e committed by a single one, they make
all the relations slaves. I saw four brothers who were all deprived
of their inherited freedom because of the incivility and weakness of
one. Finding myself in Iligan--a nation which, as it is so new, is
even yet throwing out the sparks of this tyrannical fury it happened
that a common woman spoke some insulting words to another woman who
had rank; and the latter's husband, coming to me to make a complaint,
said to me, exaggerating the offense: "Father, if the Spaniards were
not here, and we could rule ourselves by our own laws, we would have
made mincemeat [gigote] of that woman with a campilan, and slaves
of her brothers and sisters and relatives." Finally, he whom avarice
rules with a tyrannical power (for all their laws end in self-interest)
gets usury from his offense and employment from his crime.

Avarice rules in all their judgments; and the purse becomes the gallows
of all crimes. Money is the vengeance of the aggrieved parties, and
the sponge for injuries. When they are paid for, no spot or sign of
the offense is left. Although there are crimes which bear especially
a capital penalty, yet there is no penalty that cannot be redeemed by
money or goods. He who has no possessions at all has still liberty,
and can surrender that also. That is the road most traveled by which
some come to be the slaves of others; and perhaps the chief, if he be
poor, may be the slave of another who is a plebeian. When anyone is
caught in adultery, if sudden wrath does not execute him, which is
but seldom, the wounds are passed on to his purse, in the endeavor
to destroy him, and the husband subjects his own wife to the same
harshness and penalty. For here all persons have a separate purse,
and the husband is not master of what his wife possesses but only of
what pertains to him. Nor, under pretext of managing her possessions,
does he have more to do with it than the extent of her permission;
and she is always mistress of her own possessions. Thus she pays
a fine to her own husband, as if she were a stranger to him. Having
received this, the aggrieved party remains as satisfied as when, among
the Spaniards, one sword has pinned both guilty ones together. The
offender retains a privilege truly insulting and barbarous--that for
one year he may have intercourse with the woman without her husband
complaining. Then the husband and wife return in all peace to cohabit
as before, the offense being again