line 940: "Women were registered, tickets issued, and bi-monthly
inspections made between March, 1890, and May, 1892; it was brought to
my notice in May, 1892 that tickets were being issued to prostitutes
in Meean Meer; I ordered the discontinuance of the practice at
once, and it was reported to me on the 17th of May, 1892, that no
registration of prostitutes in any form whatever then continued;"
and it appears from what you have now produced, that at any rate
requisitions were made as late as the 15th of June; that is so, is it
not?
_A._--Yes.
_Q._--Of those requisitions on that date, the 15th of June, as well as
on several other dates, do you find some, and how many, issued for the
Royal Artillery Bazaar?
_A._--I counted twenty that were for the Royal Artillery Bazaar women.
_Q._--Have you seen the Report of the Commanding Officer for the
regiment dated 19th June, 1893, and does it state that no tickets had
been issued for the regiment since February, 1891?
_A._--Yes, I saw that statement; it is page 2 of the supplementary
sheet, line 95, under Meean Meer. The statement of Captain Goff,
commanding the Royal Artillery. That note says, "No registration of
prostitutes or issue of tickets in any form whatever has ever been
carried out by the Royal Artillery since the present battery came to
the station, February, 1891."
_Q._--What you find is that twenty tickets were issued?
_A._--It is since February, 1891, according to this book some twenty
tickets have been issued for the Royal Artillery.
_Q._--Up to what date?
_A._--Up to June 15th, 1892.
_Q._--You produce a ticket here which you obtained from one of the
women; what was the date of that ticket; was not the date of the year
1892?
_A._--It was dated 1892; that we procured at the Artillery Bazaar.
_Q._--Did I understand you to say that you found twenty tickets were
issued to the women of the Artillery?
_A._--Yes, twenty counterfoils left are of the Royal Artillery.
_Mr. Stansfeld to the Committee_--That fact, which is testified to by
the counterfoils of this book, is inconsistent with the statement of
the Commanding Officer in his Report.
These are but a few of the many instances in which the official records
sent to London for inspection, contradicted the testimony of military
officers.
The first sitting of the Departmental Committee was April 11, its
last sitting August 15, and its report was circulated in Parliament
September 11, 1893.
With the acknowledgment from the Commander-in-Chief of the truth
of our statements, a most sweeping victory had been gained for the
cause; no under-official could very well dispute the word of the
Commander-in-Chief of the army. Lord Roberts' remark that "the ladies
themselves would have found their task considerably lightened" had
they been "commended to the care of the authorities in India," was the
source of a good deal of amusement on the part of our friends, and led
to many a sarcastic comment on the part of the public press; some of
which ran somewhat as follows: "As Lord Roberts freely admitted that
he did not know these things, certainly had the ladies appealed to him
they need not have come back so loaded with information; this would
have greatly lightened their task." "As there was a regulation which
allowed any suspicious characters to be expelled from the Cantonments
without assigning a reason therefor, the application of this regulation
would greatly have 'lightened their task,'" etc., etc.
What had been fully established by the evidence cannot be better
expressed than in the recent utterance of the British Committee for the
Abolition of State Regulation of Vice, _i.e._:--
"The fact was fully established that the so-called voluntary system had
been completely overridden by _extra-legal_ practices, of which the
provision placing, or interpreted to have placed, venereal diseases
under the same rule as 'cholera, small-pox, diphtheria, or typhoid
fever,' became the fulcrum or pivot." The thing which now remained to
be done was to embody the Resolution of the House of Commons of 1888 in
a law which must be passed by the Government of India, that could not
be longer evaded or disobeyed. After much discussion and consideration,
the Secretary of State for India directed that the Cantonment
regulations which related to the removal to hospital of those persons
suspected of contagious or infectious diseases, must be so altered
as to admit of the treatment of contagious diseases due to vice in a
manner that would not be liable to abuse of or injury to the reputation
of women.
Accordingly the Cantonments Act of 1889 in so far as it provided for
the compulsory examination of women suspected of contagious diseases
due to vice, and their forcible detention in hospital under penalty of
expulsion from the Cantonment, was altered to apply only to cholera,
smallpox, diphtheria, or typhoid fever. This was done to protect the
character and reputation of women, for it had been conceded on all
sides that hitherto the only method practicable for getting hold of
suspected women was on the information of male libertines, and that
such persons when questioned as to the source of their contagion,
generally sought to cover their own wrong-doing or protect their real
partner in sin by accusing some other woman, often a perfectly innocent
person.
This new Act, called the Cantonments Act Amendment Act, was passed on
February 8, 1895. The point which was gained by the passage of this
new Act was one of great importance, namely, that there were moral and
social questions involved in the treatment of contagious diseases due
to vice which could not be overlooked in the medical management of such
disorders without serious consequences. It was, in the nature of the
case, impossible to place these diseases on the same footing as other
contagious disorders. The reasons for this position have been recently
expressed very concisely and forcibly by the British Committee, in the
following language:--
"1. It casts no stigma on the name or character of a person to assert
that he, or she, is affected with 'cholera, smallpox, diphtheria, or
typhoid fever,' and it can be ascertained whether such statement be
true without shock to the feelings of the most refined. The opposite
is the case with venereal disease, in regard to which a mis-statement
is a virtual libel, and a compulsory examination is an indecent
outrage. 2. As regards the former classes of disease, no conceivable
measures can have any moral bearing; whereas in the latter class
compulsory (and in some of its relations, even voluntary) submission
to examination or treatment has the gravest moral consequences both
to the individual and to the community. 3. The procedure under the
rules you propose is as follows: The medical officer is informed by a
soldier that a certain woman is diseased. Believing that, he orders
her for examination at the hospital. She may be perfectly honourable
or perfectly healthy. In either case if she refuses to attend she is
held to be diseased and is expelled from the Cantonment. We submit
that the whole of this procedure, though it may be in words the same
as in a case of cholera, is in fact utterly different in the means
by which information is secured, in the nature of the evidence as to
fact, and in the consequences to the woman who disputes the fact. The
operation of the rules, so far as venereal disease is concerned, is
not general.
"In the Report of the Special Indian Commission appointed in 1893
by the Government of India to inquire into the working of the
regulations, it is stated that so far as venereal disease is concerned
the operation of the rules is 'practically confined by sheer force of
circumstances to women.' ... 'Even with regard to them information is
difficult to obtain, for a man often does not know, and still oftener
will not tell, which woman has diseased him.' ... 'Except in the not
infrequent cases where a woman herself applies for medical aid, this
(_i.e._, information necessary to proceed upon) can only be obtained
from men who have been diseased by them.' It is clear, then, that a
man, as the result of an admittedly immoral act, becomes an informer,
and in many cases a false informer, upon whose testimony the State has
to rely for submitting the woman to the most degrading process. We
submit that there is no parallel between venereal disease and cholera,
either in the procedure here indicated, or in the effect of that
procedure on moral conduct, or in the position in which it places the
State."
VI.
Some Anglo-Indian Moral Sentiments.
WE have referred to the discrepancies between the statements of Lord
Roberts and of General Chapman; between Lord Roberts' first attempt to
discredit our evidence and subsequent admission of its truth; between
the records that had been kept at the Lock Hospitals which we visited
in India and the statements sent home by the Special Commission.
All these things must tend to weaken the faith of the public in
Anglo-Indian representations. They all accord in spirit with the gross
exaggerations which have been put forth, as though a veritable scourge
of such diseases was at the door of England. As to the prevalence of
disease, "Between fifty and sixty per cent. of our Indian army," is
found to be, in actual fact, only _four and one-half per cent._ (see
page 69), and "Thirteen per cent. annually invalided home hopelessly
incurable," is found to be, in actual fact, only _one-ninth of one per
cent._
"Our power is being sapped--our race defiled--and we are forced to
ask ourselves if no means can be devised of stopping so gigantic an
infliction." What does this mean in exact figures? How "gigantic"
in reality is this infliction? The official figures of the very
document which was meant to originate the alarm, the Report of the
Departmental Committee of 1897 shall testify. The latest year reported
in this document is 1895, and as the law which effectually forbade the
compulsory examination of women was passed on February 8, 1895, the
figures show the result only of _less than eleven months_ covering
the existence of that law. Out of a force of 71,031 soldiers in India
nineteen more men were sent home to England, "hopelessly incurable"
from vice, in 1895 than in the year 1894. _Nineteen cases_ represent
the size of this "gigantic infliction" which has been made the occasion
of raising such a cry of alarm, and a demand for the return to licensed
prostitution and the re-enslavement of thousands of native women by
compulsory examination measures.
In the year 1894, 111 men were sent home invalided from this cause, and
in 1895, 130 men were sent home--an increase of nineteen cases. We do
not wish to minimize the evil of even these few cases; but is a decent
nation prepared to hazard an attempt to purchase immunity from disease
by plunging into brazen defiance of God's seventh commandment? What
about the "gigantic [immoral] infliction" of the atheistic assumption
that chastity is a sanitary failure, and fornication a necessity?
There is no comparison between the "gigantic infliction" upon England
of a teaching to defy God's commandments in the fancied interests of
physical health, and the presence of nineteen additional diseased
soldiers in a population of thirty-five millions.
But if we continue the study of the table of statistics found on page
9 of the Report referred to, we find that eighty-four more men were
sent home to England in 1894 for diseases due to vice, than during the
previous year, 1893. If the increase of disease in 1895 over 1894
is to be attributed to the Amendment Act of 1895, to what shall we
attribute the much more pronounced increase of 1894 over 1893? Again,
there were forty more men sent home invalided in 1891 than in 1890;
and forty-three more sent home in 1888 than in 1887, and none of these
years were under the Amendment Act of 1895. Therefore it is proved
that variations and increases have taken place that have had nothing
to do with the Amendment Act of 1895, which, when it serves the object
of advocates of licensed vice, is held wholly responsible for the
insignificant variation of an increase of nineteen cases. In view of
these facts, we must declare our solemn conviction that the agitation
for a return to legalized prostitution in India is not due to any
feeling of alarm on account of the spread of contagion in the case of
the _originators_ of the agitation, but that an attempt is being made
to frighten an unwilling Christian public into a reluctant consent to
return to a system which regards the whoremonger as a necessity, the
commandments of God a farce, and the slave trade in women an important
part of the business of the State.
Life in India does not tend to the elevation of British morals, and
this not because of the climate, as some contend. The industrial
conditions are all against good morals, and are closely analogous to
the conditions that prevailed in the Southern States of America before
the Civil War. Wages are so low in India as to constitute the native
the virtual slave of the Anglo-Saxon. By means of the pitiful wages
paid for work, not one-half the comfort is provided by white masters
to Indian servants that was secured to the black men in America, by
the few of those owners of slaves who were really humane. The very
fact that the slave was a rather scarce article and a good price
paid for him in America, made it to the interest of his owner to look
after his health and comfort to a certain extent. We are not defending
slavery--it is an abomination in the sight of God, whether it exists
under the disguise of abnormally low wages or shows itself openly;
and slavery is always a greater moral curse to the master than to
the oppressed. England virtually owns a whole nation of slaves in
her control of India, and the effect of this fact upon the morals of
that country will depend wholly upon whether she rules to redeem her
subjects or to enrich herself. The worst feature of all in slavery is
the appropriation of women by their masters. And this form of villainy
is always excusing itself by slandering the oppressed women.
"This life is not _a life of shame_ in the sense in which this is true
in England. Most of these women are prostitutes by caste and _can feel
no desire to give it up_," says the Report of the Special Commission
of 1893. "They are accepted as safeguards to society, and are not
themselves ashamed of their calling," says a high military officer.
"They feel no shame about this; they are never recruited from seduced
girls, as in England," says another of these high and mighty officers,
who know so much better how these girls feel and what they desire
than do the poor slaves themselves. To be sure, they sob and cry and
petition for deliverance, and protest their outraged feelings against
the examinations; but that merely proves what hypocrites they are, and
how cleverly they can play a part. "They are as artful as a waggon-load
of monkeys," said one Anglo-Indian to us; the "most vicious and
degraded of the population," says another. And yet they are, many of
them, the offspring of British men. One would imagine them gray-haired
in the service of Satan, from these accounts, and yet General Viscount
Frankfort states in the Report of the Special Commission of 1893: "It
is roughly estimated that 50 per cent. [of the girls of the chakla]
are of the age of fourteen to sixteen or so;" and in reply to our
evidence as to some of the girls being as young as "from fifteen to
sixteen years of age," Major General Sir W. Elles, K.C.B., replies,
"The probability is that prostitution is practised at even younger ages
than this." In reply to our further statement that many girls are kept
at the point of starvation, are always in debt, and cannot escape on
this account, even if otherwise the way might be open, Colonel T. G.
Crawley, commanding Allahabad District, makes the following calculation
(page 360, Departmental Committee Report of 1893):--
"It stands to reason that the women could not be in debt, for if a
woman only received six men daily for twenty-three days in a month, at
the rate of only four annas [about fourpence] per visit, that would
represent thirty-four rupees eight annas, and even allowing one-fourth
of this to go to the mahaldarni, rent two rupees, and food at the
rate of four annas daily for thirty days, a woman would have fully
seventeen rupees [a little more than one pound] a month clear."
This for the health of British soldiers and their "future wives" and
"unborn offspring" in England! and fifty per cent. of these victims
from fourteen to sixteen years of age! And will women physicians be
induced to attempt the task of keeping these mere children in health
under such conditions?
Anglo-Indian sentiment would not long content itself with the loss of
its highly prized C. D. Acts. The military officials had professed to
abrogate them when they hid them away under the cloak of the Indian
Cantonment Acts, and then again when they hid them under the cloak of
the Cantonments Act of 1889; but they were at last fairly caught by the
Cantonments Act Amendment Act of 1895, which tore away from them the
pretence of "only treating this as any other contagious disease."
Regulation had been in operation in India, in one form or another, for
the largest part of a century, and statistics show a steady increase
of disease, with slight variations, during all that time. And the Army
Sanitary Commission, the highest British medical authority, had in 1894
pronounced this prolonged experiment with licensed vice a failure, in
the following unequivocal language:--
"The facts, so far as we can ascertain them, lead us to the conclusion
that a compulsory Lock Hospital system in India has proved a failure,
and that its re-institution cannot consequently be advocated on
sanitary grounds. In stating this conclusion, we may add that we are
merely repeating the opinions which the Army Sanitary Commission have
uniformly held, that venereal diseases in the army of India could
not be repressed by such restrictive measures, and in support of
this statement, we may refer to the Memoranda on the Indian Sanitary
Reports which have issued from this office for many years."
Yet a Departmental Committee was secured in November, 1896, by
Anglo-Indian influence brought to bear upon the Government, to examine
into the matter and report on the prevalence of diseases due to vice;
and it reported, as was expected, in favour of a return to the system
of legalized vice. The Departmental Committee reported at the beginning
of the year 1897, on statistics no later than the year 1895. Now the
Cantonments Act Amendment Act became a law in India, February 8,
1895, and how much time elapsed before this Amendment Act came into
_practical operation_ remains yet to be shown; yet an attempt is made
to show that incalculable mischief has been done during these eleven
months of the actual existence of the law which abolished licensed
prostitution. The official statistics of which they make use do not at
all justify the calculations and conclusions they have drawn therefrom.
At about the time of the report of the Departmental Committee, there
was formed in England an association with the object of securing the
re-establishment of legalized vice in India. The names of high British
military officials make up its membership list, in large part. The
association printed a pamphlet, based upon the Departmental Committee's
Report in favour of a return to the old conditions, a Report that was
calculated to frighten the public, if possible, into acceding to their
demands, on the supposition that a fearful scourge was upon them, and
that no time was to be lost in getting it under check. Then Lord George
Hamilton, on March 26, 1897, sent a dispatch to the Government of
India, calling attention to the Report of the Departmental Committee,
and ordering stricter measures for the suppression of diseases due
to vice, but adding: "There must be no provision of women, ... no
registration, ... no compulsory examination of women," etc., but urging
that it was "imperatively necessary that this disease should not be
exempted from the measures adopted to prevent the spread of other
contagious diseases." "If there be any compulsion, it is precisely of
the same kind as that which has been accepted as necessary and enforced
without any objection in the case of diphtheria or typhoid fever."
Now the first quotation given effectually contradicts the second, at
the point of the compulsory examination of women; and such instructions
were, in fact, a virtual order to repeal the Amendment Act of 1895,
very covertly expressed, and so it was recognised immediately by the
British Committee for the Abolition of State Regulated Vice, which
promptly issued a memorial on the subject addressed to Lord George
Hamilton, Secretary of State for India.[9]
On April 21, 1897, there appeared in the London _Times_ part of a
letter from Lady Henry Somerset to Lord George Hamilton, in which she
"expresses gratification at finding incorporated in a document of
such importance a statement of inspiring and controlling principles."
She notes with satisfaction the "inclusion of this disease among
other contagious diseases," as the "only rational and scientific
principle on which its eradication can be attempted." "It is not
however, proposed to carry out this principle to its full logical
result; and herein lies the point on which she finds herself at issue
with Lord George Hamilton." At the end of the letter is affixed the
system of legislation best suited to the end, in the opinion of Lady
Henry Somerset, and it will be seen at a glance that her propositions
would indeed carry out the principle to its full, logical end. A
special importance attaches itself to these propositions, because
of the strategic position held by Lady Henry Somerset as president
of the British Women's Temperance Association of England, and first
vice-president of the World's W.C.T.U., and her action put her in
absolute opposition to the purity department of both those societies.
The scheme proposed by Lady Henry Somerset is here given in her own
words:
"1. A quarter of each Cantonment should be reserved for such women
as are permitted to remain in camp, and all such women should be
compelled to remain in houses or rooms specifically reserved to each
by a registered number. The admission of men to this quarter should be
strictly supervised.
"2. No woman should be allowed to remain in this quarter unless
periodically examined by properly qualified women doctors.
"3. No soldier should be allowed to enter this quarter without having
undergone a like examination and having the same report.
"4. A register should be kept recording the name of each soldier
entering the quarter, the number of the house to which he goes, and
the date of such entry.
"5. On any woman being found to be diseased in this quarter, or on
any soldier found to be suffering in like manner, all such persons
that the registered visits show to have rendered themselves liable
to contagion should be put in quarantine until such time as their
immunity can be verified.
"6. All consorting with women outside this quarter should render the
offender liable to severe penalty."[10]
The _Shield_, official organ of the British Committee for the Abolition
of State Regulated Vice, in its issue of May, 1897, comments as follows
upon this scheme:
"The suggestions above quoted embody the most complete State
Regulation of prostitution which we have ever seen described, in
its baldest and most absolute form, and imply the most complete
identification of the State with the purely animal side of the
matter which has ever been proposed. They seem to emanate from a mind
influenced for the time solely by the idea of equality between man and
woman, to the exclusion of other considerations. Such proposals seem
indeed to make the sexes equal, but it is an equality of unspeakable
degradation for both."