n for more
than two or three minutes. Sacristans made them move on, to leave room
for new-comers, and their candles were then extinguished and collected
in heaps, Chinese infidel coolies being sometimes employed to carry
away the spoil to the parish priest's store. The wax was afterwards
sold to dealers. One church is said to have collected on November 1,
1887, as much as 40 cwts., valued at P37 per cwt. This day was a
public holiday, and in the afternoon and evening it was the custom
to visit the last resting-places, to leave a token of remembrance on
the tombs of the lamented.

The Asylum for Lepers, at Dalumbayan, in the ward of Santa Cruz, was
also visited the same day, and whilst many naturally went there to
see their afflicted relations and friends, others, of morbid tastes,
satisfied their curiosity. This Asylum, subsidized by Government
to the extent of P500 per annum, was, in the time of the Spaniards,
under the care of Franciscan friars.

In January or February the Chinese celebrate their New Year, and
suspend work during a week or ten days. The authorities did not
permit them to revel in fun to the extent they would have done in
their own country; nevertheless, Chinese music, gongs, and crackers
were indulged in, in the quarters most thickly populated by this race.

The natives generally have an unbounded passion for cock-fighting,
and in the year 1779 it occurred to the Government that a profitable
revenue might be derived from a tax on this sport. Thenceforth it
was only permitted under a long code of regulations on Sundays and
feast days, and in places officially designated for the "meet" of
the combatants. In Manila alone the permission to meet was extended
to Thursdays. The cock-pit is called the _Gallera_, and the tax was
farmed out to the highest bidding contractor, who undertook to pay
a fixed annual sum to the Government, making the best he could for
himself out of the gross proceeds from entrance-fees and sub-letting
rents in excess of that amount. In like manner the Government farmed
out the taxes on horses, vehicles, sale of opium, slaughter of animals
for consumption, bridge-tolls, etc., and, until 1888, the market
dues. Gambling licences also brought a good revenue, but it would
have been as impossible to suppress cock-fighting in the Islands as
gambling in England. [169]

The Spanish laws relating to the cock-pit were very strict, and
were specially decreed on March 21,1861. It was enacted