to us. When we returned to the chakla for her, we found her without
difficulty, and told her our errand. With glowing, happy face, she
arrayed herself in her best garments, arranged her hair neatly and with
childish simplicity, and leaving her few earthly belongings behind, got
into the cab with us. But soon her face clouded, she grew apprehensive,
and said she would have to go and get permission of the Cantonment
magistrate before she could venture to leave. Anticipating not the
slightest difficulty in this matter, when we represented the case to
the magistrate and became surety for the girl's future good conduct
and maintenance by a responsible Mission, we decided that it was best
to let her have her own way. We did not then know India as we learned
it afterwards. But the native policemen, seeing the girl with us, and
being informed or suspecting our errand, refused, on enquiry, to inform
us where the Cantonment magistrate could be found, and misled us in so
far as they gave us any information.
We had a long, wearisome search, from which we learned somewhat of
the difficulties that a poor Government slave-girl would encounter in
trying, unaided, to disentangle herself from a life in the chakla. We
took Katy away in the morning; we drove about, back and forth, mile
upon mile, being sent hither and thither by misleading directions,
and at last, considerably after mid-day, reached the magistrate's
court, and entered. We were received with respect and given seats. In
the course of our search, the girl had told us that her real fear of
leaving without the magistrate's consent grew out of the fact that
she had made one attempt to run away, and had been caught and fined,
and had not yet paid the fine. She felt that if she went away again,
without permission, it would only be to be ferreted out and fined yet
more heavily. The timid girl, however, did not dare admit the whole
truth to us, lest we might not consent to take her at all. Afterwards,
we learned it from most reliable sources.
The girl had a very wicked mother and sister. An Englishman, who had
known her from childhood, said that Katy had frequently come to him,
saying she wished to be good and wanted to learn to read; but no way
opened, apparently, for her to get free from the evil influences by
which she was surrounded; and at last she was overcome, and became the
"kept woman" of a British soldier at an early age. The soldier brought
drink to their house, which she, in ignorance of the very strict laws
to the contrary, permitted him to do. A native woman in the household
of the man who related the facts to us, complained to the magistrate,
and Katy was summoned to appear before him for punishment.
Frightened at the prospect, she managed to escape to a neighbouring
village, was apprehended, brought back, sentenced to seven months'
imprisonment, and a fine of fifty rupees for contempt of court. When
she had served out her sentence (three months before we knew her) the
mahaldarni was allowed (Katy said) to take her into custody and become
surety for the fine. The English gentleman could not tell us whether
the girl's statement that the mahaldarni was allowed to become her
security was correct or not; but he believed it to be, from the fact
that it was then that she went to the chakla and for the first time
became a common prostitute. Learning these facts afterwards, we did
not longer wonder that Katy had feared to try to come away without the
magistrate's consent, and had shown such lack of courage when she faced
him.
Almost immediately upon our seating ourselves in the court-room the
poor girl burst into tears and ran outside and hid round a corner.
It was with great difficulty that we persuaded her to come back and
face the magistrate, who apparently was treating her with the utmost
kindness. After considerable parleying in Hindustani and English, the
magistrate at last acceded to our wishes, and wrote out a permit for us
to take the girl away from the Cantonment, although he explained again
and again that she or any other woman was of course free to go; they
never attempted to detain a woman against her will, etc., etc. But Katy
was not willing to proceed on any uncertainty, and she then asked about
the fine, and was assured that would be all right.
The magistrate then explained that she had been arrested on "some
criminal charge,"--he did not quite know what--had fled the Cantonment,
been arrested and brought back and fined fifty rupees for contempt
of court. He made no mention of her long imprisonment in addition.
After that he began to set forth to her, in Hindustani (the meaning
of his threats we did not fully understand), that if she went out of
the Cantonment she would never be safe from the insults of soldiers,
nor protected from molestation, nor allowed ever again to see her
relatives, etc., etc., until her courage wavered, and she said, "Then
I don't want to go." At this he thundered at her so angrily that
once again she ran from the court-room, and it was with the utmost
difficulty we persuaded her to go back for the final adjustment of
the case. On her return she began to plead to be allowed to see her
friends; and the magistrate, then turning to us, advised us in a kindly
tone to take her to see her mother and sister before removing her
entirely from them.
This the girl herself desired, so we felt obliged to accede, and she
gave the cabman the address in Hindustani. Returning in the carriage,
down an unfamiliar street, we alighted, and Katy ran ahead in all haste
to find her mother, while we followed after. To our astonishment,
we found we had entered the chakla again, from a side we had not
recognised, and by an entrance which we had never before seen. We took
alarm at once, and hastened on toward the wretched old woman who lay
ill on a cot on the verandah, with whom Katy was talking earnestly.
A big, coarse woman (this was Katy's sister, but it must not be
forgotten that we at this time did not know that her family were so
disreputable) came out and sat down on the cot by the sick woman; but
as soon as she heard enough of the girl's pleading to know that she was
asking permission to escape from her wretched existence, she flew into
a passion and struck Katy, and blow would have followed blow had we not
interfered. Poor Katy flung herself dejectedly into a chair, and could
not summon up courage to follow us against all this opposition; then a
British soldier came up and spoke to her and led her away, while two
or three more British soldiers looked on in contemptuous amusement at
the scene. The poor creature was too cowed in spirit, from constant bad
usage, to resist the determination of officials and soldiers to keep
possession of so attractive a slave.
Weigh the soul of that one dark-skinned heathen girl against the
diseased bodies of a standing army of men, and God knows which has most
weight in his sight, even if a whole materialistic nation may have
forgotten. Men and women, Governments and Armies, cannot, combined,
reduce the estimate which He puts upon one immortal soul; but in a
near judgment-day, these will have to drink the full measure appointed
for such a crime as thwarting a woman in her God-given right to lead
a decent moral life. When a Government begins to drag down the moral
character of its subjects, it has begun to dig out its own foundations.
We talked with over three hundred Cantonment women, held to
prostitution by the iron law of military regulation, collected together
by Government procuresses, who were used as the ultimate tools of
administration in carrying out Lord Roberts' military order for a
sufficient number of attractive women, forced to the indecent exposure
of their persons by misnamed "doctors," under penalty of fine or
expulsion from the Cantonment, which was tantamount to starvation;
imprisoned for several days of each month, even when in perfect health,
in the Lock Hospital; imprisoned for an indefinite length of time in
the hospital whenever found diseased; often turned out when seriously
diseased, with their British children, to starve, or to spread disease
at will among the natives, the final scapegoats of British profligacy;
dismissed to starvation when too old to be any longer "sufficiently
attractive" to the soldier, if only a fresh victim could be found to
take the place; universally so poor as to be weighed down by debts, and
receiving a pittance fixed by military usage, that kept many of them on
the verge of starvation.
What were the circumstances that brought women to such a lot as this?
We will give only a few, in bare outlines, of the many cases not
already mentioned:--
1. A nurse-maid enticed to the chakla by a British sergeant.
2. A wife brought by her own husband, the man himself being engaged
by an officer of the regiment as a servant, and allowed to hold his
unwilling wife in such servitude.
3. British, granddaughter of a former Governor-General, daughter of
a General, wife of a Commissioner; eloped with a soldier, and when
deserted entrapped by a Mohammedan and kept as a slave, to whom
British soldiers resorted in troops, almost, because a white woman;
they paid the price of shame to her native master; rescued when almost
dead. We found her in a miserably dirty bed at a native Lock Hospital,
where the Government allowed her four annas (about fourpence) a day
for subsistence. We ourselves rescued another British woman from
the clutches of the same Mohammedan slave-holder. We found her in a
fortified room, built on the top of a large house, a neck-breaking
outside stairway leading to her abode. She had suffered horribly at
the hands of the British soldiers admitted to her. Her reason was
injured beyond repair. In the absence of her master, she was guarded
by a native servant armed with a knife, who had been instructed in
her presence to plunge it into her if she tried to escape. A very
courageous gentleman accompanied us, and succeeded in so frightening
her master that we were permitted to lead her away.
4. An orphan seized by a wicked woman and reared to shame.
5. A young girl brought by her own brother and sold to the chakla.
6. Cabul girl of high birth who lost her father in the Afghan war. She
was only twelve when left without protection, and her father's groom
persuaded her to come away with him under promise of marriage; sold by
him to shame. She wept bitterly, exclaiming, "Oh, the shame of being
pointed out as a bazaar woman!" We asked her why she did not go to the
Cantonment magistrate and plead her own case, for she said she had
money secreted with which she could take care of herself, if once she
could get away. She replied, "Why should I tell him? I am only a black
woman; I fear him." When about to return to the south, we revisited
this station and hunted this woman up, offering to assist her to
escape; but her courage failed at the last moment, and we were obliged
to leave her behind to her fate.
7. An Egyptian woman from Cairo, enticed away from her home when a
child and sold to an old woman in Quetta, then carried to India.
8. A Kashmiri woman; ill-treated by her husband, she ran away with
another man who promised to make her his wife, but sold her into
shame. "It is a bad job; I don't like it," she said in the best
English she could control, while the tears were in her eyes.
9. A hill girl of respectable family lost her parents and her husband
(perhaps only betrothed, yet possibly already married), before ten
years of age. A deceitful woman came to comfort her in her grief and
unprotected condition, and enticed her to travel with her a month to
assuage her grief; sold her to a British official, with whom she lived
one year, when he died. She then became a chakla woman. She was only
sixteen. She said, "It is a bitter life."
10. A high-caste Brahmin girl, not able to understand a word of the
language of her captor, found deserted and starving. The captor
admitted that she was a perfectly respectable girl, yet she was
examined by the surgeon, her name entered on the list of prostitutes,
and taken to the Lock Hospital to be prepared for her fate. The poor
thing was so grateful to be taken in and fed, and little dreamt of
what would be demanded of her in return. We tried in vain to make her
understand us, and to warn her of her fate.
11. Taken in famine time by the daughter of a sepoy (native soldier).
The soldier sold her at eleven years of age "to sit in the chakla."
"In all the years of my life, I have not known one day of happiness;
my heart is full of wounds," was her pathetic ending of the story.
12. We witnessed the purchase of a girl by a mahaldarni. A woman
seized the girl as payment for a debt, and bringing her sold her to
the mahaldarni in our very presence.
13. Married at eleven, and widowed almost immediately. After three
years with her family as a widow, she was so miserable that she ran
away and wandered in the streets. She was arrested by the police, and
at the age of fourteen put in the chakla.
14. Her husband was beating her cruelly, at the age of fourteen, and
she ran away; a policeman seized her and sent her to the Lock Hospital.
15. Deserted at the age of eleven by her husband; a British man took
her by force to his bungalow. When he discarded her, her family would
not receive her again. She was then "taken by the Government and put
in the chakla."
III.
The Habitations of Cruelty.
IN March, 1892, we arrived at a huge Cantonment about midnight.
As there was no dak bungalow at the place, we spread our rugs on
the settees in the ladies' waiting-room, and slept till morning.
The dak bungalow is an institution kept up by the Government for
the convenience of military men and their families, although other
travellers take advantage of its shelter, and was preferable to an
hotel for our purpose, for our meals were served in our private rooms
always, and we could lead a very retired life. After breakfast in the
dining-room, we went out and engaged a cab, explaining, as was our
custom, to the driver, that we were Christian missionaries, and in
accordance with the teachings of our religion, we were searching out
the most despised and disreputable of women, to tell them of God's care
for them and to see what we could do for them; therefore we wished him
to drive us to see the chakla women of the Cantonment. He looked a
little bewildered, and then drove off with us.
After traversing a considerable distance, he entered a public garden,
and began to drive slowly, that we might enjoy the flowers and foliage.
We called to him, bidding him drive on rapidly, as we did not care
to see the sights of the Cantonment. He nodded assent, and touching
his horse with the whip, drove away in another direction. Presently
he paused before another object to which he was accustomed to take
visitors. Then we called him from his seat to the cab window, and told
him that if he took us out of our way again, we should be obliged
to leave his cab, call another, and dismiss him. We made sure he
understood exactly what we wished, and he admitted that he did, but
intimated that he scarcely thought it a proper place for us to visit.
However, he consented, and drove off, and in a few moments brought
us to an open field where two regiments were encamped. Fortunately,
some drill of an unusual sort was going on, and a good many people
had driven out to witness it; this, therefore, absorbed the attention
of all. The Lord appointed all our seasons for us during our Indian
investigations.
Taking a road leading to the back part of the camp, we left our cab
and driver where several other cabs were standing, and walking along
together, observed by no one, entered one of the ten little tents we
found enclosed in a sort of fence of matting. The women received us
cordially, although with real astonishment at such unusual visitors.
The mahaldarni was not a bad-meaning woman in many regards, and she
told us, with great satisfaction, of a sister of hers who had been
promoted from the rank of a common soldiers' woman to be a mahaldarni,
saying that she had left off her wickedness, prayed four times a day
and read her Koran. She joined with her girls in expressions of utter
abhorrence of the examinations to which the girls were subjected,
saying, "Shame! Shame!"
She told us how the soldiers, when in drink, knocked the poor girls
about in a most cruel manner, and reaching her own conclusion as to
the meaning of our call, advised us not to join their number, telling
us that the city was far preferable. She and the girls told of the
heavy fines to which they would be liable if they did not go to the
examinations, or attempted to leave the Lock Hospital when held there.
She said if they made any fuss about the fine, then they would be
imprisoned. A military guard was placed within the enclosure, in one
of the tents; but he had either gone to sleep, or wandered out to get
a view of the exercises that were going on near by. We gave a simple
gospel talk through our interpreter, and she sang and prayed with the
girls; then we made our way to the women of the adjoining Rest Camp.
Again we entered the enclosure surrounding the little tents, and
reached the women without attracting the attention of the guard. They
told the same story of compulsion and fines continually hanging over
their heads. Almost every Cantonment girl we ever questioned, was held
to her wretched life by debt and fines, so that she could not think
of getting free without being apprehended on account of them. Here
likewise they warned us not to join them, but go rather to the city.
Again we talked of Jesus, the Friend of the oppressed, and after song
and prayer, bade them good-bye.
Returning to our cab, we told our driver to take us to the Lock
Hospital; and after a long drive under the burning sun, we stopped
before buildings enclosed within a very high brick wall with
broken glass on its top to prevent the escape of inmates. A large,
strongly-spiked gateway, with double doors, gave the impression of a
veritable prison; and there, standing in the open gateway, was an
uniformed armed guard. Previous experiences had not led us to expect
anything quite so formidable, although there was generally some sort of
a guard or watchman at hand, and the native physician usually resided
on the premises. We had often said, and promised God, that, sacred as
was the nature of the work, we would never prevaricate in order to
cover up our real object, if closely questioned. We were not ordinary
detectives, playing a part, but Christian women, and the difference was
not to be lost sight of.
Our interpreter had not been instructed as to the full significance
of our work, but was content to ask few questions if only she might
be allowed to follow her bent freely and preach the gospel, which we
gladly encouraged and helped in every way possible, for we should
have felt that our mission was very incomplete had we met these women
solely to hear their pitiful stories, and never utter a word to them
of the love of the Heavenly Father, in the midst of such distressing
surroundings. Our interpreter always carried religious tracts with
her; and while we were hesitating to know how to encounter the armed
sentinel, in the simplicity of her holy zeal she walked up to him,
gave him a tract, and said a few words of a helpful nature. The guard
noticed no more than that some ladies were being delayed at the gate,
so he motioned us through, continuing his consideration of the leaflet,
and forgetting to ask our errand. How easy for God to hide his own as
He had hidden us again and again that day from guard and sentinel! We
have frequently been asked how we escaped observation. We can only say
that we made but little effort on our own part to do this, and trusted
the Lord to do it all for us.
A dozen women gathered around us in a ward of the hospital that day.
With them we had a little service, as usual, after which they eagerly
poured out their sad life stories, and told of the oppressions of
the system under which they were held in an evil life. The hospital
nurse showed us through the wards and the examination room, where we
found the grim rack for the torture of the examination, brutal to the
patient, but convenient for the surgeon to do as much villainy as
possible in a given length of time. No diseases are so rife or dreadful
in their consequences but that their compulsory treatment, when it
involves the indecent exposure of woman or man, is worse in its effects
than the disease itself. And this in the case of actual disease. What,
then, can be said as an excuse for such exposure simply to find out
whether there be disease? Yes, further, what possible plea can be made
when the object of such compulsory exposure is to discover whether the
subject is "fit"[4] for a life of infamy?
Mrs. Butler has well expressed the encouragement to vice that the
compulsory examination of women leads to in the following words: "We
all approve of healing disease and taking care of the sick, no matter
what has brought on their disease, no matter how sinful and degraded
they may be. The Abolitionists have always pleaded for plenty of free
hospital accommodation for men and women afflicted with this curse. But
it will be clear to you that this law is not for simple healing, as
Christ would have us heal, caring for all, whatever their character,
and whatever their disease. This law is invented to provide beforehand,
that men may be able to sin without bodily injury--if that were
possible, which it is not. If a burglar, who had broken into my house
and stolen my goods, were to fall and be hurt, I would be glad to get
him into a hospital and have him nursed and cured; but I would not put
a ladder up against my window at night and leave the windows open, in
order that he might steal my goods without danger of breaking his neck."
But to return to the Lock Hospital mentioned. The nurse produced the
records for our examination. In the correspondence book was the copy of
a letter from the military surgeon, informing the Cantonment magistrate
of six girls suspected of disease, and asking that they be apprehended
and sent to the hospital for examination. That looked simple enough,
and why not?
Imagine yourself the one apprehended, and the case assumes a different
aspect. A policeman comes to your door and reads a warrant for your
arrest as a common prostitute; you ask on what authority; you are
informed that the name of the informant is not made public, because
if a man can be induced to help trace out diseases--it being regarded
as a "point of honour" to inform other men where danger lurks--his
confession must not be made known, it would injure his reputation. (We
are now describing the exact conditions always existent where there is
compulsory examination of women.)
You contend that you have a right to your good name, and that it is a
principle of justice that no one can be punished on secret and unproved
evidence, and that it is punishment of the worst sort to be taken by a
policeman through the streets to a hospital used exclusively for the
treatment of a certain class of disorders. You are then informed that
unless you will go at once without any trouble, you will be taken out
of the town in which you live, set down as a common vagrant by the
roadside, and if ever again found within the limits of the city in
which your parents, brothers, and sisters live, you will be arrested
and put in jail. What will you do? Yet these were exactly the laws
under which these poor women, among whom we were spending the day,
lived.
By such a system of delivering over the bodies of women as public
property, any woman of humble circumstances upon whom any man of
lecherous design casts his eyes, could be made to come to his terms of
existence by the aid of the police force, if necessary, and magistrates
of evil design could condemn any woman to a life of prostitution. And
in this hospital all this wicked compulsion was set down in a book,
every page of which was headed, "Prostitutes attending Voluntary
Inspections."