For many years after the American
occupation justices of the peace received no salaries and had to look
to fees for their compensation. This system worked wretchedly. The
positions were only too often filled by very incompetent and unworthy
men, who stimulated litigation in order to make more money. Now all
justices of the peace receive reasonable salaries.
The paying of regular salaries and the furnishing of necessary
offices and supplies have done much to improve the work of justice
of the peace courts, which are now presided over by men who average
far better than even their immediate predecessors.
Until they were put on a salary basis the work of the Filipino
justices of the peace left much more to be desired than is lacking
at present. In many instances they allowed gross brutalities,
perpetrated by the rich on the poor, or by the strong on the weak,
to go unpunished. The following case furnished me by an American
teacher is typical of what has occurred only too often:--
"On another occasion, I met the brother of my house _muchacha_, [496]
a boy about eight. He had a sort of protuberance on one side caused by
broken ribs which had not been set. I questioned my _muchacha_. She
said her step-father had kicked the child across the room some weeks
before and broken his ribs.
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