The Law of the Bolo, which runs throughout the Philippine Islands, has the crowning merit of simplicity. Unlike the codes of other countries, with their folios of verbiage, their precedents, decisions, and interpretations, their hair-splitting subtleties and refinements of phrase, their hidden dangers for the unwary and unfortunate, the Law of the Bolo, of the terrible two-foot-long knife, with which a Filipino can cleave his enemy from collar-bone to the waist, has but one clause—that the spoil shall go to the man with the longest reach. Possibly the process is crude, but, at least, it is speedy and final. Judge, jury, counsel, the Bolo takes the place of all these; and there is no appeal, at any rate in this life.

The Law of the Bolo has also the merit of antiquity. It was in force when the Spaniards annexed the Archipelago; it is in force there to-day, under the American successors of the Spaniards; and probably it will still be in force when, not only this generation, but half a dozen of its successors as well, have passed away—not because it is perfect, no law is, but because it is so admirably suited to local conditions.

Half the troubles in the Islands during the last century or so—a great many more than half, probably—have been due to the fact that white men would not recognise this elemental code. Mr Commissioner Furber, the head of the department of Constabulary and Trade in Manila, regarded it as scandalous, as did also Mr Dwight P. Sharler, the Chief Collector of Customs, and Mr Joseph Gobbitt, of the British firm of Gobbitt & Dunk, Eastern merchants; but both old Felizardo, the ladrone leader, and Captain Basil Hayle of the Philippines Constabulary, understood it, and acted on that knowledge, thereby avoiding many mistakes, as this story will show ….