r criminal charges: therefore, in order that the
cases of such prisoners be settled and despatched with all promptness,
the charges against them reviewed during the week, and their cases
substantiated and decided, and that the order and system requisite to
the quick and efficient despatch of their affairs may be observed,
they ordered, and they did so order, that now and henceforth, an
auditor of this royal Audiencia shall, during the months assigned to
him, review the charges against prisoners, at such times and in such
wise as he may deem proper. The cases of such prisoners as are in the
prison must be definitely substantiated and concluded, without any
prisoner being able to escape, or any case to go unsettled. He shall
then refer them to the court of this royal Audiencia, in order that
they may be examined and decided therein. In the aforesaid examination,
he shall take particular care to follow the established practice,
so that there may be suitable method and system, in order to avoid
long imprisonments and delays in the cases. To execute the above,
full authority and power was delegated in due legal form. They ordered
the licentiate Christoval Tellez de Almacan, auditor of this royal
Audiencia, to begin his months from today; then, consecutively, the
other members of the Audiencia. Thus they voted, and ordered it to
be registered as an act, and signed the same.

_Doctor Antonio de Morga_
The licentiate _Tellez Almacan_
The licentiate _Albaro Cambrano_

Before me:

_Pedro Hurtado Desquibel_

_An act relating to the breeding of fowls_.

In the city of Manila, on the second of October, one thousand five
hundred and ninety-eight, the president and auditors of the royal
Audiencia of the Philipinas Islands declared that, whereas in the
instructions which have been given to the alcaldes-mayor of the
provinces of these islands, the latter have been charged and ordered
to take particular care that the natives thereof shall raise fowls,
in order both to pay their tribute, and to keep the land supplied with
necessary food; they are, however, informed that, although the said
alcaldes-mayor take particular care in the execution and enforcement
of the said instructions, the said natives do not breed the said
fowls, because no pecuniary penalties are exacted from them--whence
it results that they have none wherewith to pay their tribute;
and there is a very considerable lack and scarcity of them in this
city, so that th