Note 45 — Chapter VII

“This,” says Delgado (p. 307) “is peculiar only to some workmen, and not to all the nations of these islands, and the same thing happens also in our own country among cobblers, tailors, and other deceitful and tricky workmen.”

Mas comments as follows (pp. 66, 67): “There is no tailor, cobbler, or workman of any kind, who does not begin by begging money when any work is ordered. If he is a carpenter, he needs the money in order to buy lumber; if a laundryman, to buy soap. This is not for lack of confidence in receiving their pay, for the same thing happens with those who have the best credit, with the cura of the village, and even with the captain-general himself. It consists, firstly, in the fact that the majority have no money, because of their dissipation; and secondly, because they are sure that after they have received a part of their price, their customer will not go to another house, and that he will wait for the workman as long as he wishes (which is usually as long as what he has collected lasts), and that then the customer will have to take the work in the way in which it is delivered to him.”