est of imaginary
misdemeanours, in order to justify the necessity of its employment,
it is an unwelcome institution to all, especially the lower-middle
and common classes, amongst whom it can operate with greater impunity.

Not unfrequently when a European nation acquires a new tropical
possession, the imaginative mind discovers therein unbounded wealth
which the eye cannot see, hidden stores of gold procurable only by
manual labour, and fortune-making possibilities awaiting whosoever
has the courage to reveal them. The propagation of these fallacious
notions always allures to the new territory a crowd of ne'er-do-wells,
amongst the _bona fide_ workers, who ultimately become loafers preying
upon the generosity of the toilers. This class was not wanting in
the Philippines; some had followed the army; others who had finished
their term of voluntary military service elected to remain in the
visionary El Dorado. Some surreptitiously opened drinking-shanties;
others exploited feminine frailty or eked out an existence by
beggarly imposition, and it was stated by a provincial governor that,
to his knowledge, at one time, there were 80 of this class in his
province. [243] The number of undesirables was so great that it became
necessary for the Insular Government to pass a Vagrant Act, under
which the loafer could be arrested and disposed of. The Act declares
vagrancy to be a misdemeanour, and provides penalties therefor; but
it has always been interpreted in a generous spirit of pity for the
delinquent, to whom the option of a free passage home or imprisonment
was given, generally resulting in his quitting the Islands. This
measure, which brought honour to its devisers and relief to society,
was, in a few instances, abused by those who feigned to be vagrants
in order to secure the passage home, but these were judiciously dealt
with by a regulation imposing upon them a short period of previous
training in stone-breaking to fit them for active life in the homeland.

The following General Order was issued by the Division Commander in
January, 1905, viz.:--

It is reported by the Civil Governor that in several places in
Luzon there have gathered numbers of dishonourably discharged men
from the army who are a hindrance to progress and good order. The
Division Commander desires that in future no dishonourably
discharged soldiers be allowed to remain in the Islands, where
their presence is very undesirable.