Each province has a governor and various other officers to enforce the laws, collect taxes, and do the public work. There is a court, called the Court of First Instance, for trying violations of the law. There are also an engineer to keep roads and bridges in repair and arrange for the erection of public buildings, a division superintendent of schools who, under the director of education at Manila, has charge of public education in his province, and other legal, financial, and military officials.
The presidente, who corresponds to the mayor of a city in this country, is at the head of the town government, and he is aided by a municipal council, whose members are elected by the voters of the central town and its barrios. Small cases of law-breaking are tried before justices of the peace, and order is kept by a municipal police force.
Such, in brief, is the form of government now in force in the Philippine Islands. The natives play a very large part in the administration of public affairs, most of the offices are open to Filipinos of ability, and peace and good order are apparent everywhere. Much remains to be done before conditions are exactly as they should be, but the establishment of free public schools from one end of the archipelago to the other, the decrease in crime and disorder, the almost complete prevention of the terrible plagues of cholera and smallpox, and the removal of all lepers to one island where the disease cannot be given to others, are important results of the new era in the Philippine Islands, for which the Filipinos should be grateful to the United States.
Francisco lived in a country where Mother Nature is very kind to her children, and yet treats them with great severity. He was close enough to the equator to enjoy tropical sunshine the year round, with no cold weather and but a few months of long-continued rains. The soil of the Philippines is so fertile that crops grow with little cultivation. Food, drink, clothing, and shelter are obtained readily, and so people's wants are easily satisfied. But, as if to counterbalance this generosity, Nature is exceedingly harsh with the Filipinos, and those who live in these islands must remain in almost constant danger of inconvenience, loss of property, or even death at her hands.