The age-herald., 1901-06-18
SOCIETY OF THE
 SANDATA HANDS
Organized by fiIipinoS to Rob,
 Murder, Rape and PilIage
SEVERAL LEADERS TO HANG
hey Sat Upon and Murdered Friendly Natives and Murdered American Guards and Soldiers
 Heathenlsh Barbarity.

7eatneniSn BafparIIy.
 Washington, June 17.-A Filipino mes- sage brings to the War Department re- cords in eleven cases wherein Fllipinos were tried by military commissions on charges including murder. rape, kidnap- ing, assault and battery, burglary and violation of the rules of war.
 An especially notable case arose out of the operations of a famous oath-bound band of Fiipinos called the Society of the Sandata Hands" The present officers of this society next to a triumverate of chiefs are chief executioner and assist ants, and a requisite number of grave digers who participate in the self-appoint- ed work of the band.
 The leaders select their victim, capture and carry him away in the night to the rendzvous on sandy beach covered with very tall grass, where the diggers have already prepared the graves Here in the presence of the assembled bands helpless men and women from time to time have been stabbed to deat hand tossed Into the graves.
 The members of the band then disperse and trust to the rise and fall of the near by waters to hide the evidence of their ghastly work. Ten members of the band, including two of the chiefs, were tried before military commission and eight of them were sentenced to be hanged In approving the sentence General MacAr- thur says:
 General MacArthur's Endorsement.
 ''To the reviewing authority 1t is evi- dent there can be no hope of peace for the Filipino people nor security for their lives and property until they shall learn to-unite against all bands of murderers and assassins, under whatever name they shall assume, and come to the assistance of the officers of the law In their deter animation to bring them all to justice"
 In another case an armed band of about twenty-five F1lipinos carried away nine of the Inhabitants of the barrie of Casantl- lacian and by repeated blows from the butts of their rifles drove them to the presidencia of Cabaruan. Here all hands drank freely of vino and the prisoners were made drunk Then, according to the testimony of two of the prisoners, who escaped the other seven were led off in | the direction of grove of trees, where l two days later their beheaded bodies were discovered The members of the band who were captured received sentences of death in some cases and imprisonment at l hard labor for varying terms in others. Four native policemen who had been sent to gather wood for a detachment of American troops were set upon; one of | their number was killed and another lost his arm. member of the band which attacked them was sentenced to twenty years Imprisonment
 Robbed and Killed. A native named Miranda was tried on four charges. A band under his leader ship ambushed, robbed and killed two na- tive brothers. Later the accused led his band against the country house of na- tive, set it afire footed its contents and carried off into the fields three daughters of the owner, robbing them of their jew elry.
 Three days later his band attacked the town residence of the same native and thoroughly sacked 1t.
 His last crime was the murder of native named Ablino, who frequented 8 gambling house kept by his inamor1ta, for the sole reason that Ablino had not paid gambling debt. Miranda was sem fenced to be hanged.
 Three natives were tried charged with the murder of Henry F. Shafer, Company l., Seventeenth Infantry They were sen- fenced to be hanged but the sentence was comrnunted by General MacArthur in the case of two of them to Imprisonment for life and the other to imprisonment for twenty years.
 Work of a Traitor.
 Joseph Baligo, the president-elect of Pueblo of Tuano, under the system adopt ed by the American government, while exercising the functions of his office De- came cognizant of the organization of a band in the neighboring barro for the purpose of attacking the small garrison of ninteen American soldiers stationed at Tuao He traitorously co-operated with the leader of the band, advised him as to the most suspicious time to make an att tack, intercepted a messenger sent to warn the Americans and otherwise treacherously abused the trust of his of flee. He was sentenced to be confined at hard labor for twenty years
 Severino DeGuia, vice president of Ba- coor. while returning in a carromata Ca native vehicle) from San Nicolas, Cayite province, was set upon by native band. They struck the coachman senseless and carried out the vice president and his two young sons who were with him at the time. Some distance off they shot him dead before the eyes of his children and flung his body in pile of rocks. A mem Der of the band who was captured was sentenced to be hanged.
 Three natives were tried jointly on a. charge of being a part of an armed band of robbers who forced an entrance into the home of a native, robbed it of money, jewelry and other valuables, forced the inmates to come out of the house, bound and maltreated the men and brutally as- saulted the women. Two of them were sentenced to Imprisonment at hard labor for a term of ten years.