"The Cortes, using the power which is conceded to them by the Constitution, have decreed: Not being in a position to apply the Constitution which has been adopted for the peninsula and adjacent to the ultramarine provinces of America and Asia, these shall be ruled and administered by special laws appropriate to their respective situations and circumstances, and proper to cause their happiness. Consequently, the Deputies for the designated provinces are not to take their seats in the present Cortes." Tacon was exultant over this strengthening of his hand, and he began a regime even more cruel than his previous record. His agents were constantly busy stirring up strife and jealousy between the Spanish residents of the island and the native Cubans. He dominated the civil courts with his military officers, and justice became a mere chimera of fancy. In order to keep the police in line, he insisted that a certain number of arrests must be made within a given period. When there were not enough real offenders to make up the quota, the police naturally wreaked any little personal animosities which they might have against private citizens; and it has even been said that frequently they were paid by certain revengeful citizens who held grudges to prefer charges against men who were absolutely innocent of any offence. Of course societies, whether political or social, came under the governmental ban. Citizens were not encouraged to assemble in groups for any purpose, and they feared to do so openly, lest the entire group might be apprehended and tried on some trumped up charge. All associations for education or personal betterment were discouraged, because if people came to know too much, they were harder to handle and more apt to revolt. Besides this, any society or institution which did not depend on the favor of the Captain-General might find means of denouncing his rule, and one could never tell how royal favor might be swayed. Tacon well knew it to be a very uncertain quantity, and meant to keep the wind blowing in his quarter, if possible.