“It is with great regret that I have learned that robberies, assaults, kidnapping, and other crimes which are committed only by barbarous and savage tribes, are taking place in our towns, without taking into consideration that the purpose of the insurrection which has given origin to our social regeneration is true justice, for the reëstablishment of which the lives and property are being sacrificed of all who are proud of being called Filipinos. These acts are being committed without restriction by civilians as well as soldiers perhaps with the coöperation of their respective chiefs, to the shame of the authority vested in them and to the prejudice of the society to which they unworthily belong, and even to the integrity itself of the Republic. And in order that these barbarous and savage acts may disappear and that rigorous and exemplary punishment be meted out, I have deemed it proper to forward to you for general information the proclamation of these Headquarters of February 12th last, which is as follows”:
(Signed) “Mariano Trias.
“Lieutenant-General.
“To the Politico-Military Chief of Infanta.”—P.I.R., 896–9.
[10] “There does not seem to have been the faintest conception that there was any reason for not using the white flag to deceive people who were foolish enough to believe that Aguinaldo was going to adhere to the rules prescribed for its use. The writer in the early spring of 1899 once watched an insurgent party advance under a white flag upon an American line of trenches. When an officer and a bugler went forward to receive them they threw down the flag and immediately opened fire with the rifles which they were then seen to be dragging behind them.”—Taylor, 48 HS.
[11] “Such ammunition was not effective unless fired from very close quarters, but even its possession made the guerrillas stronger than the people of the country and undoubtedly had much to do with securing their coöperation, not only as bolomen but also in the digging of the pits which were placed in the trails and also set about the towns. These were required to be constructed by the local authorities. In the bottom was set a sharp spike of bamboo, sometimes poisoned; and the pit was covered with leaves and soil upon a fragile framework; so that if a man stood upon it he would fall through upon the spike. Bows were set in the jungle with a string set across the trail so that any one stumbling over it would discharge a sharp bamboo shaft with a poisoned head. On September 18, 1900, Lukban congratulated the people of the town of Katubig upon the efficient use they had made of arrows with the heads dipped in ‘dita,’ a native poison. (P.I.R., 502. 8.)”
—Taylor, 83 HS.
[12] See also the chapter entitled “Murder as a Governmental Institution.”
[13] See p. 313.