La Gallera.

To keep holy the afternoon of Sunday in Spain, one goes ordinarily to the plaza de toros; in the Philippines, to the gallera. Cock-fights, introduced in the country about a century ago, are to-day one of the vices of the people. The Chinese can more easily deprive themselves of opium than the Filipinos of this bloody sport.

The poor, wishing to get money without work, risks here the little he has; the rich seeks a distraction at the price of whatever loose coin feasts and masses leave him. The education of their cocks costs both much pains, often more than that of their sons.

Since the Government permits and almost recommends it, let us take our part in the sport, sure of meeting friends.

The gallera of San Diego, like most others, is divided into three courts. In the entry is taken the sa pintû, that is, the price of admission. Of this price the Government has a share, and its revenues from this source are some hundred thousand pesos a year. It is said this license fee of vice serves to build schools, open roads, span rivers, and establish prizes for the encouragement of industry. Blessed be vice when it produces so happy results! In this entry are found girls selling buyo, cigars, and cakes. Here gather numerous children, brought by their fathers or uncles, whose duty it is to initiate them into the ways of life.

In the second court are most of the cocks. Here the contracts are made, amid recriminations, oaths, and peals of laughter. One caresses his cock, while another counts the scales on the feet of his, and extends the wings. See this fellow, rage in his face and heart, carrying by the legs his cock, deplumed and dead. The animal which for months has been tended night and day, on which such brilliant hopes were built, will bring a peseta and make a stew. Sic transit gloria mundi! The ruined man goes home to his anxious wife and ragged children. He has lost at once his cock and the price of his industry. Here the least intelligent discuss the sport; those least given to thought extend the wings of cocks, feel their muscles, weigh, and ponder. Some are dressed in elegance, followed and surrounded by the partisans of their cocks; others, ragged and dirty, the stigma of vice on their blighted faces, follow anxiously the movements of the rich; the purse may get empty, the passion remains. Here not a face that is not animated; in this the Filipino is not indolent, nor apathetic, nor silent; all is movement, passion. One would say they were all devoured by a thirst always more and more excited by muddy water.