ault over his head, amidst hoots from the
shady class of audience who formed the _habitues_ of the Manila ring.

The Civil Governor of the Province had full arbitrary power to enforce
the regulations relating to public performances, but it was seldom he
imposed a fine. The programme had to be sanctioned by authority before
it was published, and it could neither be added to nor any part of
it omitted, without special licence. The performance was given under
the censorship of the Corregidor or his delegate, whose duty it was
to guard the interests of the public, and to see that the spectacle
did not outrage morality.

The ostensible purpose of every annual feast all over the Colony
was to render homage to the local patron Saint and give thanks for
mercies received in the past year. Every town, village, and suburb
was supposed to be specially cared for by its patron Saint, and when
circumstances permitted it there was a religious procession, which
was intended to impress on the minds of the faithful the virtue of
the intercessors by ocular demonstration. Vast sums of money were
expended from time to time in adornment of the images, the adoration
of which seemed to be tinctured with pantheistic feeling, as if these
symbols were part of the Divine essence.

Among the suburban feasts of Manila, that of Binondo was particularly
striking. It took place in the month of October. An imposing
illuminated procession, headed by the clergy, guarded by troops, and
followed up by hundreds of native men, women and children carrying
candles, promenaded the principal streets of the vicinity. But the
religious feeling of the truly devoted was shocked by one ridiculous
feature--the mob of native men, dressed in gowns and head-wreaths,
in representation of the Jews who persecuted our Saviour, rushing
about the streets in tawdry attire before and after the ceremony in
such apparent ignorance of the real intention that it annulled the
sublimity of the whole function.

All Saints' Day--November 1--brought a large income to the priests in
the most frequented parish churches. This is one of the days on which
souls can be got out of Purgatory. The faithful flocked in mobs to the
popular shrines, where an effort was made to place a lighted wax candle
at the foot of the altar, and on bended knee to invoke the Saints' aid
on behalf of their departed relatives and friends. But the crowd was
so great that the pious were not permitted this consolatio