To cap all and add exasperation to uneasiness the ladrones had become increasingly active with hard times and were harrying the districts around Manila to such an extent that the people were in constant terror. The ravages of the rinderpest had made the carabao a very valuable animal and the chief object of the ladrones was to steal such as were left and drive them off to be sold in distant provinces. Nor were they at all particular about their highwaymen’s methods or chary of sacrificing human life. There was a veritable hotbed of ladronism at Caloocan, a suburb of Manila, which was augmented by the roughs and toughs from the crowded and miserable districts in the lower city, while across the Bay in Cavite province, known as the “mother of insurrection,” there were several hundred rifles in the hands of marauders who hid away in the hills and jungles and made conditions such that Mr. Taft was asked by the Director of Constabulary to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, thus declaring the province in a practical state of siege. Mr.