quest, the town police-sergeant took her outside the jail and attempted rape. She struggled, escaped, and finally reported the matter to her brother Pedro, who, energetically backed by the two or three Americans in the region, entered a complaint. This act of Pedro's startled the whole countryside. No tao had been known to show such temerity. Hearing of it, many other women came to Pedro begging him to present their claims for redress. So that it became clear that the fate of Pedro's sister was the customary fate of women jailed. But, though Pedro duly accused the sergeant of municipal police before the municipal council, the accused went free. Because, as Pedro points out, the members of the municipal council were all the Sergeant's parientes-relatives-a word of great content in the Islands.

A little later the same Pedro made himself serviceable to the Wood-Forbes Commission, through his knowledge of English and through his good faith as translator in the investigation of usury cases. This touched the local caciques on a very tender spot, and made evident the necessity of quieting the little man.

It came on the night of December 26, 1921. All day long Pedro and his family had been hard at work in the rice paddies, for it was harvest time. And now, at 9 o'clock, they lay sound asleep on their mats at home-Pedro on his back, as it chanced, his right arm tossed over his face.

Perhaps that arm saved him—for the first bolo-slash cut his right wrist almost in two.

Up sprang the sleeper with just time, before the next blow landed, to recognize in the three men before him the same old sergeant of municipal police and two police officers. Then they got him again, and yet again, across the head, till he fell unconscious. On this they left him, lying in his blood-left him for dead.

Then Pedro's wife and the young sister who already knew that sergeant of police crept out to the neighbours and begged for help,-begged above all that some one should run and tele

phone the nearest Constabulary post. Two Constabulary officers came. And while the one gave first aid to Pedro, the other pursued the assailants. Two he caught that night; the third two days later on.

So much for Pedro's past trials. He is marked "dangerous," and more punishment, on general principles of discipline, all too probably awaits him.

"They don't want a simple farmer to raise his head," Pedro repeats, with a look, as he speaks, that shows his spirit is not yet broken by the mortal odds against him.

Pedro is one in ten thousand. And this is the way our tête-à-tête closed:

"Are you going to Manila soon?" he asked. "Yes."

"Is Governor-General Wood there?"

"I don't know."

"I want to see the Governor-General. I want to ask him a favour. I have done what I could for the Government. I know Governor-General Wood befriends us taos. I think he would help me."

"Do you want me to know your request?"

"Yes. I have a friend-a pariente of mine-he helped me when I was hurt, and I would like to help him now." "What does he need?"

"Well, he is in Bilibid. I want him pardoned out. I think it isn't much for me to ask, who have had such great trouble." "What is your friend in prison for?”

"Oh, a trifle-only a woman case."

"Do you mean," I asked, “do you mean that your friend assaulted some woman-"

"Oh, yes, but it was nothing!" answered Pedro, almost impatiently. "Why, she was under age-a mere child!"

In intelligence, in education, in courage, in character, Pedro is one in ten thousand. But Pedro is a Malay. An indi• The great Government prison in Manila.

vidualist. The outrage of his sister aroused his wrath because it was his sister who suffered. But let that same thing befall a girl-any number of girls-across the fields, and Pedro sees nothing in it.-You may talk to him of humanity, of public duty, of common purpose, until your breath is done, without in the slightest degree touching his mind. He likes the words, and uses them. They sound fine. But their active meaning is outside the range of his mentality. And this is no charge against Pedro. It is simply a biological fact.

High in the cacique oligarchy to-day-as far above the humble members we have just been considering as the weathervane is above the corner-stone-stands a certain shrewd and sinuous Spanish mestizo. By young Filipino college students this man is ardently admired. By most Filipinos he is consumingly feared, for his power in their world is great. In America he is courteously received and respectfully listened to.

I have before me the official report, several copies of which exist, in this country and in the Islands, of an investigation into his conduct in office at a period twenty years ago, when he was Prosecuting Attorney, or "Fiscal," of a large Island Province. The report, despite the usually formal language, gives a graphic picture of his habits of life at that time. His fellow Filipinos to-day assert that during the two decades intervening those habits have changed only in steadily increased self-indulgence, and in greater and greater disregard for any law but that of his own personal ambition and pleasure. All this, in detail, has been common knowledge. And it is exceedingly significant that that knowledge has in no wise interfered with his secure advance toward the summit of the cacique structure.

The report shows him, first, on the road between town and town, riding his circuit. He travels like a satrap, with bearers in relays of fifteen to carry his belongings. But he is off his schedule a whole day late. And the bearers whom he had ordered to attend his arrival at a given point, believing

that he had abandoned his trip, have grown tired waiting and have gone home upon their own occasions. Reaching the spot, and furious not to find his men, the official draws his revolver upon the first villager that appears and orders him to run for his life in search of the missing bearers.

Now, it should be noted that these men are not bearers by calling, but are merely the neighbours-the local taos-the farmers of the countryside.

After five hours' hard foot-travel the messenger returns with the fifteen men, all badly frightened, whom he has collected one by one from their widely-scattered dwellings. Whereupon, this Fiscal, this Prosecuting Attorney of the Province, to reward his messenger, first strikes him in the mouth, then kicks him flat, and finally orders him to set to and soundly beat his friends the taos, who have dared to keep a cacique waiting.

"It was Mr.'s custom to call for bearers to take him from town to town," interposes the record, "but not his custom to pay these bearers. In fact, he did not pay them. This particular form of forced and unpaid labour is one of the customs of the country and in compelling the work of the lowly in this manner Mr. was but following the custom."

The Fiscal's travelling mate at this period was a notorious criminal, then awaiting trial by the Fiscal himself on a very serious charge. But after certain incidents of the tour, of most of which this man was a witness, the Fiscal "provisionally dismissed" the charge against his companion.

Very briefly, the incidents in question were these:

The Fiscal, in the course of an official visit to the northern end of his province, had seen and admired a certain barrio girl. So, on his next appearance, he ordered one of the men of that barrio to give a dance and invite the girl-that he, the Fiscal, might meet her.

That night, after the dance, the girl, with four other women, including the barrio school-teacher, had spread their mats in a neighbour's shack and had gone to sleep together, when a

stealthy foot on the ladder, a groping hand on the floor, awakened the school-teacher.

"Who is there?" she called.

"The Fiscal. I want Tomasa." All in the dark he found the girl and laid hold upon her.

But she fought him off. The record reads: "The women were all frightened and cowered in one corner of the small room. Tomasa with them. Being unable to find her again, the Fiscal lit a match, discovered her, and succeeded in separating her from her companions. He then by threats to kill her sought to overcome her resistance. In this he was unsuccessful, owing to her strenuous objections and the presence of the others awake, and finally departed, baffled."

Next morning he continued his official tour. Three days later, however, he returned and again ordered a dance to be given, by the same tao as before, Tomasa again to be invited. The tao, for his life, complied.

This time all plans worked out. And next day the girl, "flattered by the attentions of so great and powerful a man as the Fiscal of the province," followed him to his home.

Then comes the poor old father of Tomasa-missing the girl, hearing the rumour of her fate, standing that night before the Fiscal's door, knocking, knocking, and calling to his daughter.

And the Fiscal, with his ready revolver levelled through the crack, orders the old man to be off and hold his tongue, lest worse befall him.

But the father, greatly daring, goes instead to the Justice of the Peace to declare his woes; to which that officer responds that it is better to be quiet, for no good ever comes of making complaints against a man as powerful as the Fiscal.

The record goes on into curious labyrinths, valuable, despite their squalor, because of the light they throw on the general condition of the common people and on the relation of the cacique thereto. Tomasa has two "parientes," Bartolome and Paulo, both accused as horse thieves by the Fiscal himself, in