Dear Friends,

I am glad you intend to reprint “The Queen’s Daughters in India.”

It brings home to many who will never read Blue Books the terrible facts about officially-authorized vice; and it shows the moral aspects of the “Regulation” system, which Blue Books never show.

I remember very clearly how your first Report, in 1892, of what you had seen, impressed us all as a very careful record of a very careful investigation.

Then, in 1893, I was a member of the Departmental Committee appointed to hear your evidence, when your clear testimony, which no cross-examination could shake, gave abundant evidence of your close observation and the accuracy of your records.

The impression this made on me was only deepened when, in India, in 1894 (on the Opium Commission), I saw one of the places you had described with such remarkable closeness of detail.

It is deplorable that we should have to fight this battle again. But so it is. Princesses and Titled Ladies have added their influence to that of the panic-mongering materialists, in the endeavour to “make the practice of prostitution, if not absolutely innocuous, at least, much less dangerous”—for that is, in the language of the Royal Commissioners of 1871, the object in view.

I thank God, therefore, that you are able to visit this country again, to help us both by voice and pen in the renewed agitation which is forced upon us.

Yours faithfully,

Henry J. Wilson.

Feb., 1898.