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Just like any one else, he would gaily set fire to a cot of woodwork and thatch, and just scorch those within; but he would rebuild their houses in stone. He insulted two ladies. One was unmarried he gave her a portion; the other was married he had her husband appointed chaplain. Cockfighting owed him some praiseworthy improvements. It was marvellous to see Lord David dress a cock for the pit.
Two hundred yards farther we perceived a multitude of individuals swarming around another erection of the same description, but without a roof, and I spurred on my horse, believing we should be in time to witness some cockfighting or a boxing-match; but my American fellow-travellers, better acquainted with the manners and customs of the natives, declared it was the "Court-House."
His deportment was remarkably grave and reserved: but his personal tastes were low and frivolous; and most of the time which he could save from public business was spent in racing, cardplaying, and cockfighting. He now sate below Rochester at the Board of Treasury, and distinguished himself there by assiduity and intelligence.
The people from the whole district round about come in on Sunday to the village, with a triple object; first, to hear mass; secondly, to buy their supplies for the ensuing week; and thirdly, to spend the afternoon in cockfighting, at which amusement it is easy to win or lose two or three hundred pounds in an afternoon.
In his language, too, were promulgated those laws and regulations in our country instituting cockfighting, lottery, billiard, created as sources of revenue for the State things which we the Filipinos could not oppose in the old political régime without at the same time opposing the government itself which made vice a source of revenue and which, to increase its funds, had to encourage such vices, similar to opium in official smoking-rooms.
Excepting such as were in the orders of the priesthood I rarely noticed persons in the act of making their prostrations. Men of rank I am told have their religious periods, during which they scrupulously attend to their duties and refrain from gratifications of the appetite, together with gambling and cockfighting; but these are not long nor very frequent.
Against the cockpit there is now a widespread campaign. This did not grow out of increased passion for the vice but out of the increased number of its enemies. None can say that cockfighting has increased; it is easy to prove that it has decreased; the number of days permitted by law is now insignificant compared with what it was a few years ago.
Two hundred yards farther we perceived a multitude of individuals swarming around another erection of the same description, but without a roof, and I spurred on my horse, believing we should be in time to witness some cockfighting or a boxing-match; but my American fellow-travellers, better acquainted with the manners and customs of the natives, declared it was the "Court House."
And I became aware that some one was speaking to me, and looked up to find a lean and lantern-jawed American come aboard and standing at my shoulder. "Are you anywise hard of hearing, stranger? Or must I repeat to you that this licks cockfighting?" "I, at any rate, am not disputing it, sir." "The Lady Nepean, too! Is that the Cap'n yonder? I thought as much. Dead, hey?
Cockfighting was in great force, and the public announcements relative to this barbarous sport were invariably headed by a portraiture of a couple of game-birds facing each other with a most belligerent aspect; while the numerous advertisements of horses 'stolen or strayed, were embellished by a representation of the supposed thief, mounted on the missing animal, which was forced into a breakneck pace, while Satan himself, in propria persona, was perched on the crupper, in an excited and triumphant attitude.
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