authorities were constantly searching dwellings, often entire
neighborhoods, and with a thoroughness which entirely disregarded
the possibility of damaging an innocent person's property. These
"domiciliary registrations" were, of course, supposed to be unexpected,
but in the later Spanish days the intended victims usually had
warning from some employee in the office where it was planned, or
from some domestic of the official in charge; very often, however, the
warning was so short as to give only time for a hasty destruction of
incriminating documents and did not permit of their being transferred
to other hiding places. Thus large losses were incurred, and to these
must be added damages from dampness when a hole in the ground, the
inside of a post, or cementing up in the wall furnished the means of
concealment. Fires, too, were frequent, and such events attracted so
much attention that it was scarcely safe to attempt to save anything
of an incriminating nature.

Six years of war conditions did their part toward destroying what
little had escaped, and from these explanations the reader may
understand how it comes that the tangled story of Spain's last half
century here presents an historical problem more puzzling than that
of much more remote times in more favored lands.

It seems almost providential that the published statement of
the Governor-General can be checked not only by an account which
Rizal secretly sent to friends, but also by the candid memoranda
contained in the untruthful executive's own secret folios. While
some unessential details of Rizal's career are in doubt, not a point
vital to establishing his good name lacks proof that his character
was exemplary and that he is worthy of the hero-worship which has
come to him.

After Rizal's return to Manila from his railway trip he had the
promised interview with the Governor-General. At their previous
meetings the discussions had been quite informal. Rizal, in
complimenting the General upon his inauguration of reforms, mentioned
that the Philippine system of having no restraint whatever upon
the chief executive had at least the advantage that a well-disposed
governor-general would find no red-tape hindrances to his plans for
the public benefit. But Despujol professed to believe that the best
of men make mistakes and that a wise government would establish
safeguards against this human fallibility.

The final, and fatal, interview began with the Governor-Gene