' The town of Macabebe refused to send any
delegates to this gathering." [248]
It may be incidentally mentioned that Blount has passed somewhat
lightly over the fact that he himself during his army days commanded
an aggregation of sturdy citizens from this town, known as Macabebe
scouts, who diligently shot the Insurgents full of holes whenever they
got a chance. He incorrectly refers to them as a "tribe or clan." [249]
It is absurd to call them a tribe. They are merely the inhabitants
of a town which has long been at odds with the neighbouring towns of
the province.
Things had come to a bad pass in Pampanga when its head wrote that
the punishment of beating people in the plaza and tying them up so
that they would be exposed to the full rays of the sun should be
stopped. He argued that such methods would not lead the people of
other nations to believe that the reign of liberty, equality and
fraternity had begun in the Philippines. [250]
When it is remembered that persons tied up and exposed to the full rays
of the sun in the Philippine lowlands soon die, in a most uncomfortable
manner, we shall agree with the head of this province that this custom
has its objectionable features!
_Tarlac_
While the failure of Messrs. Wilcox and Sargent to learn of the
relations between the Tagalogs of Macabebe and their neighbours,
or of the fact that people were being publicly tortured in Pampanga,
is perhaps not to be wondered at under the circumstances, it is hard
to see how they could have failed to hear something of the seriously
disturbed conditions in Tarlac if they so much as got off the train
there.
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