Note 14 — Chapter XV · THE KATIPUNAN

In the madness of panic for an hour or a day men may and doubtless will do strange things; the abject terror that shattered the reasoning faculties of the governing class in Manila seemed only to increase with time. There was first fear let loose on its wild charger and then its immediate reaction, the thirst for revenge. A Spanish mob gathered at the gates of Malacañan clamoring for instant and sanguinary reprisals. Rizal in his flight across the American continent had commented sadly on the lynching-parties that disgraced the Southern States of the American Union. If he had been in Manila in those days he would have seen the same spirit displayed by the mob that demanded his own death. It was 1872 come again, but infinitely worse.14