A PHILIPPINE COURT with withes of rattan, and then binding them all together with a long strip of the same material. After being thus secured the entire party, including the two women, were led to the neighboring seashore and butch ered in cold blood, the bodies being thrown into the sea. The motive of this crime was not shown by the evidence, but judging from fragmentary remarks of witnesses, it is probable that the leader was prompted by revenge for some real or fancied injury done to himself or one of his family. Hatred of the Spaniard may have had its influence on the mass of the malefactors. This crime, as well as that of the murder of Butron, illustrates the condition of society and the nature of many atrocious crimes at that time on the criminal docket of the courts, now happily of comparatively infrequent occurrence. The final disposal of the cases herein re ferred to by the Supreme Court of the Philip pines illustrates the spirit of the existing criminal law. All three defendants were sentenced to death by the trial judge. The sentence of Ciriaco de la Cruz was confirmed; those imposed in the cases of the other two were modified to imprisonment for life. It might be stated in this connection that all death sentences are transmitted to the Su preme Court by virtue of law, the death sentence not being final until confirmed by the ultimate tribunal. While it would ap pear that if the capital penalty were to be imposed at all it would be administered to each of the perpetrators of the murders herein set forth, yet if degrees of atrocity are to be observed in so atrocious crimes, Cir iaco de la Cruz was the one whose penalty should have been the least instead of the greatest. The crime in which he partici pated was committed in times of great ex citement and was probably prompted by race prejudice. He was not the leader, but as far as shown by the testimony the second of the chiefs of the assaulting party. Nearly a hundred men were in the band that mas
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sacred the Echeverria family. The trans action partook more of the character of a seditious uprising than an ordinary murder. The crime of Maximo, who was sentenced for the murder of Seftor Butron, was of the same character, but there was not the attend ant excitement. It was committed in cold blood by a small party of ruffians. There was no evidence showing race prejudice or that any other motive than revenge or lootprompted the act. A comparison of the cases shows that of Maximo to have been the more cold blooded and deliberate of the two. It would seem, however, that so slight difference existed that both men were en titled to the same penalty. The crime of Aniceto was clearly the most dangerous to society of the three and prompted by the worst motive. Herein lies the weakness of the Filipino-Spanish code. A brute enters the dwelling of a brother and sister and murders both, incited to the crime by revenge and disappointed lust. The motive is lost sight of in a petty balancing of the circumstances surrounding the com mission of the act. The fact that it was committed at night, that the assassin en tered the dwelling of one of his victims to perpetrate the deed, that he used superior ity of force, must be considered by the judge in imposing the penalty; these and many other circumstances are minutely detailed by the penal code as matters which extenu ate or aggravate the offense, any of which would be given due consideration by any judge worthy of the name. The black motive behind the deed, which invests it with peculiar atrocity and makes it the most dastardly, as it was the most dangerous to the public welfare of any of the offenses herein related, is comparatively unnoticed, and the enormity of the act meas ured by trifling circumstances as set forth by the absurd code which remains in force a disgrace to the criminal procedure of these islands. The crimes of which Ciriaco and Maximo were guilty pass away with the troublesome
