tinel,
who shot at him and missed him, whilst Felizardo, from his seat in the
saddle, shot the sentinel dead. The evening before the day Governor
Taft intended to sail for the United States, on his retirement from
the governorship, Montalon hanged two constabulary men at a place
within sight of Manila. In December, 1904, all this district was
so infested with cut-throats that Manuel Trias, although no longer
an official, offered to organize and lead a party of 300 volunteers
against them. On January 24, 1905, the same bandits, Felizardo and
Montalon, at the head of about 300 of their class, including two
American negroes, raided Trias's native town of San Francisco de
Malabon, murdered an American surgeon and one constabulary private,
and seriously wounded three more. They looted the municipal treasury
of 2,000 pesos and 25 carbines, and carried off Trias's wife and two
children, presumably to hold them for ransom. The chief object of
the attack was to murder Trias, their arch-enemy, but he was away
from home at the time. On his return he set out in pursuit of the
band at the head of the native constabulary. The outlaws had about
160 small firearms, and during the chase several fierce fights took
place. Being hunted from place to place incessantly, they eventually
released Trias's wife and children so as to facilitate their own
escape. Constabulary was insufficient to cope with the marauders,
and regular troops had to be sent to these provinces. In February,
1905, a posse of 25 Moro fighting-men was brought up from Siassi
(Tapul group) to hunt down the brigands. Launches patrolled the
Bay of Manila with constabulary on board to intercept the passage
of brigands from one province to another, for lawlessness was, more
or less, constantly rife in several of the Luzon provinces and half
a dozen other islands for years after the end of the war. From 1902
onwards, half the provinces of Albay, Bulacan, Bataan, Cavite, Ilocos
Sur, and the islands of Camaguin, Samar, Leyte, Negros, Cebu, etc.,
have been infested, at different times, with brigands, or latter-day
insurgents, as the different parties choose to call them. The regular
troops, the constabulary, and other armed forces combined were unable
to exterminate brigandage. The system of "concentration" circuits,
which had given such adverse results during the Rebellion (_vide_
p. 392), was revived in the provinces of Batangas and Cavite, obliging
the waverers between submissio