The reader who
would wish to verify these facts is recommended to make a comparative
study of native character in Vigan, Malolos, Taal, and Pagsanjan.

In treating of the domesticated natives' character, I wish it to be
understood that my observations apply solely to the _large majority_
of the six or seven millions of them who inhabit these Islands.

In the capital and the ports open to foreign trade, where cosmopolitan
vices and virtues obtain, and in large towns, where there is a constant
number of domiciled Europeans and Americans, the native has become
a modified being. It is not in such places that a just estimate of
character can be arrived at, even during many years' sojourn. The
native must be studied by often-repeated casual residence in localities
where his, or her, domestication is only "by law established," imposing
little restraint upon natural inclinations, and where exotic notions
have gained no influence.

Several writers have essayed to depict the Philippine native character,
but with only partial success. Dealing with such an enigma, the most
eminent physiognomists would surely differ in their speculations
regarding the Philippine native of the present day. That Catonian
figure, with placid countenance and solemn gravity of feature, would
readily deceive any one as to the true mental organism within. The
late parish priest of Alaminos (Batangas)--a Franciscan friar, who
spent half his life in the Colony--left a brief manuscript essay
on the native character. I have read it. In his opinion, the native
is an incomprehensible phenomenon, the mainspring of whose line of
thought and the guiding motive of whose actions have never yet been,
and perhaps never will be, discovered.

The reasoning of a native and a European differs so largely that
the mental impulse of the two races is ever clashing. Sometimes a
native will serve a master satisfactorily for years, and then suddenly
abscond, or commit some such hideous crime as conniving with a brigand
band to murder the family and pillage the house.

When the hitherto faithful servant is remonstrated with for having
committed a crime, he not unfrequently accounts for the fact by saying,
"_Senor_, my head was hot." When caught in the act on his first start
on highway robbery or murder, his invariable excuse is that he is
not a scoundrel himself, but that he was "invited" by a relation or
_compadre_ to join the company.

He is fond of gambling, profligate,