Note 16 — ANDA’S MEMORIAL, 1768

“Apart from the religious fiestas and the surplice-fees, Filipinas pays to monasticism another tribute of incalculable amount for straps, rosaries, scapulars, girdles, and other objects rivaling one another in similarly miraculous qualities—which are issued for cash, and at a fixed price, which yields no less than a thousand per cent on the capital invested.” Instances of this are given; “a worn pair of trousers, which the students from whom it is asked give gratis, is transformed into hundreds of scapulars, and each scapular costs two and one-half reals fuertes, or perhaps thirty-one hundredths of a peso.” “Thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of hard dollars are paid as a tax by Filipinas on this account to the monastic coffers; and if Jesus Christ drove out the traders from the temple, in the country of miracles those persons are chastised who refuse to obtain the goods from the temple.” (Marcelo H. del Pilar, cited by Pardo de Tavera in note 14, pp. 68, 69.) ↑