5.—Binondo is the fifth place, whereof the first work—statistical reports of Franciscan missionaries—was printed in 1865; the last, José Patricio Clemente’s Moral Lectures for Youth (p. 540), in 1872. In regard, however, to this town, it should be observed that in his earlier bibliography (ed. 1893) Retana names a work printed by Pinpin in the Hospital of St. Gabriel, at Binondo, in 1623.
6.—At Vigan, the old Villa Fernandina of the Ilocos, known also to Spaniards as Nueva Segovia, a city founded in the sixteenth century by Juan Salcedo, one of the captains under Legazpi, and so christened by him in memory of his native place in Spain, but now known as Lalo, or Lal-lo,—here was started a Sunday newspaper, El Eco de Vigan, published in Ilocano in 1883, that died, however, a year after birth.
7.—In Iloilo (on the island of Panay) was printed, in 1885, the pastoral letter of Alejandro Arrué, Recoleto bishop of St. Isabel, or Elizabeth, of Jaro.
8.—Then comes Guadalupe, eighth place on our list, a sanctuary village on the left bank of the river Tasig, a couple of leagues from Manila, a shrine founded by Augustinians in 1601, in honor of St. Nicholas, the wonder-worker of Tolentino, a place visited yearly by great numbers of Chinese Confucians, as well as Christians, who hold that saint in highest and most singular veneration. At Guadalupe, in 1886, issued two works from the orphanage press—An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine of Pouguet and Fleuri, drawn up in Bisaya by Father Mateo Pérez, Augustinian cure of Argao; and Lozano’s Novena to St. Thomas of Villanova. The last imprint of Guadalupe—a Tagal Catechism, by Luis de Amezquita, a brother missionary of Pérez—bears the date 1890.
9.—The earliest sample of Cebú print—the island where, under Legazpi, three centuries earlier, civilization first found a footing in Malaysia—is a work that elicits from Retana remarkable praise, in view of the difficulties that attended its printing; the paper—such was the dearth in the Visayas of proper material for good press-work—being of five or six different qualities in body, make, color. This work, that I think we may style a triumph of adaptive art, is the Ensayo para una Galería de Asturianos ilustres, a genealogical monument (in three volumes), by the Augustinian antiquary, Fabiáno Rodríguez, begun in 1888 and completed in 1893. While the last Cebú imprint, a government statistical report on crime and the like, is dated 1892.
10.—Tambóbong, a pueblo near the coast, in Tondo province, about three miles from Manila, comes tenth in our list, where, at the orphan asylum of Our Lady of Consolation, in 1889, was printed a weekly newspaper—the Revista Católica de Filipinas—discontinued in 1896. While the last imprint from this press—An Abridgment of the History of Spain (of only eight pages)—was issued, presumably, in 1897.
11.—At Nueva Caceres, or Camarines, in Luzon, a town founded in the sixteenth century by Governor Francisco Sande, in memory of his birthplace in Estremadura, but now known even officially as Naga, the first work bearing the name of that pueblo—a hand-book of devotions—issued from the press of the Sagrada Familia, in 1893; and two years later (in 1895) the last—A Life of St. Monica and her son, St. Augustine—written, the same as the former, in Bícol dialect.
12.—In 1895, we read the earliest printed samples of Malabón art—a poetical tribute of gratitude to Our Lady of Welcome—Bien-Venida, one of the many titles of the Mother of God, so dear to Philippine soul, by Fructuoso Arias Camisón, from the orphan-press of Our Lady of Consolation (in care of Augustinians). Only once, it may be noted, is the name of this pueblo—encountered quite frequently in Retana, the same (he says) as Tambóbong, written “Malabóng,” a somewhat unusual form of spelling—employed by Manuel Sastrón, in his description of Batangas, printed in 1895.
From several specimens of Malabón press-work, now before me, I may observe that, for accuracy in composition, neatness—in brief, of general excellence in workmanship—these samples of the orphanage establishment at Malabón would not fail to honor even a Philadelphia craftsman.
Two years ago (in 1898), just prior to the siege of Manila, under the care of two Fathers and four lay-brothers of the Augustinians, resident at this orphan asylum, one hundred and one lads were being taught the following trades: 13 compositors, 12 press-workers, 30 bookbinders, 3 gilders, 43 candlemakers, while 44 other youngsters, too small for hard work, were, the same as their seniors, given food, clothing, and shelter;[3] while similarly, at Mandaloya orphan asylum for girls, conducted by twenty-two sisters (of the same order), a hundred and twenty-two lassies were taught music (piano), painting, drawing, embroidery, flower-, lace- and dress-making, hair-dressing, laundry-work, and sewing.[4]