22 GIBBS AND HOLMES. 
Accounts of the excessive use of alcoholic beverages, made from 
rice and palm saps by the natives of Borneo, are given by Henry 
Ling Roth,” and various other authors speak of parallel con- 
ditions existing upon other islands and portions of tropical Asia. 
There is a firmly settled opinion in the minds of a number of persons who 
have come in contact with the question and who are in a position to know, 
that the prevalence of the drinking of tuba, a term for fermented but not 
distilled palm saps, is much more serious, at the present time, than the 
drinking of distilled beverages. 
The Attorney-General of the Islands, in a special report, dated July, 
1909, states: 
“Two-thirds of the fiscals of the Archipelago declare that local drinks, 
such as tuba, coconut and nipa wines and basi are mainly responsible for 
the crimes against persons, chiefly those of assault and battery, and 
homicide. During the hot and dry season a positive increase in these 
crimes is more noticeable in several provinces or districts. Their number 
is, however, greater in the Visayan Islands than in Luzon, and in the Islands 
of Antique and Cebu intoxication produces such a peculiar frenzy that the 
drinker becomes irresponsible.” 
Detailed statements from a number of provinces are included and the 
report from Capiz is quoted, for the reason that it is somewhat typical of 
the nipa districts where little or no commercial use is made of the vast 
resources of the nipa areas. The quotation is as follows: 
“The crimes most frequently committed in the jurisdiction of this court 
are those of homicide, murder, and assault and battery. These crimes are 
generally committed from April to December. 
“The causes of the commission of these crimes are, in the first place, 
intoxication, for this province abounds with tuba; it costs almost nothing, 
and many people of the interior towns live in the nipales, so that they have 
tuba within their reach at all hours of the day. The owners of said nipa 
plantations, since wine distilleries have been closed, pay little attention to 
their plantations and leave them to the care of their watchmen or encar- 
gados, who with other persons avail themselves of the tuba without or 
occasionally with the knowledge, of the owners. 
“In the second place, the habit of the poor people of the interior towns 
of carrying a bolo at the waist from morning till night, and even when 
intoxicated, results in the frequent use of this weapon even in the most 
trivial differences. So it is that many of the crimes of homicide and assault 
and battery committed in this province are due only to insignificant questions 
or resentments, and at times the cause is not even known. In the third 
place, there is the lack of instruction of those living outside of the towns, 
or in the mountains, in the principles of justice. They want to settle their 
quarrels by means of the bolo, not knowing any different form of adjusting 
their controversies; they do not know how to resort to the courts of justice 
to settle their grievances.” 
The Internal Revenue Agent* of Nueva Caceres states: “My personal 
* The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo. London (1896), 
1, 391. 
* Special report, February 15, 1911. 
