piece of white granite attached as a sinker. On looking at the lashings no one could doubt that the work had been done by an able seaman. The bodies presented ghastly wounds, both had fractures of the skull, and gaping cuts on the throat and abdomen; they had also been gnawed by fishes. The swelling of the bodies had sufficed to bring them to the surface, stone and all.The news of the finding of the corpses did not immediately reach the Varadero, and they were conveyed to Cavite, and buried just as they were found, tied together with the ropes and stone, without being identified. It seemed nobody’s business to trouble about them, notwithstanding the evident fact that they had been murdered. The Manila newspapers did not mention the circumstance.But at this time other events happened. The patron of the launch disappeared without taking his kit with him. Then the boy disappeared, and I may as well at once say that, from that time to this, that boy has never been heard of by the Varadero Company, who were his employers. Next, that gay and lascivious damsel of San Roque, whose unbridled sensuality had wrought the trouble, also disappeared as mysteriously as the others.Dr. Juan Perez, of Cavite, was the medical attendant to the staff of the Varadero, and used to call there every afternoon. On hearing from him about the discovery of the bodies, the resident engineer at once thought of his missing men, and the flight of the patron confirmed his suspicions. A minute examination of the launch was made, and revealed some stains of blood which had not been entirely removed by the usual washing down. Several small cuts such as might be made with the point of abolowere found in the flat skylight of the cabin, and a deeper cut on the bulwark rail, starboard side forward, opposite the skylight. A working rope was missing from the launch. It had only recently been supplied to it, and had been cut off a whole coil purchased a few weeks before from a sailing-vessel, for the use of the Varadero. That rope had a blue strand in the centre. Gustav Brown put on a diving-dress, and went down at the head of the northern jetty, where the launch used to lie, and carefully examined the bottom. Presently his eye rested on an object that he recognised. It was the square steel coal-breaker used by the stoker, and he brought it up.Meanwhile, a new coxswain had been found for the launch, and as the old patron had left his vessel illegally, there was ground for his arrest on that score, so orders were given to the new patron and to the engine-driver to give him into custody if he came to claim his kit. Next time the launch arrived in Manila, sure enough the old patron appeared to fetch his belongings, and was taken to the calaboose of the captain of the port. The resident engineer called on that official, and, as a result of their conversation, the prisoner was put on board the launch to be conveyed to Cavite.With all the stoicism of the Malay, he sat quite still and silent; his impassive features betrayed no sign of anxiety or remorse.But if the principal actor in this bloody tragedy could thus compose his mind, it was not so with others who knew more or less what had happened, but whose dread and hatred of the law and its myrmidons had kept their tongues quiet.When the launch approached the Varadero near enough for the prisoner to be recognised, an unusual commotion occurred amongst the swarm of native workmen. A mysterious magnetism, an inexplicable vibration, pervaded the crowd. Unfelt by the senses, it acted on the mind, and seemed simultaneously to convey to each individual an identical idea.The patron was a prisoner, therefore his crime was known; no good could be done by keeping silent. Before this nobody knew anything about the disappearance of the two men. Now it leaked out, but only in confidence to Gustav Brown, whom they trusted. The native divers had seen the bodies when at their work on the foundations, and had moved them farther off out of their way. Men working at the jetties had seen them when they floated, but had looked in another direction. In fact, the corpses had been recognised, and the crime was known to scores of native and Chinese workmen, but no word or hint ever reached the foreman or the engineer till the culprit was arrested.Now there were sufficient details to reconstitute the tragic scene.The amour of the brothers with the San Roque girl was known, and also the well-founded jealousy of the patron, who at first endeavoured to obtain the engine-driver’s discharge by the means already mentioned. This notsucceeding, he determined to kill both of them, and without showing a sign of the deadly hatred that possessed him, calmly awaited his opportunity.On the Monday night, 7th June, after the incident of the safety-valve, the launch was moored alongside the Varadero jetty, and the two brothers lay fast asleep on the flat top of the cabin skylight, each wrapped in his blanket.A native sleeps hard, and is not easily awakened, nor when aroused does he quickly regain his faculties. It is an important point in the Malay code of manners never to awaken any person suddenly, for it is believed that, during sleep, the soul is absent from the body, wandering around, and must be given time to return, otherwise serious, even fatal consequences, may ensue. The awakened person may become an idiot, or some great harm may happen to the unmannerly one who awakened him. Many natives have as great a fear of the wandering soul of a sleeping person as of an evil spirit or ghost. The soul is said to return to the body in the form of a small black ball, which enters the mouth.Moreover, one of the greatest, in fact, the most terrible, curse that can be uttered by many tribes, is, “May you die sleeping,” for it means death to body and soul. That, however, was the fate reserved for the brothers. Towards midnight, when the cooking-fires in the coolie quarters had burnt down, and the chatter of the Chinese had subsided, when the last lights in the Europeans’ houses had been extinguished, and not a sound broke the stillness of the night, the patron addressed himself to the performance of his bloody task. Slipping his sharpenedbolothrough his belt, he descended into the engine-room, and, seizing the coal-breaker, crept forward to where the doomed men slumbered, perhaps dreaming of the charms of that dark damsel, the enjoyment of whose embraces was to cost them so dear. Meanwhile, their fate approached; their time was come.The patron was past his prime; privations at sea and dissipation on shore had sapped his strength. But bitter hatred nerving his arm, with lightning rapidity and terrific force he discharged a blow on each sleeper’s unprotected head. The sharp edge of the steel bar crashed deep into their skulls, driving in the splintered bone upon the brain. One agonised shudder from each, then all was still. A European murderer might have been satisfied with this.Not so a Tagal. A ceremony still remained to be accomplished. Their blood must flow; they must suffer mutilation. Seizing hisbolo, the assassin now vented his rage in cutting and thrusting at the bodies. The heavy and keen-edged blade fell repeatedly, cutting great gashes on the throats and bellies of the victims, whilst streams of gore ran down the waterways, and trickled out at the scuppers, staining the white sides of the launch with crimson streaks.His blood-thirst assuaged, his vengeance partly accomplished, and his spirit comforted by his desperate deed, the murderer probably paused for a time, and began to consider how he could conceal his crime. No sign of movement anywhere. Apparently the dull sounds of the blows had fallen on no mortal ear. Presently, taking up one of his working ropes, he mounted the jetty, and walked to the shore, where there lay a pile of stone ballast. It was white granite, discharged from a sailing-ship that had come from Hong Kong in ballast, and it had been purchased for the Varadero. Selecting a suitable piece, he carried it to the end of the jetty, and lowered it by the rope into the launch. Then, descending, he firmly lashed the two bodies together, and fastened the stone to them. Then he drew the bodies to the side, preparatory to launching them overboard. Now an incident occurred. It is thought that one of the two men was not quite dead, notwithstanding his dreadful wounds, and that recovering consciousness, and perceiving what awaited him, seized the rail in his death-grasp, and resisted the attempt to throw him over.The patron must once again have had recourse to his murderousbolo, bringing it down on the clenched hand, for a deep cut was found on the rail with blood driven into the pores of the wood by that savage blow. The tendons severed, the hand unclasped, and next moment the bodies slid over the rail and down underneath the keel of the launch in some four fathoms of water. Throwing the steel coal-breaker after them, the patron’s next task was to wash away the traces of his crime, and this he did fairly well so that nothing was noticed, till, suspicion being aroused, a careful scrutiny was made, with the result already mentioned. It is not known whether the boy knew anything of the tragedy performed so near him, for he was never questioned, having apparently disappeared off the face of the earth as soon as the bodies were found. What the patron did afterwards can only be conjectured. Guilty oftwo atrocious murders, and of savage mutilation of the slain, could he have composed himself to a quiet and dreamless slumber? Or was his imagination fired to further revenge by dream-pictures of his once-loved mistress in the arms of her youthful lovers? All that is known is that he presented himself to the foreman early on the Tuesday morning, and reported the absence of the two men without showing on his dark visage the slightest sign of trouble or emotion.We left the patron a prisoner on the launch. Now it became necessary to give him in charge to the judicial authorities, for it was getting late in the afternoon. They did not show any undue eagerness to receive him. The judge first applied to explained that he was only acting temporarily, that the judge had departed, having been transferred to another place, and that the new judge had not yet arrived, therefore he much regretted he could not take up the case. An appeal was then made to the Gobernador-Politico-Militar, who most courteously explained that a civil court was established in the province with full jurisdiction, both criminal and civil, so that he could not interfere. It was now nearly sunset, and the prisoner had been on the launch all day. The resident engineer then called on the Commandante of Cañacao—a naval officer who had a few marines at his disposal—and obtained as a personal favour that the prisoner should be temporarily secured in the guard-room. The next day the resident engineer proceeded to Cavite, and, accompanied by Dr. Juan Perez, visited the principal authorities, and eventually succeeded in getting the prisoner lodged in jail, and a charge of murder entered against him. The bodies of the victims were never exhumed for examination. The resident engineer made a declaration, which was taken down in writing, and on one of his busiest days he was peremptorily summoned to appear before the judge, and solemnly ratify his testimony.About three days after Juan de la Cruz was lodged in Cavite jail, the dead body of the San Roque damsel, gashed by savage blows of the fatalbolo, was left by the ebb on the sands of Parañaque, a village just across the little Bay of Bacoor opposite to San Roque. She had paid with her life for her frailty as many another woman has done in every clime. From the appearance of the body it was thought it had been several days in the water.No legal evidence was forthcoming to fix the crime on any one, although few of those who knew the story harboured a doubt that the assassin of the two brothers was the murderer of the girl also.Juan de la Cruz remained in prison, and from time to time, but with increasing intervals, the resident engineer, the foreman and others were cited by the judge, interrogated, then cited again to ratify their declarations.Theespediente, a pile of stamped paper, grew thicker and thicker, but the trial seemed no nearer. Month after month rolled on, the Varadero was finished, ships were drawn up, repaired and launched, Juan continued in prison.The resident engineer departed to other climes, and was soon expending his energy in building the great harbour at La Guayra. I was the means of obtaining an order for six gun-boats for the Varadero Company. They were built, launched, tried and delivered, and steamed away to overawe the piratical Moros. Still Juan continued in prison. Judges came and judges went, but the trial came no nearer. Year after year a judge of the Audiencia came in state to inspect the prisoners, and year after year Juan was set down as awaiting his trial.In December, 1892, I left the Philippines for Cuba and Juan de la Cruz was still in Cavite jail.Dr. Juan Perez, the surgeon who had examined the corpses, died, having wrongly diagnosed his own case, and Dr. Hugo Perez, a half caste, was appointed in his stead. Gustav Brown, the foreman, wearied of the monotony of ship repairing, became possessed by a longing to resume his nomadic life amongst the palm-clad islands of the Pacific. He purchased a schooner and embarked with his wife and family. First running down to Singapore to take in trade-goods for bartering with the natives, he sailed away for the Carolines where his wife’s home lay. He never reached them; for, soon after leaving Singapore, he came to a bloody end at the hands of his Chinese crew, who killed and decapitated him.The insurrection broke out in Cavite Province, Colonel Mattone’s column was defeated by the insurgents with great slaughter. Dr. Hugo Perez, the successor of Dr. Juan Perez, was suspected of sympathising with the rebels, and, needless to say,hesoon came to a bloody end.Hedid not have to wait long for his trial.In 1896, Mr. George Gilchrist, the engineer at the Varadero, who was not in the Philippines when the murders were committed, was cited by the judge, and asked if he couldidentify the prisoner ten years after his arrest! Two years more passed, and in April, 1898, Mr. Gilchrist returned to Scotland for a well-earned holiday. When he left Cañacao, Juan de la Cruz was still in prison awaiting his trial.He may have escaped when the rebels occupied Cavite after Admiral Dewey’s victory over the Spanish Squadron in the Bay of Bacoor.For the murderer no pity need be felt, he certainly had nothing to gain and all to lose by a trial. A double murder, premeditated, accompanied by acts of great barbarity, and committed at night, constitutes by the Penal Code a capital offence with three aggravating circumstances which would forbid all hope of clemency.But what can be thought of courts so remiss in their duty? How many innocent prisoners have waited years for their trial? How many have died in prison?
The following narrative of events, which occurred in 1886, will give the reader a good idea of the furious passions that may lurk under the inscrutable features of the Philippine Malay, and will also serve to illustrate the procedure of the Spanish criminal courts when the victims are natives and when nothing can be made out of the case.Four of the five actors or victims in the tragedy were well known to me, and I learned all the particulars at first hand and at the time, from those who took steps to deliver over the culprit to justice.
The decked steam launchLaguimanocbelonged to Gustav Brown, a ship carpenter, and was hired by the Varadero, or Slipway Company of Cañacao, near Cavite, to keep up communication with Manila, whilst the slip was being constructed.
I was consulting engineer to the company, and Mr. J. L. Houston was the resident engineer in charge of the work. Both of us made frequent voyages in this launch between Cañacao and Manila. The crew consisted of a patron (coxswain) named Juan de la Cruz, an engine-driver, a stoker, and a boy, all Tagals.
Juan de la Cruz was an elderly man with grey hair, and in figure thin and wiry. He was a good man at his duty, one of the silent Indians whom I have always found to be the best. A thorough sailor, he had served under many a flag, and sailed o’er many a sea, both in tropic and in northern climes.
The engine-driver and the stoker were brothers, strong and well-built young fellows, and smart at their work. The boy was an active lad, quite pleased to be employed on a steam-boat.
One day, the stoker, going through the blacksmith’s shop, saw a piece of square steel, which had been cut off a long bar, lying on the floor, and it struck him that it would be better than a hammer for breaking coal. So he annexed it without leave, and got one end drawn out and rounded so that he could easily hold it. This made a very efficient coal-breaker, the sharp edges divided the lumps with great ease. It was about eighteen inches long, and one and three-quarter inches square. The patron was married, and his wife lived in Manila, but, sailor-like, he had provided himself with a sweetheart, at the other end of his run, where he spent more time than in the Pasig, and had become intimate with a damsel of San Roque, a village between the Varadero and Cavite. Things went on apparently all right for some time; the launch making almost daily trips between Cañacao and Manila, and the elderly patron alternating between the conjugal domicile and the dwelling of his mistress. She was young, and, as native girls go, a pretty woman. Come of a strange andunknown mixture of races, and bred up amongst a community noted for its profligacy, she knew how to make the best use of her charms and was well fitted to captivate the weather-beaten seaman.
He, if not desirable in himself, held a well paid post, and was able to place her above want.
Already fifty years old, he was as susceptible as a youth and far more in earnest. Day by day, as he basked in her smiles, his infatuation increased till he became violently enamoured of his charmer.
What could be more natural than that the crew of the launch should become acquainted with the patron’s mistress? Soon the engine-driver and the stoker were her constant visitors. The damsel had a kind word and a smile for both, and doubtless contrasted their vigorous youth and shapely forms with the shrunken figure of her elderly protector, and their lively conversation with his glum silence.
In the end, no doubt, the damsel refused them nothing.
Trouble was now brewing. The grim sailor was not the man to let himself be wronged with impunity. All the elements of a tragedy were present. Things no longer went smoothly on board theLaguimanoc, and her voyages lost their regularity. Something was perpetually going wrong with the engines, pieces or fittings disappeared unaccountably, usually pieces of copper or brass. The engine-driver was blamed, but he succeeded in averting his impending discharge. Could he have foreseen the consequences of remaining, he would have promptly discharged himself.
On board the launch mutual distrust prevailed. The engine-driver must have known that it was the patron who had thrown overboard the fittings in his absence, hoping to get him discharged, but he held his peace.
The silent figure at the tiller made no sign; no trace of emotion could be seen on the Sphinx-like face, no reproaches passed his lips, not the slightest manifestation of resentment. But underneath that imperturbable calm there existed the steadfast determination to have a full and bloody revenge on all who had offended him. TheLaguimanocmade a voyage to Manila one Saturday to take up the resident engineer who often spent his Sundays there, the launch remaining in the river. On Monday morning when he came down to the launch he found thatthe safety valve was missing from its seat, and was delayed till another could be procured.
No explanations of the loss of this piece could be got, and theLaguimanocproceeded with the resident engineer to Cañacao and made fast to the jetty.
A crisis was now reached. The abstraction of the safety-valve could not be overlooked, and some one would have to go. An inquiry was to be made, but on Tuesday morning the patron walked up the jetty, and reported to Mr. Gustav Brown, who was the foreman of the works, that the engine-driver and stoker were absent. He stated that they had gone ashore in the night, and had not returned. Nothing could be learned about them; nobody had seen them; their kits were still on board. As the day wore on they did not come nor send any message; so a report of their disappearance was sent to the judge at Cavite.
An engine-fitter from the works was sent on board to take charge of the engine, and another stoker was engaged; the launch resuming her running. The work of the Varadero proceeded as usual; divers were preparing the foundations to receive the immense gridiron which was shortly to be launched and sunk in place. It was a busy scene of organised labour under a skilful resident engineer; every difficulty foreseen and provided for, materials delivered in good time, notwithstanding obstructions; not an unnecessary auger-hole bored, not a stroke of an adze thrown away.
From the Sleepy Hollow of the naval arsenal opposite jealous eyes watched the work proceed. Every art of vexation and obstruction that bitter envy could devise had for years been employed to prevent the building of this slip, and onerous and unfair conditions had been inserted in the concession. But Anglo-American persistence and industry had succeeded so far, and in the hands of Messrs. Peel, Hubbell & Co. and their advisers, the work was now well advanced.
The obsolete corvetteDoña Maria Molinawas moored off the coaling-wharf adjoining the Varadero, and when one of her boats was going on shore the sailors noticed two dead bodies floating in the water, and reported this to the officer of the watch, who ordered them to tow the bodies to the shore towards Punta Sangley, and drag them up on the sand above high-water mark. The bodies were lashed together with a piece of new rope having a blue strand inthe centre, and had a good-sized piece of white granite attached as a sinker. On looking at the lashings no one could doubt that the work had been done by an able seaman. The bodies presented ghastly wounds, both had fractures of the skull, and gaping cuts on the throat and abdomen; they had also been gnawed by fishes. The swelling of the bodies had sufficed to bring them to the surface, stone and all.
The news of the finding of the corpses did not immediately reach the Varadero, and they were conveyed to Cavite, and buried just as they were found, tied together with the ropes and stone, without being identified. It seemed nobody’s business to trouble about them, notwithstanding the evident fact that they had been murdered. The Manila newspapers did not mention the circumstance.
But at this time other events happened. The patron of the launch disappeared without taking his kit with him. Then the boy disappeared, and I may as well at once say that, from that time to this, that boy has never been heard of by the Varadero Company, who were his employers. Next, that gay and lascivious damsel of San Roque, whose unbridled sensuality had wrought the trouble, also disappeared as mysteriously as the others.
Dr. Juan Perez, of Cavite, was the medical attendant to the staff of the Varadero, and used to call there every afternoon. On hearing from him about the discovery of the bodies, the resident engineer at once thought of his missing men, and the flight of the patron confirmed his suspicions. A minute examination of the launch was made, and revealed some stains of blood which had not been entirely removed by the usual washing down. Several small cuts such as might be made with the point of abolowere found in the flat skylight of the cabin, and a deeper cut on the bulwark rail, starboard side forward, opposite the skylight. A working rope was missing from the launch. It had only recently been supplied to it, and had been cut off a whole coil purchased a few weeks before from a sailing-vessel, for the use of the Varadero. That rope had a blue strand in the centre. Gustav Brown put on a diving-dress, and went down at the head of the northern jetty, where the launch used to lie, and carefully examined the bottom. Presently his eye rested on an object that he recognised. It was the square steel coal-breaker used by the stoker, and he brought it up.
Meanwhile, a new coxswain had been found for the launch, and as the old patron had left his vessel illegally, there was ground for his arrest on that score, so orders were given to the new patron and to the engine-driver to give him into custody if he came to claim his kit. Next time the launch arrived in Manila, sure enough the old patron appeared to fetch his belongings, and was taken to the calaboose of the captain of the port. The resident engineer called on that official, and, as a result of their conversation, the prisoner was put on board the launch to be conveyed to Cavite.
With all the stoicism of the Malay, he sat quite still and silent; his impassive features betrayed no sign of anxiety or remorse.
But if the principal actor in this bloody tragedy could thus compose his mind, it was not so with others who knew more or less what had happened, but whose dread and hatred of the law and its myrmidons had kept their tongues quiet.
When the launch approached the Varadero near enough for the prisoner to be recognised, an unusual commotion occurred amongst the swarm of native workmen. A mysterious magnetism, an inexplicable vibration, pervaded the crowd. Unfelt by the senses, it acted on the mind, and seemed simultaneously to convey to each individual an identical idea.
The patron was a prisoner, therefore his crime was known; no good could be done by keeping silent. Before this nobody knew anything about the disappearance of the two men. Now it leaked out, but only in confidence to Gustav Brown, whom they trusted. The native divers had seen the bodies when at their work on the foundations, and had moved them farther off out of their way. Men working at the jetties had seen them when they floated, but had looked in another direction. In fact, the corpses had been recognised, and the crime was known to scores of native and Chinese workmen, but no word or hint ever reached the foreman or the engineer till the culprit was arrested.
Now there were sufficient details to reconstitute the tragic scene.
The amour of the brothers with the San Roque girl was known, and also the well-founded jealousy of the patron, who at first endeavoured to obtain the engine-driver’s discharge by the means already mentioned. This notsucceeding, he determined to kill both of them, and without showing a sign of the deadly hatred that possessed him, calmly awaited his opportunity.
On the Monday night, 7th June, after the incident of the safety-valve, the launch was moored alongside the Varadero jetty, and the two brothers lay fast asleep on the flat top of the cabin skylight, each wrapped in his blanket.
A native sleeps hard, and is not easily awakened, nor when aroused does he quickly regain his faculties. It is an important point in the Malay code of manners never to awaken any person suddenly, for it is believed that, during sleep, the soul is absent from the body, wandering around, and must be given time to return, otherwise serious, even fatal consequences, may ensue. The awakened person may become an idiot, or some great harm may happen to the unmannerly one who awakened him. Many natives have as great a fear of the wandering soul of a sleeping person as of an evil spirit or ghost. The soul is said to return to the body in the form of a small black ball, which enters the mouth.
Moreover, one of the greatest, in fact, the most terrible, curse that can be uttered by many tribes, is, “May you die sleeping,” for it means death to body and soul. That, however, was the fate reserved for the brothers. Towards midnight, when the cooking-fires in the coolie quarters had burnt down, and the chatter of the Chinese had subsided, when the last lights in the Europeans’ houses had been extinguished, and not a sound broke the stillness of the night, the patron addressed himself to the performance of his bloody task. Slipping his sharpenedbolothrough his belt, he descended into the engine-room, and, seizing the coal-breaker, crept forward to where the doomed men slumbered, perhaps dreaming of the charms of that dark damsel, the enjoyment of whose embraces was to cost them so dear. Meanwhile, their fate approached; their time was come.
The patron was past his prime; privations at sea and dissipation on shore had sapped his strength. But bitter hatred nerving his arm, with lightning rapidity and terrific force he discharged a blow on each sleeper’s unprotected head. The sharp edge of the steel bar crashed deep into their skulls, driving in the splintered bone upon the brain. One agonised shudder from each, then all was still. A European murderer might have been satisfied with this.Not so a Tagal. A ceremony still remained to be accomplished. Their blood must flow; they must suffer mutilation. Seizing hisbolo, the assassin now vented his rage in cutting and thrusting at the bodies. The heavy and keen-edged blade fell repeatedly, cutting great gashes on the throats and bellies of the victims, whilst streams of gore ran down the waterways, and trickled out at the scuppers, staining the white sides of the launch with crimson streaks.
His blood-thirst assuaged, his vengeance partly accomplished, and his spirit comforted by his desperate deed, the murderer probably paused for a time, and began to consider how he could conceal his crime. No sign of movement anywhere. Apparently the dull sounds of the blows had fallen on no mortal ear. Presently, taking up one of his working ropes, he mounted the jetty, and walked to the shore, where there lay a pile of stone ballast. It was white granite, discharged from a sailing-ship that had come from Hong Kong in ballast, and it had been purchased for the Varadero. Selecting a suitable piece, he carried it to the end of the jetty, and lowered it by the rope into the launch. Then, descending, he firmly lashed the two bodies together, and fastened the stone to them. Then he drew the bodies to the side, preparatory to launching them overboard. Now an incident occurred. It is thought that one of the two men was not quite dead, notwithstanding his dreadful wounds, and that recovering consciousness, and perceiving what awaited him, seized the rail in his death-grasp, and resisted the attempt to throw him over.
The patron must once again have had recourse to his murderousbolo, bringing it down on the clenched hand, for a deep cut was found on the rail with blood driven into the pores of the wood by that savage blow. The tendons severed, the hand unclasped, and next moment the bodies slid over the rail and down underneath the keel of the launch in some four fathoms of water. Throwing the steel coal-breaker after them, the patron’s next task was to wash away the traces of his crime, and this he did fairly well so that nothing was noticed, till, suspicion being aroused, a careful scrutiny was made, with the result already mentioned. It is not known whether the boy knew anything of the tragedy performed so near him, for he was never questioned, having apparently disappeared off the face of the earth as soon as the bodies were found. What the patron did afterwards can only be conjectured. Guilty oftwo atrocious murders, and of savage mutilation of the slain, could he have composed himself to a quiet and dreamless slumber? Or was his imagination fired to further revenge by dream-pictures of his once-loved mistress in the arms of her youthful lovers? All that is known is that he presented himself to the foreman early on the Tuesday morning, and reported the absence of the two men without showing on his dark visage the slightest sign of trouble or emotion.
We left the patron a prisoner on the launch. Now it became necessary to give him in charge to the judicial authorities, for it was getting late in the afternoon. They did not show any undue eagerness to receive him. The judge first applied to explained that he was only acting temporarily, that the judge had departed, having been transferred to another place, and that the new judge had not yet arrived, therefore he much regretted he could not take up the case. An appeal was then made to the Gobernador-Politico-Militar, who most courteously explained that a civil court was established in the province with full jurisdiction, both criminal and civil, so that he could not interfere. It was now nearly sunset, and the prisoner had been on the launch all day. The resident engineer then called on the Commandante of Cañacao—a naval officer who had a few marines at his disposal—and obtained as a personal favour that the prisoner should be temporarily secured in the guard-room. The next day the resident engineer proceeded to Cavite, and, accompanied by Dr. Juan Perez, visited the principal authorities, and eventually succeeded in getting the prisoner lodged in jail, and a charge of murder entered against him. The bodies of the victims were never exhumed for examination. The resident engineer made a declaration, which was taken down in writing, and on one of his busiest days he was peremptorily summoned to appear before the judge, and solemnly ratify his testimony.
About three days after Juan de la Cruz was lodged in Cavite jail, the dead body of the San Roque damsel, gashed by savage blows of the fatalbolo, was left by the ebb on the sands of Parañaque, a village just across the little Bay of Bacoor opposite to San Roque. She had paid with her life for her frailty as many another woman has done in every clime. From the appearance of the body it was thought it had been several days in the water.
No legal evidence was forthcoming to fix the crime on any one, although few of those who knew the story harboured a doubt that the assassin of the two brothers was the murderer of the girl also.
Juan de la Cruz remained in prison, and from time to time, but with increasing intervals, the resident engineer, the foreman and others were cited by the judge, interrogated, then cited again to ratify their declarations.
Theespediente, a pile of stamped paper, grew thicker and thicker, but the trial seemed no nearer. Month after month rolled on, the Varadero was finished, ships were drawn up, repaired and launched, Juan continued in prison.
The resident engineer departed to other climes, and was soon expending his energy in building the great harbour at La Guayra. I was the means of obtaining an order for six gun-boats for the Varadero Company. They were built, launched, tried and delivered, and steamed away to overawe the piratical Moros. Still Juan continued in prison. Judges came and judges went, but the trial came no nearer. Year after year a judge of the Audiencia came in state to inspect the prisoners, and year after year Juan was set down as awaiting his trial.
In December, 1892, I left the Philippines for Cuba and Juan de la Cruz was still in Cavite jail.
Dr. Juan Perez, the surgeon who had examined the corpses, died, having wrongly diagnosed his own case, and Dr. Hugo Perez, a half caste, was appointed in his stead. Gustav Brown, the foreman, wearied of the monotony of ship repairing, became possessed by a longing to resume his nomadic life amongst the palm-clad islands of the Pacific. He purchased a schooner and embarked with his wife and family. First running down to Singapore to take in trade-goods for bartering with the natives, he sailed away for the Carolines where his wife’s home lay. He never reached them; for, soon after leaving Singapore, he came to a bloody end at the hands of his Chinese crew, who killed and decapitated him.
The insurrection broke out in Cavite Province, Colonel Mattone’s column was defeated by the insurgents with great slaughter. Dr. Hugo Perez, the successor of Dr. Juan Perez, was suspected of sympathising with the rebels, and, needless to say,hesoon came to a bloody end.Hedid not have to wait long for his trial.
In 1896, Mr. George Gilchrist, the engineer at the Varadero, who was not in the Philippines when the murders were committed, was cited by the judge, and asked if he couldidentify the prisoner ten years after his arrest! Two years more passed, and in April, 1898, Mr. Gilchrist returned to Scotland for a well-earned holiday. When he left Cañacao, Juan de la Cruz was still in prison awaiting his trial.
He may have escaped when the rebels occupied Cavite after Admiral Dewey’s victory over the Spanish Squadron in the Bay of Bacoor.
For the murderer no pity need be felt, he certainly had nothing to gain and all to lose by a trial. A double murder, premeditated, accompanied by acts of great barbarity, and committed at night, constitutes by the Penal Code a capital offence with three aggravating circumstances which would forbid all hope of clemency.
But what can be thought of courts so remiss in their duty? How many innocent prisoners have waited years for their trial? How many have died in prison?
Piratical Outrage in Luzon.At Laguimanóc, a port and village in the Province of Tayabas, there resided an Englishman, Mr. H. G. Brown, who had been many years in the Philippines. By the exercise of untiring industry, by braving the malaria of the primeval forests, and by his never-failing tact in dealing with the officials of the Woods and Forests on the one hand, and with the semi-barbarous and entirely lawless wood-cutters on the other, he had built up an extensive business in cutting timber in the state forests of Southern Luzon and the adjacent islands. He was owner of several sailing vessels, had a well-appointed saw-mill, and a comfortable residence at Languimanóc. He employed large numbers of wood-cutters; all under advances of pay, who were scattered about the Provinces of Tayabas, and Camarines Norte over a considerable area.His business was so considerable that he paid the Government fully $30,000 per year as royalty on timber which was mostly shipped to Hong Kong and Shanghai.In order to facilitate a business so profitable to them the Government placed a Custom House official at Atimónan, in the Bay of Lamon on the Pacific coast, to clear anddespatch his timber vessels loaded at Atimónan, Gumacas, Lopez, Alabat Island, or other places. To show how little Mr. Brown spared himself, I may mention that not even the dreaded jungle-fever of Mindoro prevented him from personally superintending the loading of several vessels at different ports of that pestilential island. In persistence and pluck he was a worthy predecessor of Professor D. C. Worcester, who years afterwards showed his Anglo-Saxon determination in the same fearsome spot.One day in December of 1884, Mr. Brown being absent in Hong Kong, and his manager, Mr. Anderson, busy on the Pacific coast, looking after the loading of a vessel, the out-door superintendent, a Swede named Alfred Olsen, was in charge of the house, office, and saw-mill at Laguimanóc, and was attending to the loading of theTartar, one of Mr. Brown’s ships which was anchored in the bay taking in timber for China. She had a native crew who occasionally of an evening, when ashore to enjoy themselves, got up a disturbance with the villagers. On board this vessel there were, as is usual, two Carabineros or Custom House guards to prevent smuggling.Although no one in the village suspected it, two large canoes full of armed men were lying concealed behind a point in Capuluan Cove on the opposite side of the Bay. At eight o’clock in the evening, it being quite dark, they came across, and in perfect order, according to a pre-arranged plan advanced in silence on the village. The assailants numbered twenty-eight men, and were variously armed with lances,bolosand daggers. Only the leader bore a revolver. A guard was left on the canoes, four of the gang were stationed at the door of Mr. Brown’s house, and others at strategic points, whilst the main body attacked theTribunalclose by which was also theestancowhere there was some Government money, postage stamps and stamped paper. At allTribunalesthere are a couple ofcuadrilleros, or village constables on guard, armed usually with lance andbolo. These men did their duty and manfully resisted the pirates. In the combat which ensued, the sergeant of the Cuadrilleros was killed and some on both sides were wounded, but the pirates got the best of the fight, and plundered theestanco.In the meantime, Olsen, having heard the uproar, may have thought that the crew of theTartarwere again making a disturbance. At all events he left the house unarmedand unsuspicious, thus walking into the trap laid for him. The Tagals have a great respect for fire-arms, more especially for the revolvers and repeating rifles of the foreigner, thus they did not venture to enter the house, but the moment Olsen stepped out into the darkness and before he could see round about him, he was attacked by two men on each side, who plunged their daggers into his body, piercing his lungs. Bleeding profusely and vomiting blood he rushed back into the house towards his bedroom to get his revolver which was under the bed. His assailants, however, followed him into the room and butchered him before he could grasp it. At least the revolver was afterwards found in its case with the perfect impress of his blood-stained hand upon the oaken lid. A native boy named Pablo, about eight years old, was in the house at the time, and in his terror squeezed himself into a narrow space behind the door and escaped discovery, although he was an eye-witness of the crime.By this time the alarm had spread all over the little village, and the noise was heard on board theTartar. The two Carabineros, taking their Remingtons and cartridge boxes, had themselves paddled on shore, and marching up the stairs which led to the rocky eminence on which the village stands, bravely advanced against the pirates although out-numbered by more than ten to one. They fired their rifles, but the gang rushed upon them and in a moment they were cut down, and according to Tagal custom, their bellies were ripped open. The pirates having now overcome all opposition and having plundered theestanco, and the inevitable Chinaman’s shop, transferred their attention to Mr. Brown’s house, which they ransacked, taking the contents of the safe, a collection of gold and silver coins, seven Martini-Henry rifles with ammunition, and two revolvers, as well as any other things they deemed of value. They burst open the desks, drawers, and wardrobes, cutting and hacking the furniture with theirbolosin wanton mischief. Then embarking their spoil, they sailed away with the land breeze.Information had been sent off to the nearest post of the Guardia Civil, and on its receipt, an officer with a force of that corps instantly set off and captured one party of the pirates red-handed as they beached their canoe. Within a week twenty-six had been captured and one shot dead whilst escaping. There only remained the leader. He, asit was afterwards discovered, was concealed in a secluded wood a few miles from Sariaya, and one night he was speared by the Captain of Cuadrilleros of that town, who is said to have had valid reasons for getting him out of the way.This band of pirates were a mixed lot; some of them wereprincipalesor members of the town council of Sariaya, a picturesque little place on the southern slope of Mount Banajao, and some from San Juan de Boc-boc; others were ordinary inhabitants, a few were outlaws from the San Juan mountains, and four or five were fishermen whom the gang had met on their passage by sea and had invited to accompany them. This custom ofConvitesis explained inChapter XXV. Of course the fishermen, when interrogated, declared they had been pressed into the service, but in fact very few natives have the moral courage to decline so pleasing an entertainment, as it appeals to a feeling deeply seated in their hearts, the love of rapine, only to be restrained by the heavy hand of a military police “who do not hesitate to shoot.” The provincial doctor arrived next morning with the judge who was to take the depositions of the villagers and draw up thesumario. Olsen was dead, the sergeant of Cuadrilleros also and one of theCarabineros, but strange to say, in spite of a dozen ghastly wounds, the other one was still alive, though his bowels were protruding, having fallen out through the gash which it is the Tagal custom to finish off with.When the provincial doctor saw him, he said, “Nothing can possibly be done for him,” and departed. So, abandoned to his own resources, he replaced the bowels himself, and getting one of the villagers to bind him up, he eventually recovered. He was seen by Mr. Brown a year or two later, and is probably alive now. This seems extraordinary, but a similar case occurred to a man who had worked under me. An English bricklayer named John Heath had been employed building furnaces and kilns in Manila, and having completed his work, took to farming and rented some grass meadows (sacate lands) at Mandaloyan. One night he and another Englishman staying with him were attacked in his house by a party of Tagals with drawnbolos. The visitor, although wounded, leaped from the window and escaped, but Heath was cut down, then lifted on to the window sill, hacked about, and finally, according to Tagal custom, ripped open and left for dead. Yet this man also entirelyrecovered, and after a year seemed as strong as ever, although he was advised not to exert his strength. This outrage was clearly agrarian, and was, I feel sure, committed by those who had previously rented these lands and had been turned out. No one was ever punished for it.To return to the gang of pirates; two had been killed, the rest were in prison. Year after year passed, still they remained in prison; judges came, stayed their term, were promoted and went, but still these men were never sentenced.In 1889, I visited Laguimanóc to make a plan and valuation of the property, as the business was about to be taken over by a Limited Liability Company, established in Hong Kong. This wasfive yearsafter the date of the murders, some of the prisoners had died in prison, the others were awaiting their sentence. But I found that the Government had established a sergeant’s post of the Guardia Civil in the village, which effectually prevented a repetition of the outrage.A year later I again visited Laguimanóc, but the trial of the prisoners was no further advanced. No less than nine of them died in prison, still no sentence was pronounced. Even for a Philippine Court this was extraordinary, for the gang had committed the unpardonable crime “Resistencia a fuerza armada” (Resistance to an armed force), and could have been tried by Court-martial and summarily shot. They had also dared to lay their profane hands on the sacred money-box containing a portion of the “Real Haber” (Government money), so that it was not only a question of murder and robbery of private people. But the Civil Court, negligent, slothful, and corrupt, could not be got to convict, and a few years ago, Mr. Brown having left the islands, the surviving prisoners werepardonedby the Queen Regent on the occasion of the young King’s birthday.The contrast between the military and civil elements in this case is very strong.The military element performed its duties thoroughly well, under great difficulties, and promptly arrested the malefactors. In my experience this has been always the case, and I draw from it the conclusion that military Government is essential to the pacification of the Philippines and that authority must be backed up by a nativeforce of constabulary under American officers who must be young and active.Such offences as piracy or gang-robbery should never come before a Civil Court, but should be promptly settled by court-martial before which no technicalities or legal subtleties need be taken into account.A firm, nay, a heavy hand over the Philippines is the most merciful in the long run.I am sorry to have to relate that the Company which took over Mr. Brown’s business did not long prosper. Whilst he remained at the head of it, all went well, but as soon as he left to take a much-needed rest, it began to fail. The personality of the individual is everything in most Spanish countries and especially in the Philippines. No manager could be found who could keep on terms with the officials, control the wild wood-cutters or risk jungle-fever by entering the forests to personally inspect the work.The organization decayed and the business went to pieces. Let intending investors take note.
Piratical Outrage in Luzon.
At Laguimanóc, a port and village in the Province of Tayabas, there resided an Englishman, Mr. H. G. Brown, who had been many years in the Philippines. By the exercise of untiring industry, by braving the malaria of the primeval forests, and by his never-failing tact in dealing with the officials of the Woods and Forests on the one hand, and with the semi-barbarous and entirely lawless wood-cutters on the other, he had built up an extensive business in cutting timber in the state forests of Southern Luzon and the adjacent islands. He was owner of several sailing vessels, had a well-appointed saw-mill, and a comfortable residence at Languimanóc. He employed large numbers of wood-cutters; all under advances of pay, who were scattered about the Provinces of Tayabas, and Camarines Norte over a considerable area.His business was so considerable that he paid the Government fully $30,000 per year as royalty on timber which was mostly shipped to Hong Kong and Shanghai.In order to facilitate a business so profitable to them the Government placed a Custom House official at Atimónan, in the Bay of Lamon on the Pacific coast, to clear anddespatch his timber vessels loaded at Atimónan, Gumacas, Lopez, Alabat Island, or other places. To show how little Mr. Brown spared himself, I may mention that not even the dreaded jungle-fever of Mindoro prevented him from personally superintending the loading of several vessels at different ports of that pestilential island. In persistence and pluck he was a worthy predecessor of Professor D. C. Worcester, who years afterwards showed his Anglo-Saxon determination in the same fearsome spot.One day in December of 1884, Mr. Brown being absent in Hong Kong, and his manager, Mr. Anderson, busy on the Pacific coast, looking after the loading of a vessel, the out-door superintendent, a Swede named Alfred Olsen, was in charge of the house, office, and saw-mill at Laguimanóc, and was attending to the loading of theTartar, one of Mr. Brown’s ships which was anchored in the bay taking in timber for China. She had a native crew who occasionally of an evening, when ashore to enjoy themselves, got up a disturbance with the villagers. On board this vessel there were, as is usual, two Carabineros or Custom House guards to prevent smuggling.Although no one in the village suspected it, two large canoes full of armed men were lying concealed behind a point in Capuluan Cove on the opposite side of the Bay. At eight o’clock in the evening, it being quite dark, they came across, and in perfect order, according to a pre-arranged plan advanced in silence on the village. The assailants numbered twenty-eight men, and were variously armed with lances,bolosand daggers. Only the leader bore a revolver. A guard was left on the canoes, four of the gang were stationed at the door of Mr. Brown’s house, and others at strategic points, whilst the main body attacked theTribunalclose by which was also theestancowhere there was some Government money, postage stamps and stamped paper. At allTribunalesthere are a couple ofcuadrilleros, or village constables on guard, armed usually with lance andbolo. These men did their duty and manfully resisted the pirates. In the combat which ensued, the sergeant of the Cuadrilleros was killed and some on both sides were wounded, but the pirates got the best of the fight, and plundered theestanco.In the meantime, Olsen, having heard the uproar, may have thought that the crew of theTartarwere again making a disturbance. At all events he left the house unarmedand unsuspicious, thus walking into the trap laid for him. The Tagals have a great respect for fire-arms, more especially for the revolvers and repeating rifles of the foreigner, thus they did not venture to enter the house, but the moment Olsen stepped out into the darkness and before he could see round about him, he was attacked by two men on each side, who plunged their daggers into his body, piercing his lungs. Bleeding profusely and vomiting blood he rushed back into the house towards his bedroom to get his revolver which was under the bed. His assailants, however, followed him into the room and butchered him before he could grasp it. At least the revolver was afterwards found in its case with the perfect impress of his blood-stained hand upon the oaken lid. A native boy named Pablo, about eight years old, was in the house at the time, and in his terror squeezed himself into a narrow space behind the door and escaped discovery, although he was an eye-witness of the crime.By this time the alarm had spread all over the little village, and the noise was heard on board theTartar. The two Carabineros, taking their Remingtons and cartridge boxes, had themselves paddled on shore, and marching up the stairs which led to the rocky eminence on which the village stands, bravely advanced against the pirates although out-numbered by more than ten to one. They fired their rifles, but the gang rushed upon them and in a moment they were cut down, and according to Tagal custom, their bellies were ripped open. The pirates having now overcome all opposition and having plundered theestanco, and the inevitable Chinaman’s shop, transferred their attention to Mr. Brown’s house, which they ransacked, taking the contents of the safe, a collection of gold and silver coins, seven Martini-Henry rifles with ammunition, and two revolvers, as well as any other things they deemed of value. They burst open the desks, drawers, and wardrobes, cutting and hacking the furniture with theirbolosin wanton mischief. Then embarking their spoil, they sailed away with the land breeze.Information had been sent off to the nearest post of the Guardia Civil, and on its receipt, an officer with a force of that corps instantly set off and captured one party of the pirates red-handed as they beached their canoe. Within a week twenty-six had been captured and one shot dead whilst escaping. There only remained the leader. He, asit was afterwards discovered, was concealed in a secluded wood a few miles from Sariaya, and one night he was speared by the Captain of Cuadrilleros of that town, who is said to have had valid reasons for getting him out of the way.This band of pirates were a mixed lot; some of them wereprincipalesor members of the town council of Sariaya, a picturesque little place on the southern slope of Mount Banajao, and some from San Juan de Boc-boc; others were ordinary inhabitants, a few were outlaws from the San Juan mountains, and four or five were fishermen whom the gang had met on their passage by sea and had invited to accompany them. This custom ofConvitesis explained inChapter XXV. Of course the fishermen, when interrogated, declared they had been pressed into the service, but in fact very few natives have the moral courage to decline so pleasing an entertainment, as it appeals to a feeling deeply seated in their hearts, the love of rapine, only to be restrained by the heavy hand of a military police “who do not hesitate to shoot.” The provincial doctor arrived next morning with the judge who was to take the depositions of the villagers and draw up thesumario. Olsen was dead, the sergeant of Cuadrilleros also and one of theCarabineros, but strange to say, in spite of a dozen ghastly wounds, the other one was still alive, though his bowels were protruding, having fallen out through the gash which it is the Tagal custom to finish off with.When the provincial doctor saw him, he said, “Nothing can possibly be done for him,” and departed. So, abandoned to his own resources, he replaced the bowels himself, and getting one of the villagers to bind him up, he eventually recovered. He was seen by Mr. Brown a year or two later, and is probably alive now. This seems extraordinary, but a similar case occurred to a man who had worked under me. An English bricklayer named John Heath had been employed building furnaces and kilns in Manila, and having completed his work, took to farming and rented some grass meadows (sacate lands) at Mandaloyan. One night he and another Englishman staying with him were attacked in his house by a party of Tagals with drawnbolos. The visitor, although wounded, leaped from the window and escaped, but Heath was cut down, then lifted on to the window sill, hacked about, and finally, according to Tagal custom, ripped open and left for dead. Yet this man also entirelyrecovered, and after a year seemed as strong as ever, although he was advised not to exert his strength. This outrage was clearly agrarian, and was, I feel sure, committed by those who had previously rented these lands and had been turned out. No one was ever punished for it.To return to the gang of pirates; two had been killed, the rest were in prison. Year after year passed, still they remained in prison; judges came, stayed their term, were promoted and went, but still these men were never sentenced.In 1889, I visited Laguimanóc to make a plan and valuation of the property, as the business was about to be taken over by a Limited Liability Company, established in Hong Kong. This wasfive yearsafter the date of the murders, some of the prisoners had died in prison, the others were awaiting their sentence. But I found that the Government had established a sergeant’s post of the Guardia Civil in the village, which effectually prevented a repetition of the outrage.A year later I again visited Laguimanóc, but the trial of the prisoners was no further advanced. No less than nine of them died in prison, still no sentence was pronounced. Even for a Philippine Court this was extraordinary, for the gang had committed the unpardonable crime “Resistencia a fuerza armada” (Resistance to an armed force), and could have been tried by Court-martial and summarily shot. They had also dared to lay their profane hands on the sacred money-box containing a portion of the “Real Haber” (Government money), so that it was not only a question of murder and robbery of private people. But the Civil Court, negligent, slothful, and corrupt, could not be got to convict, and a few years ago, Mr. Brown having left the islands, the surviving prisoners werepardonedby the Queen Regent on the occasion of the young King’s birthday.The contrast between the military and civil elements in this case is very strong.The military element performed its duties thoroughly well, under great difficulties, and promptly arrested the malefactors. In my experience this has been always the case, and I draw from it the conclusion that military Government is essential to the pacification of the Philippines and that authority must be backed up by a nativeforce of constabulary under American officers who must be young and active.Such offences as piracy or gang-robbery should never come before a Civil Court, but should be promptly settled by court-martial before which no technicalities or legal subtleties need be taken into account.A firm, nay, a heavy hand over the Philippines is the most merciful in the long run.I am sorry to have to relate that the Company which took over Mr. Brown’s business did not long prosper. Whilst he remained at the head of it, all went well, but as soon as he left to take a much-needed rest, it began to fail. The personality of the individual is everything in most Spanish countries and especially in the Philippines. No manager could be found who could keep on terms with the officials, control the wild wood-cutters or risk jungle-fever by entering the forests to personally inspect the work.The organization decayed and the business went to pieces. Let intending investors take note.
At Laguimanóc, a port and village in the Province of Tayabas, there resided an Englishman, Mr. H. G. Brown, who had been many years in the Philippines. By the exercise of untiring industry, by braving the malaria of the primeval forests, and by his never-failing tact in dealing with the officials of the Woods and Forests on the one hand, and with the semi-barbarous and entirely lawless wood-cutters on the other, he had built up an extensive business in cutting timber in the state forests of Southern Luzon and the adjacent islands. He was owner of several sailing vessels, had a well-appointed saw-mill, and a comfortable residence at Languimanóc. He employed large numbers of wood-cutters; all under advances of pay, who were scattered about the Provinces of Tayabas, and Camarines Norte over a considerable area.
His business was so considerable that he paid the Government fully $30,000 per year as royalty on timber which was mostly shipped to Hong Kong and Shanghai.
In order to facilitate a business so profitable to them the Government placed a Custom House official at Atimónan, in the Bay of Lamon on the Pacific coast, to clear anddespatch his timber vessels loaded at Atimónan, Gumacas, Lopez, Alabat Island, or other places. To show how little Mr. Brown spared himself, I may mention that not even the dreaded jungle-fever of Mindoro prevented him from personally superintending the loading of several vessels at different ports of that pestilential island. In persistence and pluck he was a worthy predecessor of Professor D. C. Worcester, who years afterwards showed his Anglo-Saxon determination in the same fearsome spot.
One day in December of 1884, Mr. Brown being absent in Hong Kong, and his manager, Mr. Anderson, busy on the Pacific coast, looking after the loading of a vessel, the out-door superintendent, a Swede named Alfred Olsen, was in charge of the house, office, and saw-mill at Laguimanóc, and was attending to the loading of theTartar, one of Mr. Brown’s ships which was anchored in the bay taking in timber for China. She had a native crew who occasionally of an evening, when ashore to enjoy themselves, got up a disturbance with the villagers. On board this vessel there were, as is usual, two Carabineros or Custom House guards to prevent smuggling.
Although no one in the village suspected it, two large canoes full of armed men were lying concealed behind a point in Capuluan Cove on the opposite side of the Bay. At eight o’clock in the evening, it being quite dark, they came across, and in perfect order, according to a pre-arranged plan advanced in silence on the village. The assailants numbered twenty-eight men, and were variously armed with lances,bolosand daggers. Only the leader bore a revolver. A guard was left on the canoes, four of the gang were stationed at the door of Mr. Brown’s house, and others at strategic points, whilst the main body attacked theTribunalclose by which was also theestancowhere there was some Government money, postage stamps and stamped paper. At allTribunalesthere are a couple ofcuadrilleros, or village constables on guard, armed usually with lance andbolo. These men did their duty and manfully resisted the pirates. In the combat which ensued, the sergeant of the Cuadrilleros was killed and some on both sides were wounded, but the pirates got the best of the fight, and plundered theestanco.
In the meantime, Olsen, having heard the uproar, may have thought that the crew of theTartarwere again making a disturbance. At all events he left the house unarmedand unsuspicious, thus walking into the trap laid for him. The Tagals have a great respect for fire-arms, more especially for the revolvers and repeating rifles of the foreigner, thus they did not venture to enter the house, but the moment Olsen stepped out into the darkness and before he could see round about him, he was attacked by two men on each side, who plunged their daggers into his body, piercing his lungs. Bleeding profusely and vomiting blood he rushed back into the house towards his bedroom to get his revolver which was under the bed. His assailants, however, followed him into the room and butchered him before he could grasp it. At least the revolver was afterwards found in its case with the perfect impress of his blood-stained hand upon the oaken lid. A native boy named Pablo, about eight years old, was in the house at the time, and in his terror squeezed himself into a narrow space behind the door and escaped discovery, although he was an eye-witness of the crime.
By this time the alarm had spread all over the little village, and the noise was heard on board theTartar. The two Carabineros, taking their Remingtons and cartridge boxes, had themselves paddled on shore, and marching up the stairs which led to the rocky eminence on which the village stands, bravely advanced against the pirates although out-numbered by more than ten to one. They fired their rifles, but the gang rushed upon them and in a moment they were cut down, and according to Tagal custom, their bellies were ripped open. The pirates having now overcome all opposition and having plundered theestanco, and the inevitable Chinaman’s shop, transferred their attention to Mr. Brown’s house, which they ransacked, taking the contents of the safe, a collection of gold and silver coins, seven Martini-Henry rifles with ammunition, and two revolvers, as well as any other things they deemed of value. They burst open the desks, drawers, and wardrobes, cutting and hacking the furniture with theirbolosin wanton mischief. Then embarking their spoil, they sailed away with the land breeze.
Information had been sent off to the nearest post of the Guardia Civil, and on its receipt, an officer with a force of that corps instantly set off and captured one party of the pirates red-handed as they beached their canoe. Within a week twenty-six had been captured and one shot dead whilst escaping. There only remained the leader. He, asit was afterwards discovered, was concealed in a secluded wood a few miles from Sariaya, and one night he was speared by the Captain of Cuadrilleros of that town, who is said to have had valid reasons for getting him out of the way.
This band of pirates were a mixed lot; some of them wereprincipalesor members of the town council of Sariaya, a picturesque little place on the southern slope of Mount Banajao, and some from San Juan de Boc-boc; others were ordinary inhabitants, a few were outlaws from the San Juan mountains, and four or five were fishermen whom the gang had met on their passage by sea and had invited to accompany them. This custom ofConvitesis explained inChapter XXV. Of course the fishermen, when interrogated, declared they had been pressed into the service, but in fact very few natives have the moral courage to decline so pleasing an entertainment, as it appeals to a feeling deeply seated in their hearts, the love of rapine, only to be restrained by the heavy hand of a military police “who do not hesitate to shoot.” The provincial doctor arrived next morning with the judge who was to take the depositions of the villagers and draw up thesumario. Olsen was dead, the sergeant of Cuadrilleros also and one of theCarabineros, but strange to say, in spite of a dozen ghastly wounds, the other one was still alive, though his bowels were protruding, having fallen out through the gash which it is the Tagal custom to finish off with.
When the provincial doctor saw him, he said, “Nothing can possibly be done for him,” and departed. So, abandoned to his own resources, he replaced the bowels himself, and getting one of the villagers to bind him up, he eventually recovered. He was seen by Mr. Brown a year or two later, and is probably alive now. This seems extraordinary, but a similar case occurred to a man who had worked under me. An English bricklayer named John Heath had been employed building furnaces and kilns in Manila, and having completed his work, took to farming and rented some grass meadows (sacate lands) at Mandaloyan. One night he and another Englishman staying with him were attacked in his house by a party of Tagals with drawnbolos. The visitor, although wounded, leaped from the window and escaped, but Heath was cut down, then lifted on to the window sill, hacked about, and finally, according to Tagal custom, ripped open and left for dead. Yet this man also entirelyrecovered, and after a year seemed as strong as ever, although he was advised not to exert his strength. This outrage was clearly agrarian, and was, I feel sure, committed by those who had previously rented these lands and had been turned out. No one was ever punished for it.
To return to the gang of pirates; two had been killed, the rest were in prison. Year after year passed, still they remained in prison; judges came, stayed their term, were promoted and went, but still these men were never sentenced.
In 1889, I visited Laguimanóc to make a plan and valuation of the property, as the business was about to be taken over by a Limited Liability Company, established in Hong Kong. This wasfive yearsafter the date of the murders, some of the prisoners had died in prison, the others were awaiting their sentence. But I found that the Government had established a sergeant’s post of the Guardia Civil in the village, which effectually prevented a repetition of the outrage.
A year later I again visited Laguimanóc, but the trial of the prisoners was no further advanced. No less than nine of them died in prison, still no sentence was pronounced. Even for a Philippine Court this was extraordinary, for the gang had committed the unpardonable crime “Resistencia a fuerza armada” (Resistance to an armed force), and could have been tried by Court-martial and summarily shot. They had also dared to lay their profane hands on the sacred money-box containing a portion of the “Real Haber” (Government money), so that it was not only a question of murder and robbery of private people. But the Civil Court, negligent, slothful, and corrupt, could not be got to convict, and a few years ago, Mr. Brown having left the islands, the surviving prisoners werepardonedby the Queen Regent on the occasion of the young King’s birthday.
The contrast between the military and civil elements in this case is very strong.
The military element performed its duties thoroughly well, under great difficulties, and promptly arrested the malefactors. In my experience this has been always the case, and I draw from it the conclusion that military Government is essential to the pacification of the Philippines and that authority must be backed up by a nativeforce of constabulary under American officers who must be young and active.
Such offences as piracy or gang-robbery should never come before a Civil Court, but should be promptly settled by court-martial before which no technicalities or legal subtleties need be taken into account.
A firm, nay, a heavy hand over the Philippines is the most merciful in the long run.
I am sorry to have to relate that the Company which took over Mr. Brown’s business did not long prosper. Whilst he remained at the head of it, all went well, but as soon as he left to take a much-needed rest, it began to fail. The personality of the individual is everything in most Spanish countries and especially in the Philippines. No manager could be found who could keep on terms with the officials, control the wild wood-cutters or risk jungle-fever by entering the forests to personally inspect the work.
The organization decayed and the business went to pieces. Let intending investors take note.