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Altogether, in wealth, culture and comfort, Lam-co's home city far surpassed the Manila of that day, which was, however, patterned after it. The walls of Manila, its paved streets, stone bridges, and large houses with spacious courts are admitted by Spanish writers to be due to the industry and skill of Chinese workmen.
The next event in Domingo's life which is revealed by them is a visit to Manila where in the old Parian church he acted as sponsor, or godfather, at the baptism of a countryman, and a new convert, Siong-co, whose granddaughter was, we shall see, to marry a grandson of Lam-co's, the couple becoming Rizal's grandparents.
There, near where the Pasig river flows out of the Laguna de Bay, Lam-co's descendants were to be tenants until another government, not yet born, and a system unknown in his day, should end a long series of inevitable and vexatious disputes by buying the estate and selling it again, on terms practicable for them, to those who worked the land.
Francisco Mercado's eldest son, Juan, built a fine house in the center of Biñan, where its pretentious stone foundations yet stand to attest how the home deserved the pride which the family took in it. At twenty-two Juan married a girl of Tubigan, who was two years his elder, Cirila Alejandra, daughter of Domingo Lam-co's Chinese godson, Siong-co.
Lam-co's prestige among his own people, as shown by his leadership of those who later settled with him in Biñan, as well as the fact that even after his residence in the country he was called to Manila to act as godfather, suggests that he was above the ordinary standing, and certainly not of the coolie class.
Lam-co's age was given in the record as thirty-five years, and the names of his parents were given as Siang-co and Zun-nio.
Famine in his native district, or the plague which followed it, may have been the cause of Lam-co's leaving home, but it was more probably political troubles which transferred to the Philippines that intelligent and industrious stock whose descendants have proved such loyal and creditable sons of their adopted country.
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