"The undersigned has reason to believe that Negrito children and children of other non-Christian tribes are occasionally bought and sold by civilized natives, and is strongly of the opinion that in case the Penal Code does not provide adequate punishment for such offences, it should be so amended as to make it possible to inflict severe penalties upon those who buy and sell human beings in this Archipelago. (Signed) "Dean C. Worcester, "Secretary of the Interior." The papers were referred by Governor-General Wright to the Attorney-General-- "for an opinion as to whether there is not some provision in the present Penal Code which will provide adequate punishment for such offences as are related herein." The opinion of the Attorney-General rendered in response to this request [72] encouraged me to believe that something could be done under existing law. I returned the papers, together with the opinion, to the governor of Nueva Vizcaya and three test suits were brought as promptly as possible. One of them has become historic. It was brought against Tomás Cabanag, a well-known slave dealer who made a business of buying and selling Ifugao children. He was charged with illegal detention in connection with the admitted sale, by him, of an Ifugao girl named Gamaya. [73] He was convicted in the Court of First Instance. I quote the following extract from the decision of the court: "The Congress of the United States has declared that human slavery shall not exist in these islands and while no law, so far as I can discover, has yet been passed either defining slavery in these islands or affixing a punishment for those who engage in this inhuman practice as dealers, buyers, sellers, or derivers, the facts established in this case show conclusively that the child Jimaya was by the defendant forcibly and by fraud, deceit and threats unlawfully deprived of her liberty and that his object and purpose was an unlawful and illegal one, to wit, the sale of the child for money into human slavery. This constitutes the crime of Detencion ilegal defined and penalized by Article 481 of the Penal Code and this Court finds the defendant guilty as charged in the information." The case was promptly appealed to the Supreme Court and was there lost on March 16, 1907.