The Filipinos are born gamblers. Gambling is their besetting sin. The poor are usually glad to get the opportunity to borrow money, and will do this on almost any terms, if necessary, in order to continue to indulge in their pet vice. They are thoughtless about their ability to repay loans, and thus readily fall into the power of the cacique money-lenders, who thereafter use them as house servants or labourers, under conditions such as to render their escape from debt-servitude practically impossible. Indeed, if they seek to escape, the caciques often threaten them with the law, or actually invoke it against them, while if they endeavour to homestead public land and thus better their condition, the caciques only too often cause opposition to be made to their claims and keep it up until they become discouraged. The following facts have been furnished me by Hon. James A. Ostrand, judge of the court of land registration. "In 1907 a woman, whose surname, I think, is Quintos, asked me to lend her twenty-five pesos with which to 'redeem' her daughter who had been mortgaged for that amount to a Chinese merchant, whose name at present I do not recall, but who had his establishment on the ground floor of the house of Ubaldo Diaz in Lingayen. The woman stated that the Chinaman was corrupting the morals of the girl, and that this was the reason why she wanted to make the redemption. I told her that under the circumstances no redemption was necessary, but that I would see that the girl was allowed to leave the Chinaman, who, on proper representations, was induced to let the girl go home. She stayed with her mother for a couple of weeks but, by adding P75 to the mortgage debt, the Chinaman got her back and shortly before I left Lingayen I learned that the girl, though scarcely fifteen years old, had given birth to a child."