The Mena weekly star., 1913-09-25
.F|L|P|NOS BEING
 SOLD AS SLAVES
War Department Has Received Re- port on Traffic by Natives Boys and Girls Bought
 for $30 to $1O0.

Washington, Sept. 20.-That slav- cry is widespread in the Philip pines; that children from three years of age upward are sold like cattle at prices from $50 to Si00, and that it is a common practice for fathers to sell daughters in marriage or as white slaves, were the details in a report received to- day by the war department from W. H. Phipps, auditor for the Phil ippines. Phipps' report names slave owners throughout the islands. He cites a marriage custom which he said helped increase the barter. The father of the groom usually pays a bounty to the father of the bride in a Filipino marriage, and where, as often happens, the groom's father cannot pay money, a life is demanded. The life" is usually a child, boy or girl.
 Child Slaves Treated Cruelty.
 The child slaves, the report says, are dressed in the scantiest clothing and fed upon the most indifferent food.
 The Phipps report is based upon | investigations conducted under the direction of the Philippine auditor, by district auditors. It was accom- panied by a list of names of sixty seven persons held as slaves, some being held outright and some under the so-called "debt' system, the fallacy of which is shown by the 1 fact that some of the slaves so held are more than 60 years old and have been held by their present owners since birth.
 PeOnage the Usual Form.
 The almost universal report made 10 me by each person who has been asked to investigate" wrote Mr. Phipps, was that slavery in some form existed to his personal | knowledge; with a number it is a form of peOnage, which is the most extensive form of slavery practiced here; with many others, it will be noticed, it is the barter and sale of human beings by one person to an other who holds such person so sold to him in absolute subjection and they perform duties and labor for him without compensation further than scanty clothing and in many instances indifferent food.
 All of the district auditors who assisted MT. Phipps were obliged to promise their informants that the source of information would not be made public. The names of the of iicials who helped in the prepara- ton of the report also are with held"
 One investigator made this re- port:
 My observation has been that the largest percentage of real slav- cry exists in those provinces adja- cent to or in part inhabited by hill tribes or so-called nOn-C Christians. I myself have known of seven in stances where children have been bought from the hill tribes, and be- lieVe that a house to house canvass | of the servants of the well-tO-do class of Filipinos and a proper in quiry into their status will show that a large number of them are actually owned, having been ac- quired by purchase. Some of these old men and women have been the property of some family since childhood"
 Fathers Sell Daughters Into Vice.
 There is a considerable traffic in girls. personally have had a num- Der of offers of this kind, and it is generally known fact that a large percentage of the Chinese who have Filipino wives actually bought them at stipulated price. A re- cent instance in which I was of fered boys and girls for the small amount of twenty pesos, thirty pe- sos and forty pesos, was in August of last year, at Cebu. Peonage ex- ists in all parts of the islands and in many instances amounts to slav- cry"
 Another district auditor said he was reliably informed every Ne gritO servant in his district was or iginally enslaved.