HOPE--KATE REILLY.
While anxiously waiting for the action of Government, we abandoned our
idea of starting the proposed home, and determined to devote the money
we had previously collected in providing small comforts for the inmates
of the Government Leper Asylum, whom we continued to visit every
Tuesday, and to minister to their small requirements. Other lepers,
who were living in Calcutta, outside of the asylum, heard of our work
in it, and made a practice of coming to our house for alms. We allowed
two rupees weekly to an Eurasian who was a bad leper, and who tried to
keep his wife and family on what he could manage to get by begging.
He had been an inmate of the Government Asylum; but, as he found
that he received there little or no medical treatment, he preferred
to live outside and to procure, as far as he could afford, special
treatment from a native doctor in the city. He told me he was getting
much better and that he hoped soon to be cured and able again to work
for his family. Hope, glorious hope, is ever present with even the
most horribly afflicted of God’s creatures. I have seen the distorted
features of the leper man or woman brighten as though a light had been
suddenly illumined within them at the mention of the word “hope”; a
light that even years of suffering and disappointment was unable to
extinguish.
One of the first lepers to hear of my visits to the asylum was a girl,
Kate Reilly, who lived in a crowded quarter of the town, and who
sent for me to go and see her. The person who came with the message
looked like a respectably-dressed shopkeeper, quoted several texts
from Scripture, by way, I suppose, of stimulating me into going to
her friend, and wound up by telling me of all that she had done for
her. When I saw Kate afterwards, she told me to come again of my own
accord, and not oblige her to send Mrs. ----, who always charged her
cab hire when she executed any commissions for her. I experienced some
difficulty in seeing Kate when I first called. The address given me by
the woman who came to my house was in a lane off Chandney Choke, one
of the lowest and most thickly populated of the slums of Calcutta. It
is here one may see exposed for sale everything that it is possible to
imagine, from a hammer and nails or a button hook, to a complete outfit
for man or horse. Side by side with legs of thin miserable-looking
mutton will be seen a set of harness, gaudy and cheap; saddles that
make one feel sorry for the unfortunate horse or pony on whose back
they will be placed; hats and bonnets trimmed with bits of satin of the
most showy colours procurable; bedsteads, tobacco, sweets, padlocks,
old books, and a thousand and one miscellaneous articles repose on
the benches of Chandney Choke. Drunken sailors, and soldiers, in Her
Majesty’s uniform, earning an honest penny by selling the Salvation
Army’s _War Cry_, half-caste loafers, mulattos and “shady” characters
from every quarter of the globe seem to be always prowling about there
in search of money or adventure. Knowing that it would be unsafe for a
lady to go alone into any of these dens, I asked a gentleman friend to
accompany me, and I drove as well as I could through the crowd till we
came to the lane where Kate Reilly lived. Here the road was too narrow
to drive along, so we alighted from the trap and walked to the house.
There was a number on it, but no door, only an archway. On entering it
I was conscious of the well-remembered “faint” smell of leprosy; so
knew we had arrived at the right address. We passed through the archway
into a small yard in which a number of Eurasian children were playing.
The yard was enclosed on all sides by houses, which were inhabited
by several poor families. Kate Reilly occupied a couple of rooms on
the ground floor of one on the right-hand side. As I was preparing to
make for this room, the door of which was open, I was met by a native
(_Mussulman_) woman, engaged in cleaning her cooking utensils. Without
getting up from the ground where she was squatting, she told me that no
such person as the one I mentioned lived there. On hearing my voice,
Kate called out from within in English, “Oh, yes; I’m Kate Reilly, I
want to see you!” The native woman then said in Hindustanee that the
“Miss Baba, had no clothes on.” “I can soon put them on,” called Kate
from within. The woman finding herself beaten, made a last effort to
prevent my seeing her mistress by running to tell her that a “sahib”
(gentleman) was with me! This announcement, happily did not prevent
her coming quickly. When Kate presented herself before me at the door
of her room, I was horrified on seeing her. Her feet were enveloped in
bandages, her legs were almost covered with sores, while an arm that
was exposed to view was a mass of decay and corruption. She wore a dark
petticoat reaching a little below her knees, a chemise and a red shawl
thrown over one half of her shoulders, leaving the bad arm, which was
too sore to be put in contact with any clothing, bare as I saw it. She
is a young woman of about twenty-four years of age, of Irish parents,
and has a sister a nun in a Catholic convent in Calcutta. This sister,
she said, is not permitted by her religious Order to visit her, or go
into the world; so she is left entirely at the mercy of the native
woman, of whom I have written. Kate told me that she has well-connected
relatives, but they never go near her. Her uncle pays the rent of her
room, but the rest of her wants are supplied by a charitable lady,
who allows her the equivalent of 30s. a month, but who is leaving for
England at the end of this year, when she fears such money will no
longer continue to be paid her. She was greatly troubled about this,
and asked me if I thought someone would send money when her allowance
was stopped. She also told me that she was very miserable in the hands
of the native servant, and had tried hard, but without success, to
get a native Christian woman to attend her; for if she were to die
she would not like to be alone with a heathen. She said she would
willingly go to the Government Leper Asylum, if suitable accommodation
was provided. She had been there some years before, but was unable to
stay in a room with native lepers. She asked me if things were changed
now, and if she could obtain a room to herself, or one in which only
white women were, if she went. I had to tell her that she could not,
and, except for the fact of being entirely alone and at the mercy of
her servant, she was more comfortable in her own little room. On asking
if I could bring her anything, she told me she would like a mackintosh
sheet, for her sores were so troublesome that she could not sleep
in comfort without one. She also asked me to visit her as often as I
could, and to bring others who would be her friends when I left India,
as I was shortly about to do.