The Beatrice Daily Express

PHILIPPINE FANATICS.
Sect of Assassins Known as the Juramentados.
THEY MURDER SO AS TO BE SAVED.
Believe They Get to Heaven by Killing as Many Christians as Possible.
They Are Trained to Kill, Blessed by Their Priests and Then Sent to Murder Their Way to Paradise.
The "policing" of our new possessions is a matter that the government is aware must be arranged without delay. Much apprehension has been felt among those high in authority in government circles lest some outbreak among the miscellaneous population of fanatics, religious and otherwise, should take place. It would be a serious matter if the first efforts of Uncle Sam to govern dependencies outside of the home territory should be marred by a series of Jack the Ripper tragedies or a slaughter of the innocents by some bloody minded sect in the far Philippines.
The government's attention has been called to the bands of fiends known as the Juramentados in the Philippines. There will be no safety in the islands of the orient that are to be brought to a higher level of civilization until these fanatics are stamped out. That much is realized in Washington. How best to begin to do it is the problem, for the Juramentados are as secret in their movements as nihilists, as sudden and terrible in their murderous onslaughts as the dreaded thugs of India, and as to be killed after having killed is the height of their ambition it is impossible to cow them by threats of death or by executions
The Spaniards have had reason to dread the Juramentados. Countless graves in the Philippines are occupied by the victims of the knives of these terrible assassins. They originated, like many another evil in those islands, through the cruelty of the Spaniards. Being unable to drive from the Philippines the Spanish slave drivers, certain of the natives who were smarting under the wrongs inflicted on them by the invaders, bound themselves into a society whose oath compelled them to kill Christians and to kill as many as the knife could reach
The sect is thoroughly organized. They have their priests, known as panditas, and they are regularly drilled and trained to murder when the opportunity comes. In order that they may be active murderers, able to overcome the opposition of any one who resists their attack, they are made to exercise, to fight with blunted weapons, to run, jump, climb, swim and dive, and, in fact, to go through all the gymnastic training that will fit them for the work of slaying swiftly and, if possible, escaping before a hue and cry is raised
After a course of training, a member of the sect graduates as fit for the work of murder. He is then informed by the priests that the way to paradise lies for him through the blood of the white men. His imagination is worked upon until he is in a state bordering on frenzy, and then he is told to throw off all his clothes except the breechcloth, a long knife is thrust into his hand, and he is sent forth to murder.
Better for the people in that vicinity that the fiercest of tigers or the most merciless of wild beasts were on their track than this fiend. His course has been mapped out for him before he leaves the priest. With a deadly creese concealed beneath the folds of his breechcloth, he steals into camp in the dead of night, crawls silently under the flap of the tent and drives his weapon home before the victim can utter a sound. From tent to tent he goes, leaving the awful trail of blood behind him, until a slip of the knife or a false step enables the victim to cry out or in some way warn the camp. Then the murderer's frenzy reaches its height
Casting off all attempt to hide, he rushes into the thickest of the avengers, stabbing right and left. Sometimes, so great is the dread entertained for these fanatics, it is possible for him to open a lane through the living and escape, to continue his murderous work. Oftener, a well directed bullet lays him low, and he dies with the full expectation of reaching heaven by the most direct route.
It is useless to try and capture the man. No one attempts this in the Philippines. It would surely add to the victims, for a man who is determined to die and wants only the opportunity to kill as many men as possible before he is himself killed is not the man to consent calmly to be taken. On Corpus Christi day, in 1886, at Cotto Bato, four Juramentados sprang from a shed into a crowd of Christians who were watching the procession, and before they were killed by the soldiers assassinated or wounded over 30 persons
At Jolo, in 1876, one of these fanatics, armed with a creese and a javelin, attacked a company of soldiers as they marched from the beach to the garrison, killing two, fatally wounding three and seriously wounding four of the force. At the same place a few weeks afterward a similar sudden attack was made by three Juramentados, who killed 5 and wounded 16 before they could be bayoneted by the troops.-Washington Post.