COLERIDGE.


It was one of those magic December mornings of the tropics--the very
nuptials of earth and sky, when great Nature seems to fling herself
incontinently into creation, wrapping the world in a brooding calm of
light and color, that Spain chose for committing political suicide
in the Philippines. Bagumbayan Field was crowded with troops, both
regulars and militia, for every man capable of being trusted with
arms was drawn up there, excepting only the necessary guards in other
parts of the city. Extra patrols were in the streets, double guards
were placed over the archiepiscopal and gubernatorial palaces. The
calmest man in all Manila that day was he who must stand before the
firing-squad.

Two special and unusual features are to be noted about this
execution. All the principal actors were Filipinos: the commander of
the troops and the officer directly in charge of the execution were
native-born, while the firing-squad itself was drawn from a local
native regiment, though it is true that on this occasion a squad of
Peninsular cazadores, armed with loaded Mausers, stood directly behind
them to see that they failed not in their duty. Again, there was but
one victim; for it seems to have ever been the custom of the Spanish
rulers to associate in these gruesome affairs some real criminals
with the political offenders, no doubt with the intentional purpose
of confusing the issue in the general mind. Rizal standing alone,
the occasion of so much hurried preparation and fearful precaution,
is a pathetic testimonial to the degree of incapacity into which the
ruling powers had fallen, even in chicanery.