Crowds of all kinds are easily swayed, but it is said that nowhere is it so easy to rouse a panic or a revolution as in Manila. Several times during the earlier months of the American occupation vague fears spread through the city, people ran to their homes or locked themselves in their shops in terror, lights were put out, armed guards were posted; then, after a few hours, everybody asked everybody else what the matter had been, and nobody knew.

In 1820 a strange scene was enacted in the Philippine capital. People assembled in groups at evening and whispered mysteriously. Gowned friars moved from group to group, but whether encouraging or expostulating it was impossible for one to say, unless he understood Spanish or Tagalog. The captain of an American ship that was taking on its load of hemp reported to a neighbor captain, who sailed under the cross of St. George, that there had been a violation of the government order against the importing of Protestant Bibles and pocket-pistols,—two things taboo in the country at that time. This, however, may have been the Yankee captain’s joke. As the night deepened torches were seen flitting hither and thither, the crowds thickened, the whispers and hushed talk increased by degrees to a widespread, menacing growl, then arose to a roar. Now drums were heard in the barracks, and the light, quick tread of marching feet could be distinguished through the babble of voices. The mob was slowly wedging itself into one of the streets before an inn, and just at the doors of that hostelry the noise was loudest and most threatening.

Presently came a crash. The building had been entered. Instantly there were shouts and cries, and the throng seemed fairly to boil with anger. In the light of candles that shone through windows the faces lifted toward the tavern were drawn and wolfish. Shots were heard. The mob was shaken, as a wood is shaken by a gale, but there was no retreat. There could be none. The people were packed too densely. Now a glint of bayonets was seen at one end of the street, and some sharp orders rang out. This was more effective. The throng began to thin away at the farther end, and those nearest to the soldiers attempted to break through the line, loudly declaring that they were merely spectators, and did not know what had happened. But in another moment everybody knew. Two dark shapes were passed out at the inn door, and were, in some fashion, pushed along over the heads of the multitude to its freer edge. These shapes had recently been men. With ropes about their necks they were dragged at a run through the streets. More houses were attacked. Other forms were found lying on the earth, pulseless, bloody, after the mob had passed. The military was, seemingly, unable to head it off or give effective chase. Flames now lighted various quarters of the city, and shots were frequently heard. It was a night of terror. History speaks of it as a night of rioting. Many declare that it was a St. Bartholomew massacre, on a smaller scale, and that the Protestants who were killed that night were put to death at the instigation of the friars. Tradition relates that when the sun arose the people, numbering thousands, marched in triumph through the city, following a dozen of their number who bore in their hands the phials in which two French naturalists, recently landed in Luzon, had preserved a number of snakes and insects for their scientific collection.

There was the mischief,—in those jars and bottles. Nobody would put a serpent or a scorpion into alcohol except for some grim purpose, and that purpose could be nothing other than black magic. Hence the raid on the inn; hence the killing of the naturalists and of other people suspected of complicity or sympathy with forbidden arts; hence the state of education of Luzon.