Note 27 — PART I

While the civil power is thus shamefully corrupt or negligent of its duties, the church has not forgotten that she too has claims on the Indian. She has marked out, exclusive of Sundays, above 40 days in the year on which no labour can be performed throughout the islands. Exclusive of these are the numerous local feasts in honor of the patron saints of towns and churches.27 The influence of these extends often through a groupe of many islands, always to many leagues round their different sanctuaries; and often lasting three or four days, sometimes a week, according to his or her reputation for sanctity; so that including Sundays, the average cannot be less than 110 or 120 days lost to the community in a year. This alone is a heavy tax on the agricultural classes, by whom it is most severely felt; but its consequences are more so, from the habits of idleness and dissipation which it engenders and perpetuates. These feasts are invariably, after the procession is over, scenes of gambling, drinking, and debauchery of every description.