ROYAL DECREE.

At the suggestion of the colonial secretary, in accordance with the council of secretaries, etc.

I hereby decree the following:

ARTICLE 1. The Civil Code now in force in the Peninsula, drafted in accordance with the provisions of the law of May 11, 1888, and approved by royal decree of the 24th instant, is hereby extended to the islands of Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines.

ART. 2. This Code shall go into effect in the said islands twenty days after its publication in the official newspapers of the same.

ART. 3. In accordance with the provisions of article 1 of the said Code, the laws shall go into effect in the colonial provinces twenty days after their promulgation, it being understood that this shall be the day on which their publication in the official newspapers of the islands shall end.

Given at San Ildefonso, July 31, 1889.

MANUEL BECERRA,

Colonial Secretary.

MARÍA CRISTINA.

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CIVIL CODE.

Preliminary Title.-LAWS, THEIR EFFECT, AND GENERAL RULES FOR THEIR APPLICATION.

ARTICLE 1. Laws shall be binding in the Peninsula, in the adjacent islands, in the Canaries, and in the territory of Africa, which is subject to Peninsular legislation, twenty days after their promulgation, if not otherwise provided therein.

The promulgation shall be understood as having taken place the day of the termination of the publication of the law in the Gaceta. ART. 2. Ignorance of the law does not excuse from compliance therewith.

ART 3. Laws shall not have a retroactive effect unless otherwise prescribed therein.

ART. 4. Acts executed against the provisions of law are void, excepting the cases in which said law orders their validity.

Rights granted by the laws may be renounced, provided this renunciation is not contrary to public interest or public order, or to the prejudice of a third person.

ART. 5. Laws are repealed only by other subsequent laws, and disuse or any custom or practice to the contrary shall not prevail against their observance.

ART. 6. Any tribunal which refuses to render judgment on the pretext of silence, obscurity, or insufficiency of the laws shall incur liability therefor.

When there is no law exactly applicable to the point in controversy, the customs of the place shall be observed, and, in the absence thereof, the general principles of law.

ART. 7. If in the laws months, days, or nights are referred to, it shall be understood that the months are of thirty days, the days of twenty-four hours, and the nights from the setting to the rising of the sun.

If the months are indicated by their names, they shall be computed by their actual number of days.

ART. 8. Penal laws, police laws, and those of public security are binding on all those who reside in Spanish territory.

ART. 9. The laws relating to family rights and obligations, or to the status, condition, and legal capacity of persons, obligate Spaniards even though they reside in a foreign country.

ART. 10. Personal property is subject to the laws of the nation of the owner thereof; real property to the laws of the country in which it is situated.

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However, legal and testamentary successions, with regard to the order of succession, as well as to the amount of the successional rights and to the intrinsic validity of their provisions, shall be regulated by the laws of the nation of the person whose succession is in question, whatever may be the nature of the property and the country where it may be situate.

Biscayans, even though they reside in towns, shall continue subject, with regard to the property they possess in the level lands, to law 15, title 20, of the Fuero de Vizcaya.

ART. 11. The forms and solemnities of contracts, wills, and other public instruments are governed by the laws of the country in which they are executed.

When said instruments are authenticated by diplomatic or consular officials of Spain abroad, the formalities required by Spanish laws for their execution shall be observed.

Notwithstanding the provisions of this and of the preceding article, prohibitive laws concerning persons, their acts or property, and those which relate to the public order and to good morals, shall not remain without effect by virtue of laws issued or judgments rendered, or by regulations made or conventions agreed upon in a foreign country.

ART. 12. The provisions of this title, in so far as they determine the effects of the laws, statutes, and general rules for their application, are binding in all the provinces of the Kingdom, as well as the provisions contained in title 4, book 1.

In all other matters the provinces and territories in which the law of the forum is in force shall preserve it for the present, no change being made in their actual judicial administration, whether written or customary, by the publication of this code, which shall be enforced only as a supplementary law in the absence of that which is such by their special laws.

ART. 13. Notwithstanding the provisions of the foregoing article, this code shall go into effect in Aragón and in the Balearic Islands at the same time as in the provinces not under the law of the forum, in so far as not conflicting with those provisions of the forum or customary ones which are actually in force.

ART. 14. In accordance with the provisions of article 12, those of articles 9, 10, and 11, with regard to persons, acts, and property of Spaniards abroad and that of foreigners in Spain, are applicable to persons, acts, and property of Spaniards in territories or provinces having different civil legislation.

ART. 15. Family rights and duties, those relating to the status, condition, and legal capacity of persons, and those of testamentary or intestate succession declared in this code, are applicable:

1. To persons born in the common-law provinces or territories of parents subject to the law of the forum, if the latter, during the minority of the children, or the said children, within the year following their majority or emancipation, declare it is their desire to submit themselves to the civil code.

2. To the children of a father, and, should the latter not exist or be unknown, of a mother belonging to provinces or territories subject to the common law, even when born in provinces or territories where the law of the forum is in force.

3. To those who, proceeding from provinces or territories subject to the law of the forum, should have acquired a residence in other ones, subject to the common law.

For the purposes of this article, residence is acquired by a residence or ten years in provinces or territories subject to the common law, unless the interested party, before the termination of this period, expresses his wishes to the contrary, or by a residence of two years, provided that the interested party states that this is his wish. Either declaration should be made before the municipal judge for the proper record in the civil registry.

In any case, the wife shall follow the condition of the husband; and the children, not emancipated, that of their father, and in his absence that of their mother.

The provisions of this article are of reciprocal application to the Spanish provinces and territories having different civil legislation.

ART. 16. In matters which are governed by special laws, the deficiency of the latter shall be supplied by the provisions of this Code.

Book First.-PERSONS.

TITLE I-SPANIARDS AND FOREIGNERS.

ART. 17. The following are Spaniards: 1. Persons born in Spanish territory.

2. Children of a Spanish father or mother, even though they were born out of Spain.

3. Foreigners who may have obtained naturalization papers.

4. Those who, without said papers, may have acquired a residence in any town in the Monarchy.

ART. 18. Children, while they remain under the parental authority, have the nationality of their parents.

In order that those born of foreign parents in Spanish territory may enjoy the benefits granted them by No. 1 of article 17, it shall be an indispensable requisite that the parents declare, in the manner and before the officials specified in article 19, that they choose in the name of their children the Spanish nationality, renouncing all others.

ART. 19. The children of a foreigner born in Spanish possessions must state, within the year following their majority or emancipation, whether they desire to enjoy the citizenship of Spaniards, granted them by article 17.

Those who are in the Kingdom shall make this declaration before the official in charge of the civil registry of the town in which they reside; those who reside abroad before one of the consular or diplomatic agents of the Spanish Government, and those who are in a country in which the Government has no agent addressing the secretary of state of Spain.

ART. 20. The citizenship of a Spaniard is lost by acquiring the nationality of a foreign country, or by accepting employment from another Government, or by entering the armed service of a foreign power without permission of the King.

ART. 21. A Spaniard who loses his citizenship by acquiring the nationality of a foreign country can recover it upon returning to the Kingdom by declaring to the official in charge of the civil registry of