In fol. 158, 159, Viana states that (in 1765) Casañas is dead, and Solano pays to the royal treasury five hundred pesos a year. Viana is anxious to prevent the abandonment of the mines (which he fears in view of the losses and injuries caused by the late war), since they contain enough iron to supply all India, and ought to be operated for the benefit of the royal treasury, thus saving the great expense which it incurs in buying iron from China, and preventing the drain of so much money from the islands. He therefore proposes that some two hundred Chinese be placed at work in the mines to operate and develop them, and build the necessary furnaces and other appliances; this will also reduce the population of the Parian, and will cost nothing to the treasury save the rations for the Sangleys, who should be compelled to cultivate the lands near the mines and raise most of what is needed for their support and that of their families (for the married ones should be selected for this colony). They should be placed under a manager of skill and energy, with twenty-five or thirty soldiers at his disposal. From this enterprise, "numberless advantages would ensue for the king and for the public. The consumption of iron in the islands amounts to from 80,000 to 100,000 pesos' worth annually; and even the most ordinary sort, that from China, costs seven to eight pesos a pico for bars, and twelve to thirteen when wrought into nails, balls, etc." By the above plan the cost of producing the iron would be reduced to about three pesos a pico. All the Sangley ironworkers should therefore be seized, and transported to the mines. [56] "In the eastern part of the Philippines, cock-fights must have been unknown in Pigafetta's time; he saw the first gamecocks in Paláuan." (See Pigafetta's mention of these fights, in VOL. XXXIII, p. 211.) "In the 'Ordinances of good government' of Hurtado Corcuera, in the middle of the seventeenth century, gamecocks were not mentioned. In 1779 they first added to the revenue from taxation; and in 1781 the government farmed the right to collect entrance-money in the cockpits (galleras, from gallo, "cock"), for $14,798 a year. In 1863 the revenue from these places made an item in the budget of $106,000." A special ordinance regarding cock-fights was dated at Madrid, March 21, 1861; among its provisions is permission for this sport to be held on Sundays and feast-days, from the conclusion of high mass until sunset. "The craving to gain money without work they can with great difficulty withstand, and many are, through the passion for gambling, drawn into borrowing money at usury, embezzlement, and theft, and even highway robbery; the bands of robbers on both sea and land consist, for the greater part, of ruined gamesters." (Jagor, Reisen, p. 22.)