ral asking
Rizal if he still persisted in his plan for a Filipino colony in
British North Borneo; Despujol had before remarked that with so much
Philippine land lying idle for want of cultivation it did not seem to
him patriotic to take labor needed at home away for the development
of a foreign land. Rizal's former reply had dealt with the difficulty
the government was in respecting the land troubles, since the tenants
who had taken the old renters' places now also must be considered,
and he pointed out that there was, besides, a bitterness between the
parties which could not easily be forgotten by either side. So this
time he merely remarked that he had found no reason for changing his
original views.

Hereupon the General took from his desk the five little sheets of
the "Poor Friars" handbill, which he said had been found in the roll
of bedding sent with Rizal's baggage to the custom house, and asked
whose they could be. Rizal answered that of course the General knew
that the bedding belonged to his sister Lucia, but she was no fool
and would not have secreted in a place where they were certain to be
found five little papers which, hidden within her camisa or placed
in her stocking, would have been absolutely sure to come in unnoticed.

Rizal, neither then nor later, knew the real truth, which was that
these papers were gathered up at random and without any knowledge of
their contents. If it was a crime to have lived in a house where such
seditious printed matter was common, then Rizal, who had openly visited
Basa's home, was guilty before ever the handbills were found. But no
reasonable person would believe another rational being could be so
careless of consequences as to bring in openly such dangerous material.

The very title was in sarcastic allusion to the inconsistency of a
religious order being an immensely wealthy organization, while its
individual members were vowed to poverty. News, published everywhere
except in the Philippines, of losses sustained in outside commercial
enterprises running into the millions, was made the text for showing
how money, professedly raised in the Philippines for charities,
was not so used and was invested abroad in fear of that day of
reckoning when tyranny would be overthrown in anarchy and property
would be insecure. The belief of the pious Filipinos, fostered
by their religious exploiters, that the Pope would suffer great
hardship if their share of "Peter's pence" was not p