contemporary, _El Grito_:

"Education is disastrous, very disastrous, for the Philippine
Islands."

Admitted.

For some time _El Grito_ has pretended to represent the
Filipino people--_ergo_, as Fray Ibanez would say, if he
knew Latin.

But Fray Ibanez turns Mussulman when he writes, and we know
how the Mussulmans dealt with education. _In witness whereof_,
as a royal preacher said, the Alexandrian library!

Now he was right, he, Ben-Zayb! He was the only one in the islands
who thought, the only one who foresaw events!

Truly, the news that seditious pasquinades had been found on the
doors of the University not only took away the appetite from many
and disturbed the digestion of others, but it even rendered the
phlegmatic Chinese uneasy, so that they no longer dared to sit in
their shops with one leg drawn up as usual, from fear of losing time
in extending it in order to put themselves into flight. At eight
o'clock in the morning, although the sun continued on its course and
his Excellency, the Captain-General, did not appear at the head of
his victorious cohorts, still the excitement had increased. The friars
who were accustomed to frequent Quiroga's bazaar did not put in their
appearance, and this symptom presaged terrific cataclysms. If the
sun had risen a square and the saints appeared only in pantaloons,
Quiroga would not have been so greatly alarmed, for he would have
taken the sun for a gaming-table and the sacred images for gamblers
who had lost their camisas, but for the friars not to come, precisely
when some novelties had just arrived for them!

By means of a provincial friend of his, Quiroga forbade entrance into
his gaming-houses to every Indian who was not an old acquaintance,
as the future Chinese consul feared that they might get possession of
the sums that the wretches lost there. After arranging his bazaar in
such a way that he could close it quickly in case of need, he had a
policeman accompany him for the short distance that separated his house
from Simoun's. Quiroga thought this occasion the most propitious for
making use of the rifles and cartridges that he had in his warehouse,
in the way the jeweler had pointed out; so that on the following
days there would be searches made, and then--how many prisoners, how
many terrified people would give up their savings! It was the game of
the old carbineers, in slipping contraband cigars and tobacco-leaves
unde