Miscellaneous Letters Exchanged Between José Rizal and Others in January to June, 1894

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114. Dr. Reinhold Rost, London, 5 January 1894

Rizal's letter made the Rost family happy - He asks Rizal to send articles to the Asiatic Society of Singapore and other scientific societies - Books on Mindanao dialects - An English-Sulu-Malayan vocabulary. The original letter is in English.

1 Elsworthy Terrace, Primrose Hill

London, N.W.

5 January 1894

Mr. José Rizal

My dear Dr. Rizal,

There was a cry of joy all over the house as I shouted out, "a letter from Rizal!" and I had to read it aloud to the family. We all were glad at the satisfactory report you were able to give of yourself, and now send you our best wishes for this new year. May it bring you back among us that we may cherish you and show you our high regard and affection!

I am glad you are doing a lot of philological [= linguistic - rly] work. Would you not send some contributions of articles to the Asiatic Society of Singapore, or to the R. Asiatic Society here, or to the Shanghai Society, or to the one at Wellington in New Zealand? Our friend at Leitmeritz is as usual hard at work. The books on the Bisayan dialects of Mindanao are not, as far as I have examined them, of much philological value, but they are useful and supply material for further study.

I enclose a few notices of books that may interest you. They are from Luzac's Monthly Oriental List, for which I supply all the notices. The forthcoming number will bring something about an English-Sulu-Malay vocabulary, just published.

My wife is still a great invalid; I fear she will never recover: Adolf is doing his best to get on, and is working with might and main, but he earns no money. His brother (who broke through the ice today and was nearly drowned) is getting on well with his medical studies. I hope he will pass his final examination next September.

We all unite in sending you our hearty greetings.

Ever affectionately yours,

R. Rost

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115. Wilhelm Joest, Berlin, 4 February 1894

Greetings from friends in Germany and Dr. Baesler - Asks Rizal's opinion on an ethnographic object from Mindanao - He sends him a photograph of a bamboo case of a Moro datu -Was it used to send written messages? - None like it in European museums.

17 Bendler Street, Berlin W. 10

4 February 1894

Dr. José Rizal

Dapitan, Mindanao Island

Philippines

My dear Colleague,

It is only today that I have learned about your address and I hasten to write you to request you to please give me your opinion on an ethnographic object from Mindanao which seems to be very rare in Europe.

I hope above all that you are well and that you have not forgotten your friends in Germany. My wife and I are well and so also is Dr. Baesler who has just returned from his second grand tour around the world. Both send you a thousand greetings.

Now to the point: I have just bought for our mu­seum a small collection coming from the Caroline Islands, the Philippines, and Palau. Among the objects are found two bamboo pieces richly decorated, and one of which has a very curious design.

I send you a photograph of it under separate cover.

According to the label, it was a bamboo case of a Moro chief of Mindanao, used for sending written messages.

The two pieces are enclosed in each other, inserting B in A (near D), in the same position as you see in the photograph; it penetrates until C, so that the design E-F is en­tirely covered by the bamboo A.

The other end of B does not go into A; B is open at the top. If one supposes that B would be covered in some way to hold the letter, of what use is A?

Is the design E-F simply a decoration or does it, in a certain sense, represent something?

Do they still use today these bamboo cases? In short, will you be so kind to tell me all that you know and all that you can find out about these instruments?

There is nothing like them in any museum in Europe. I shall be very much obliged to you, and with a handshake, I pray you to believe me.

Your very devoted,

(Dr.) W. (Wilhelm) Joest

Please write me in Spanish

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116. Rizal, Dapitan, February, 1894 || To Governor-General Blanco

Rizal requests the Government to lift up his banishment or submit his case to the decision of the courts – His innocence - Victim of injustice - His pathetic situation.

Dapitan, February 1894 [01]

Most Excellent Sir,

Since more than a year and a half ago by order of your predecessor I have been banished to this district. In spite of the groundlessness of the accusation, of its scant importance, and of not having been allowed the slightest defense, in spite of the hopes with which they have used to calm my natural impatience, the most cruel uncertainty still weighs on my future.

I do not know, Most Excellent Sir, if the smallness of my person has been able to engage Your Excellency's attention, claimed by so many affairs of the most difficult office that you hold; but knowing your zeal in fulfilling your duty and your exalted patriotism that will not want that under your administration the name of Spain be stained with an act of patent injustice, I fear, seeing how my banishment is prolonged, that either Your Excellency want to leave the responsibility for it to what was ordered by your predecessor or that you could be likewise convinced of my guilt.

I must not bother now your attention with my defense. When Your Excellency orders me to do it, I shall give you a detailed account of the antecedents and circumstances of my return to these Islands, and I shall cite to you facts and witnesses that will demonstrate the absurdity of the accusation brought against me, an accusation that sufficed in complete peace, without proofs or trial, to pull me out of the environment in which I lived, making me abandon all at once family, home, engagements, and interests, and depriving me of the right that is not denied, not even to the last Spanish subject, not even to the last person of any society, but even to the most despicable criminal. Nevertheless, a lover of peace for my country and its government, con­vinced as always that our destiny is to progress through suffering, and that the welfare of a society can only be found in its orderly development under a lawful government, and giving a proof of respecting the name of that government, sacrificing to its will the right that belonged to me absolutely and incontestably and that Spain guarantees to all her subjects with her force and her laws, I have resignedly kept silent and I have not raised the slightest protest. I have preferred to wait for that government itself to appraise critically its own reputation showing that if it is fallible, as every human institution is, like few, it has more than enough independence to recognize its involuntary injustices.

But time is passing away, circumstances change, and necessities are pressing. Life in a district that lacks everything, far from the environment where one has been educated and accustomed to live, the continuous struggle with the climate and the necessities of life, and badly lodged in temporary dwellings, and what is even more terrible the uncertainty of the future, undermine the most robust health and can vitiate the few good endowments one might have. I am moreover at an age when illusions vanish to give way to realities, when one ought to settle down and think seriously of life, at an age that, if it is not utilized, can make of a useful future one of fatal consequences to himself and his fellowmen. To continue waiting in silence could not only be interpreted adversely but would be even reprehensible for it would denote little love for justice, little affection for the mother country in not sparing her the commission of a deed that could sully her prestige. The greatest criminals, Most Excellent Sir, those who have merited public indignation for their base and abject crimes can defend themselves and enjoy the immunities granted to them by law. If they are convicted, they know for what they have been condemned and frequently, even before the expiration of their term, they are pardoned. I, on the other hand, suffer in the uncertainty of an imaginary crime that cannot be proven, because it is absurd and ridiculous. Moreover, my crime would consist of having desired for my equals the exercise of political rights, the most just aspiration of worthy men, according to the expression of the most illustrious of Spanish historians; my crime would be for having desired what the Constitution and our laws assign to us, for having wanted our liberty, and I say liberty and not independence because I know very well that people can be independent and a slave at the same time, like many peoples of Asia, and on the contrary one can be a colony and dependent but equally free and happy, as we see in many countries in Oceania. Yes, this is my crime, Most Excellent Sir; I have been too much inspired by the examples that books, remembrances, great men, and my professors in Spain have inculcated in me daily. I have wished for my fellow countrymen the same thing that the illustrious Isabella the Catholic wanted for them, the same thing that the great thinkers and politicians of present-day Spain want, those whose hands have not yet been contaminated nor whose conscience stained with colonial injustice, what Your Excellency in the nobility of your sentiments and the loftiness of your views would like not merely for your brothers in Spain but also for these poor Indios who are plagued with defects and vices on account of their ignorance - an ignorance that I have wished to combat by all means. I have no other crime but the crime innate in every Spaniard, in every man who feels a love for his equals, affection for his native country to which he owes his educa­tion and his life, compassion for the pitiful disinherited people, who possesses sufficient conviction to translate into action what his conscience believes and his heart dictates. And nevertheless, with all these aspirations, despite the rage with which my enemies have treated me; despite the persecutions that my family and myself have suffered; despite the traps they have spread for me in very recent dates; never has a bastard idea occurred to me, never have I employed a means that is not honorable, never have I resorted to an ignoble act to defend my ideals. I have said what I believe just, I have defended it on the peaceful ground of ideas, and if sometimes I have been mistaken, as it might well happen, for I am not infallible, it has always been with the best good faith and the sanest intention. I appeal to the good sense of every Spanish patriot, to the sentiment of every courageous man, I appeal to Your Excellency to tell me if the crime that' I could be accused of is not the inevitable result of the Spanish education that I have received, is not the consequence of being a subject of Spain, a crime that would be converted into virtue if instead of my being a Filipino I were a Spaniard.

In view of this, I ask your enlightened and just administration to lift up my deportation if you find no merits for it and if you find me guilty, at least to define it and submit me to the decision of the courts. It is already time, Most Excellent Sir, to reverse a decision that if it had been dictated in a moment of rash haste, owing to circumstances that I cannot ascertain, now that it has been seen that neither peace has been altered nor have the spirits been over excited, there is no more reason for it to prevail and consequently to continue. Fortunately for governments and peoples have passed away those times when it was believed that prestige was acquired only through harsh acts of an inflexible and blind policy. Your Excellency has proven enough times during your rule in Cataluña that the best and most enduring prestige is the one based on the love of the people and the sentiment of justice, the most powerful means of assuring order and establish unity and respect among different or antagonistic races.

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[01] This unfinished petition of Rizal, addressed to General Blanco, bears no date; but by the first phrases "Since more than a year and a half ago that I have been banished to this district by order of your predecessor." it can be gathered that it was written by Rizal in Dapitan about the beginning of February 1894, for the date of his departure to that place was 7 July 1892. (Editor of the Epistolario.)

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117. Rizal, Dapitan, 13 February 1894 || To the Governor General [01]

Unjustly exiled to Dapitan almost two years ago by order of Despujol without any trial - He was not given an opportunity to defend himself - Rizal asks for trial - In a fair trial Rizal believes he can prove his innocence.

Most Excellent and Illustrious Governor General of the Philippine Islands

Most Excellent Sir:

Mr. Jose Rizal Mercado y Alonzo, Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery and in Philosophy and Letters from the University of Madrid, without personal certificate on account of his present status, respectfully expounds to Your Excellency:

Almost two years ago by order of the Most Excellent former Governor General [02] he was banished to this district of Dapitan without having been permitted the slightest defense, the most insignificant attempt to destroy with citations and proofs, which could not have given place to doubts, the imputations that served as the reason for that measure. No penalty is imposed upon the greatest criminals without first giving them a hearing, without a defender to protect them and in many cases the law within its severity grants them the humanitarian assistance of an official defender. In all cases the culprit, preserving his rights, waits, not always in prison, for the sentence that may proclaim his innocence or deprive him of his rights by the imposition of corporal punishment, and in this case he knows the exact time of its expiration. The undersigned, on the other hand, without investigation, without proofs - for he does not consider proofs what in a political sense may perhaps be sufficient for admi­nistrative action the rumors so difficult to confirm in a coun­try given to making comments - he was removed all at once from his means of livelihood, from his home, from his family, from his interests, compelling him to reside in a place where the scarcity of articles of prime necessity, the lack of resources, and the smallness of the town all make his situation more distressing.

I do not know, Most Excellent Sir, if the attention of your Excellency claimed by your multiple duties, has permitted you to give a thought to the indefinite situation of the undersigned, undecided at present with regard to his interests by a hope that is not realized.  This indefinite situation is always prejudicial to one who must prepare for his old age and is the only support of his now aged mother.  He finds himself in his youth deprived of his rights, isolated and inactive, unable to practice his profession obtained at great cost and sacrifice.

Considering the nobility of your sentiments which is recognized by all, these considerations seem to be sufficient to encourage the undersigned to say to Your Excellency what at an opportune time he said to your predecessor; “Submit me in any case to a trial; if I am found guilty, let the law prevail, not this punishment without limits that kills organisms and activities; but if I am innocent, give me liberty.”  In the certainty that if at one time that he regrets you had interpreted erroneously his writings, hereafter his conduct will try to demonstrate the groundlessness of such interpretations.  As a Spaniard who loves the national glories and the justice of your administration he appeals to you only to entreat Your Excellency to give him his liberty.

He has no doubt that he would obtain this grace from the nobility of the sentiments of Your Excellency whose life may God keep many years.

José Rizal

Dapitan, 13 February 1894

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[01] Ramon Blanco y Erenas was the Governor of the Philippines from 1893 to 1896.

[02] Governor-General Eulogio Despujol.

Note: This seems to be the finished draft of Rizal’s petition to the Governor General.  The preceding one, No. 116 may be the first draft.

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118. Rizal, Dapitan, 10 April 1894 || to Dr. Adolph B. Meyer

Gift of books by famous authors received from Dr. Meyer - Zoological specimens for Heinszen - Another box of desiccated insects and animals - Do you want ethnological collect­ions?" Rizal says all the specimens he can send him will not be enough to pay for the books he has received.

Dapitan, 10 April 1894

Dr. A. B. Meyer

My esteemed Doctor and distinguished Colleague,

Some days ago I received your letter together with a manuscript on the preparation of vertebrates and I thank you for it. Through today's mail I received with immense pleasure many books by Gogol [Nikolay Gogol, Russian novelist and playwright. - rly], Turgenev [Ivan Turgenev, Russian writer who often wrote of the social and moral conditions of Czarist Russia. - rly], Danilewsky [Basil Danilewsky, researcher on malaria parasites of birds.  The book may have been La Parasiologie Comparée du Sang, published in 1889], [01] Bismarck [Otto von Bismarck the “Iron Chancellor” of the German Empire in the nineteenth century - rly], Sophocles [Fifth Century, B.C. Greek dramatist - rly], and Aeschylus [Ancient Greek writer of tragedies - rly], and in expressing to you my thanks, I am now the one who finds himself pressed in paying you for them, for as you must have learned, their pay­ment was lost in the boat that carried it, according to Schadenberg.

When I received your instructions that I ought to contact Mr. Heinszen, I had already sent another box to Mr. Schadenberg. The next time I shall follow your instruction.

Do not mind the cost of this. This and what I shall send you later will not be sufficient to pay for the books that you have sent me. I send you dead nature and you in exchange send me your spirit, the geist [German for “Spirit” - rly] in the pages of the books. Henceforth, I shall send you what I can; you will appraise it and you send me its equivalent in scientific and literary works. When I have more freedom, I will look for skulls of mountain people for you.

Dr. [Wilhelm - rly] Joest has written me, but if you know him and see him, please tell him that I do not write him yet because I want to inquire thoroughly into the matter that he is consulting about. One day is not enough. Do you want ethnological collections?

Wishing to serve you always, I am your attentive, faithful servant and friend, who kisses your hand,

José Rizal

Note: See Letter No. 112 (Rizal requests books from Dr. Meyer.

[01] Hoare, Cecil Arthur.  Basil Danilewsky: 1852-1939 (London: The Royal Society of Tropical Medical Hygene, 1939.  [The only biography on Danilewski]  Basil Danilewsky was a pioneer researcher on the subject of malaria parasites in birds.

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119. A. Lucas & Company, Paris, 18 April 1894

Rizal receives a business letter from Paris - Remittance to
Rizal through the Messageries Maritimes of lenses, suture needles, and price list of artificial eyes, chromatophotometer, and Hacket microscopes.

Maison Cretes, Paris, 18 April 1894

Dr. José Rizal

Dapitan, Mindanao

Doctor Rizal,

Towards the end of last March we sent to the house of Mr. Ramirez your little collection of lenses whose invoice was paid a few days later by order of Mr. Ventura. In order not to lose time, we ourselves sent your lenses free of charge through the Messageries Maritimes to your address through the agent in Manila.

As the suture needless were not quite ready then, we are sending them to you enclosed in this letter and we give you below the prices that you are asking for.

1. Artificial eyes of good, strong quality in all colors from 96 francs up the dozen and by the dozens net.

A chromatophotometer

2. The chromatophotometer [An instrument used in the 1800s by optometrists to establish the degree of color blindness in a patient. - rly] presented to the French Society of Ophthalmology, 85 francs net.

3. As to the Hacket microscope, latest model, it is more difficult to give you the exact price, for it depends upon what you want to spend. You can hardly get one for your work for less than 200 francs and upward until 1,000, 2,000 and above.

In any case, Doctor, we are entirely at your disposal and begging you to believe us always at your command, please accept our most distinguished salutations,

A. Lucas & Company

Enclosure: 6 suture needles

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120. S. Knüttel, Stuttgart, 24 April 1894

Rizal is so well-known as a scientist among European scholars that his name was given to Mr. Knüttel - he is asked to send articles on volcanoes in Mindanao, Luzon, and Bisayas.

Stuttgart, 24 April 1894

Dr. José Rizal

Dapitan, Island of Mindanao

Philippines

Sir,

Although I do not have the honor of knowing you personally, I take the liberty of writing you because one of your friends in Europe whom I asked to suggest a corres­pondent in the Philippines directed me to you.

I should like to tell you why I want such a correspondent.

For a long time I have been engaged especially in the study of volcanoes and I publish an annual report not only on the eruptions but on everything that relates to the actual condition of volcanoes. My aim is to gather data for a future history of volcanoes.

Fortunately in several volcanic countries geologists have had the kindness to help me with information on the state of their volcanoes. The periodicals often give incomplete accounts and at times even incorrect ones.

On the Philippines, however, I have no information whatever, for in the magazines one rarely reads some news on the Mayon, the Taal, or some other smoking mountain in that archipelago so rich in volcanoes.

It is for this reason Sir, that I request you earnestly if you will have the kindness to help me a little in my pub­lications by writing to me from time to time news of the condition of the volcanoes in Mindanao, Luzon, etc. I shall be grateful to you for any information, however little it may be.

A native of Amsterdam, Holland, Kingdom of the Netherlands, I am at present residing at Stuttgart, Kingdom of Wurtemberg, Germany.

Hoping that you will have the kindness of favoring me with some reply, I offer you my respects and I remain your respectful servant,

S. Knüttel

Address:

Kerner Strasse No. 52

Stuttgart, Kingdom of Wurtemberg

Germany

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121. Rizal, Dapitan, 9 May 1894 || To Dr. Adolph B. Meyer

Remittance of a collection of butterflies and coleopteran [an order of beetles - rly] – Part of it is for Mr. Keihl of Prague - Reptiles and fishes - Bamboo box made by Subanos.

Dapitan, 9 May 1894

Dr. A. B. Meyer

Dresden

My dear Doctor,

Despite the terrible rainy season we have been having here for a month, I succeeded in making a small collection of butterflies which I have the honor to send you through Messrs. Heinszen & Company in accordance with your instructions. These butterflies were caught in the month of April and the beginning of May. Some of them are in bad condition, but I send them to you nevertheless because they are not heavy and you always have the time to reject them. In any case I hope to send you better ones.

I suppose that you are in communication with Mr. Keihl of Prague of who is, according to our great friend of Leitmeritz, a great collector of butterflies. Would you kindly send him half of the specimens that you do not need? I would have liked to send them directly to him, but in my difficult situation and having nobody to whom to entrust their transportation, I resort to you. After all you are my old correspondent.

In one bottle I send you also some reptiles, fishes, etc. One little bamboo box contains two pointed objects made of the same material which the Subanos [A tribal group in Mindanao - rly] use instead of a knife as well as for fishing. They belong to one of my patients or clients, as you wish to call them. There are also some coleoptera [see above] of little value.

Please tell me frankly which animals, insects, etc. you do not want so that I shall not send them to you any more.

My services are always at your disposal.

In clasping your hand amicably, I have the honor to salute you.

Yours faithfully,

José Rizal

1 Bamboo with 2 bamboo objects of the Subanos

9 Reptiles – ampt. /3 bbl, 5 Esds., 1 Frouh

1 Fish

4 Nachtuhueshu

64 Lepidopt. ½ for Mr. Heihl

7 Cicadas

3 Heunbruha

9 Kafu

2 Libella