The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1911-09-28

with the governor. This the friar would do,
asking the provincial governor to remit the
fine, which he would do. In this way the
frlar would ingratiate himself with the COB
ernadorcillo, and also show to him what a
power he had over all the political authorities
1t the frlar happened to be at outs with the
provincial governor, he would utilize his in
fluence over the gobernadorcillo to the end
that the latter would show him all the orders
that he received from the provincial governor
before he executed the same, and if any Of
these orders met his views he would instruct
the gobernadorcillo to obey them; if not, he
would tell him to pay no attention to them.
Ii matters came to crisis, the friar would
advise the gobernadorcillo to either take to
the woods or to come to Manila and become a
guest OF the monastery of his order there,
and then he would prepare charges against the
provincial governor and have it signed by all
the principal people in the pueblo Another
method of the friars related to the collection
of their fees or stipends. They formed all
the lists of the population Of their different
districts from the parish baptismal register
and purposely avoided any reference to the
death register, consequently whoever was
baptised in that place could live forever, and
was returned always as being alive and resi-
dent of that place, even though he had died
angay, who were the tax collectors. to turn
over to them their stipend based upon these
public returns, and if they failed to turn the
stlpends over on the ground that no such pop
ulatlon existed, they were put in jail through
the frlars and bereft of their position The
basis for the payment of the stipend to the
curates IN former times was the population.
and every year list of the population Of the
pueblo was made up ostensibly by the gober-
nadorcillo, but the only statistics that were
In these pueblos were the parish registers kept
by the friars, and the friars compelled the
gobernadorcillos, therefore, to come to them
and let them wise the lists that were sent in
to the provincial governor and naturally in
creased them so as to increase salary
=. So to swell the taxes, they robbed the
cradle and the grave?
A. They augmented the cradle, but dimin-
1shed the grave. The friars had a system of
blackmail, by which they held the rod over all
the citizens of pueblo, about whose habits
and closet skeletons they learned through
making little girls of from to and years
OF age, who could barely speak and who were
naturally and must have been sinless, come to
the confessional and relate to them everything
that they knew of the private life in their own
homes and in places that they might visit.
a. What can you say about the fees collect
ed by the priests for marriages, etc.?
A. [ can not state positively what the fees
charged are, but | can say that they are very
heavy and always increasing, because have
to pay the birth, marriage and burial fees of
all my tenants and servants, and they are
charged on an ever-increasing SCALE The
slightest improvement made to church or
convent is used as pretext for enormously
increasing these fees The fees are very bur
densome to the landed proprietor, for the Fill
lpno, unfortunately, when he gets an idea
acts on it without caring for the cOpseouencns