A friend who was here the other day told me an amusing instance of Filipino methods which happened a few days ago. A policeman came for his cook one morning, with a summons on the part of the cook’s wife for assaulting her. So off the cook went to the court, not the High Courts where American dignity administers the highest justice with his boots off and his feet, with holes in his socks, on a table before him, but the police court where a Filipino tries to deal with small offences.
In the evening our friend noticed that his own cook and not a substitute was in the house, so he asked the man what had happened in the morning.
“Oh,” said the cook, “they fined me five dollars and my wife five dollars too, and sent us away.”
“But,” said Mr —— “you beat her.”
“No one said I did not beat her. But they fined us both, you see, so I was allowed to go away again, free, in time to cook the señor’s dinner.”
And you may think that sounds like a sentence out of the Hunting of the Snark, but it is perfectly clear logic to the Filipino mind, and all parties seemed to think the most lucid and satisfying law had been administered.