In 1896, Mr. George Gilchrist, the engineer at the Varadero, who was not in the Philippines when the murders were committed, was cited by the judge, and asked if he could identify the prisoner ten years after his arrest! Two years more passed, and in April, 1898, Mr. Gilchrist returned to Scotland for a well-earned holiday. When he left Cañacao, Juan de la Cruz was still in prison awaiting his trial.
He may have escaped when the rebels occupied Cavite after Admiral Dewey’s victory over the Spanish Squadron in the Bay of Bacoor.
For the murderer no pity need be felt, he certainly had nothing to gain and all to lose by a trial. A double murder, premeditated, accompanied by acts of great barbarity, and committed at night, constitutes by the Penal Code a capital offence with three aggravating circumstances which would forbid all hope of clemency.
But what can be thought of courts so remiss in their duty? How many innocent prisoners have waited years for their trial? How many have died in prison?
Piratical Outrage in Luzon.
At Laguimanóc, a port and village in the Province of Tayabas, there resided an Englishman, Mr. H. G. Brown, who had been many years in the Philippines. By the exercise of untiring industry, by braving the malaria of the primeval forests, and by his never-failing tact in dealing with the officials of the Woods and Forests on the one hand, and with the semi-barbarous and entirely lawless wood-cutters on the other, he had built up an extensive business in cutting timber in the state forests of Southern Luzon and the adjacent islands. He was owner of several sailing vessels, had a well-appointed saw-mill, and a comfortable residence at Languimanóc. He employed large numbers of wood-cutters; all under advances of pay, who were scattered about the Provinces of Tayabas, and Camarines Norte over a considerable area.
His business was so considerable that he paid the Government fully $30,000 per year as royalty on timber which was mostly shipped to Hong Kong and Shanghai.
In order to facilitate a business so profitable to them the Government placed a Custom House official at Atimónan, in the Bay of Lamon on the Pacific coast, to clear and despatch his timber vessels loaded at Atimónan, Gumacas, Lopez, Alabat Island, or other places. To show how little Mr. Brown spared himself, I may mention that not even the dreaded jungle-fever of Mindoro prevented him from personally superintending the loading of several vessels at different ports of that pestilential island. In persistence and pluck he was a worthy predecessor of Professor D. C. Worcester, who years afterwards showed his Anglo-Saxon determination in the same fearsome spot.
One day in December of 1884, Mr. Brown being absent in Hong Kong, and his manager, Mr. Anderson, busy on the Pacific coast, looking after the loading of a vessel, the out-door superintendent, a Swede named Alfred Olsen, was in charge of the house, office, and saw-mill at Laguimanóc, and was attending to the loading of the Tartar, one of Mr. Brown’s ships which was anchored in the bay taking in timber for China. She had a native crew who occasionally of an evening, when ashore to enjoy themselves, got up a disturbance with the villagers. On board this vessel there were, as is usual, two Carabineros or Custom House guards to prevent smuggling.