A gentleman in India, who had spent many years in military service, told us the following tradition:—

“In the year 1856, before the Mutiny, Lady —— was one evening riding out on horseback at Umballa, unattended, when the bridle of her horse was suddenly seized by a British soldier who was possessed of evil designs against her. Most earnestly she protested against his violence, and remonstrated with him that, besides the wrong to her, to injure one of her social rank would utterly ruin his entire future, as he would be flogged and dismissed from the army in disgrace. Thereupon ensued a conversation in which he pleaded extenuation for such a crime so successfully that she readily accepted his false statement that there was excuse for vice when soldiers were not allowed to marry. After that experience she sought opportunity to talk with high military officials concerning the necessity of protecting high-born ladies from such risks, by furnishing opportunities for sensual indulgence to the British soldiers, and the result was the elaboration and extension of a system for the apportionment of native women to regiments.” We have never been able to verify the exact truth of this incident, but it probably has a basis in fact. Yet it has had its counterpart in a recent movement among the aristocratic women of England to re-introduce the same wicked legislation. It is on this account that the authors have considered it necessary to print a more extended account of the work in behalf of the women of India, in which they have had a large share. If the exceedingly simple style in which they give their story seems to some readers almost an insult to their intelligence, and lacking in the delicacy of touch that could be desired, it must not be forgotten for one moment that they are writing with special regard for those in the humblest ranks of life, who have often had scant opportunities for education; for it is upon the daughters of such that the oppressive laws for the licensing of prostitution fall; and in large part the supposed advantages of licensed prostitution accrue to the upper social classes, which are, in fact, the lower moral classes. The crusade against licensed fornication is a war between respectable daughters of the poor and rich and powerful men and women.

Whether the narrative given above be wholly true or not, the fact remains that when so-called “Christian England” took control of “heathen India,” and plots of ground called Cantonments were staked off for the residence of the British soldiers and their officers, full provision was made for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. A Cantonment is a considerable section of land, sometimes comprising several square miles; and within these Cantonments much more arbitrary law prevails than the civil law by which the rest of the country is governed. There are about one hundred military Cantonments in India. Sometimes these Cantonments have few inhabitants besides the soldiers and a few traders in groceries, etc., for the soldiers; and again in some places a whole city has grown up within the Cantonment, and many Europeans reside therein, feeling more safe in case of threatened trouble from an uprising of the people against the Government, than outside under civil law only. All the land of a Cantonment belongs to the Government, and in case of war the military officials may seize, for residence, all the houses within the Cantonment without regard to the actual owners of the buildings, and the commanding officer has the power of expelling any one he pleases from the Cantonment, without assigning any reason for so doing.

The system devised for furnishing sensual indulgence to the British soldier, and for protecting him from diseases consequent on such indulgence, was commonly called the Contagious Diseases Acts, but was carried out under Cantonment Regulations, and was as follows in its main features:—

There were placed with each regiment (of about a thousand soldiers) from twelve to fifteen native women, who dwelt in appointed houses or tents, as the case might be, called “chaklas.” These women were allowed to consort with British soldiers only, and were registered by the Cantonment magistrate, and tickets of license were given them.

Besides the “chakla,” i.e., the Government brothel, there was in each Cantonment a prison hospital, in which the patients were confined against their will. To these Lock Hospitals the women were obliged to go periodically (generally once a week) for an indecent examination, to see whether every part of the body was free from any trace of diseases likely to spread from them to the soldiers, as the result of immoral relations. The compulsory examination is in itself a surgical rape. When a woman was found diseased, she was detained in the hospital until cured; when found healthy she was given a ticket of license to practise fornication and was returned to the chakla for that purpose.

In case a woman tried to escape from the chakla, or from the Lock Hospital, and was apprehended, she would be taken to the Cantonment magistrate, who would punish her with fine or imprisonment.

Even the price of the visits of soldiers to the chakla was fixed by military usage, and was so low that the soldier would scarcely miss what he expended in vicious indulgence. We have frequently heard in England that the officers sent out in the English towns to secure recruits for the army hold out, as an inducement to young men to enlist, the fact that a licentious life in India is so cheap, and that the Government will see to it that no disease will follow the soldiers’ profligacy. But this last promise is altogether false, for statistics show that with all their efforts diseases increase with the increase of licentiousness, with small regard to the military surgeons’ efforts to make it physically safe.

When a regiment came into a large Cantonment where there were barracks, there was generally a large Government brothel to which all the women were sent for residence, and a guard in uniform looked after them. When the soldiers were camped out in the open field, tents were set up for the women at the back part of the encampment. When the soldiers marched, the women were carried in carts, with British soldiers to guard them, or sent by train to the destination of the regiment. In charge of the women was placed a superintendent or brothel-keeper, called the “mahaldarni.” She also was expected to procure women as desired; and we have ourselves read the official permits granted these women to go out to procure more women when needed.

On June 17, 1886, a military order, known among the opponents of State regulation as the “Infamous Circular Memorandum,” was sent to all the Cantonments of India by Quartermaster-General Chapman, in the name of the Commander-in-Chief of the army in India (Lord Roberts). But during the course of the enquiry of the Departmental Committee of 1893, its real author was discovered to be Lord Roberts himself, not his Quartermaster-General.

This Memorandum (Parliamentary Paper No. 197, of 1888) is a lengthy document, every part of which has painful interest; but we can only give a faint outline. It specified certain measures to be instituted as means for looking more carefully after the health of British soldiers, and the observations therein were to be heeded by the “military and medical authorities in every command” throughout India. (See Appendix A.)

This order said (and military orders are well-nigh inexorable): “In the regimental bazaars[1] it is necessary to have a sufficient number of women, to take care that they are sufficiently attractive, to provide them with proper houses, and, above all, to insist upon means of ablution being always available.” It proceeds: “If young soldiers are carefully advised in regard to the advantage of ablution, and recognise that convenient arrangements exist in the regimental bazaar [that is, in the chakla], they may be expected to avoid the risks involved in association with women who are not recognised [that is, licensed] by the regimental authorities.” In other words, young soldiers are not expected to be moral, but only to be instructed as to the safest way of practising immorality. This remarkable document goes on to suggest that young soldiers should be taught to consider it a “point of honour” to save each other from contagion by pointing out to their officers women with whom there was risk of disease. The document calls attention to the need of more women, and the necessity of making the free quarters “houses that will meet the wishes of the women”—in order, it is implied, that they may be the more easily lured to live in them.

The official record of what followed, as a result of effort on the part of under-officials to carry out the instructions of the Commander-in-Chief (Lord Roberts) is truly shocking, as might be expected. The officer in command of the 2nd Battalion Cheshire Regiment sent the following application to the magistrate of Umballa Cantonment: “Requisition for extra attractive women for regimental bazaar, in accordance with Circular Memorandum 21a.” “These women’s fares,” it continues, “by one-horse conveyances, from Umballa to Solon, will be paid by the Cheshire Regiment on arrival. Please send young and attractive women, as laid down in Quartermaster-General’s Circular, No. 21a.” Then he added a note to the effect that some of the women already at hand were not very attractive, adding: “Application has been made to the Cantonment magistrate of Umballa for others, but up to date none have arrived; therefore, it is presumed a great difficulty exists in procuring the class of young women asked for.” Evidently it was an amazing thing to these self-styled Christian military officials that heathen women would not flock to their slave pens!

Another commanding officer writes: “There are not enough women; they are not attractive enough. More and younger women are required, and their houses should be improved.” Yet another commanding officer writes: “I have ordered the number of prostitutes to be increased to twelve, and have given special instructions as to the four additional women being young and of attractive appearance.”

Such was the zeal for increasing the facilities for safe vice, provoked by such military methods as described by this Memorandum, that the unwillingness of the native women to plunge into a life of shame at the behest of their conquerors, received scant consideration. A retired soldier, living at Lucknow, told us of his own observations a few years before: that, if a native policeman saw a young girl talking indiscreetly, though innocently, with a man, he would denounce her as a suspected prostitute; she would be brought before the Cantonment magistrate, and be registered to live among the soldiers. He said the police made large sums of money by threatening to thus hand over girls to the magistrate, and demanding bribes as the alternative of such a horrible fate. A Christian Englishman, holding a responsible position under the Government, vouched for by the Editor of the Bombay Guardian, relates what he saw in four Cantonments, where the instructions of the “Infamous Memorandum” were carried out, in the following language:—

“The orders specified were faithfully carried out, under the supervision of commanding officers, and were to this effect. The commanding officer gave orders to his quartermaster to arrange with the regimental Kutwal [an under-official, native] to take two policemen (without uniform), and go into the villages and take from the homes of these poor people their daughters from fourteen years and upwards, about twelve or fifteen girls at a time. They were to select the best-looking. Next morning, these were all put in front of the Colonel and Quartermaster. The former made his selection of the number required. They were then presented with a pass or license, and then made over to the old woman in charge of this house of vice under the Government. The women already there, who were examined by the doctor, and found diseased, had their passes taken away from them, and were then removed by the police out of the Cantonment, and these fresh, innocent girls put in their places.”

There is a whole volume of misery expressed in that last sentence, both for the fresh, innocent girls, and for the diseased ones turned out of the Cantonment. It has been repeatedly asserted that this system of regulating vice was so merciful, even to the girls; for their diseases, it has been claimed, were never allowed to go beyond the initial stage. But what this witness states is strictly in accordance with what we found to be the case. When we visited some of these Lock Hospitals and examined the records kept there, we noted that in the annual reports no cases of secondary stages of disease were mentioned; but when we questioned the native physicians in charge as to whether these ever arose, they answered that frequently such cases occurred, but when a woman became unfit to practise prostitution, because of that fact, she was turned out of the Cantonment.

The British officials of India have not shown the slightest concern as to the spread of disease, even when introduced by their own race among the natives, but have actually sent these women abroad to scatter disease wherever they go. And what can a poor Army slave-woman do when thus turned out? Her caste is broken, because she has lived with foreigners, and her friends will seldom receive her back; she has been compelled to follow the soldiers on the march; and when dismissed may be hundreds of miles away from any human being who ever saw her face before. Practically almost every industrial door in India is closed to women, the nurse-girl to foreign children being so exceptional as not worthy of mention among the hundreds of millions of people. The Cantonment sometimes includes all there is of city life in the whole region, and the woman has no choice but the open fields or the jungle. God alone knows the fate of these helpless creatures, and few beside care to know.

This was the exact state of things, with details too infamous to commit to paper, until 1886, when the Contagious Diseases Acts which had prevailed in the military stations of England were repealed as the result of a remarkable crusade led by Mrs. Josephine Butler. As the dependencies of Great Britain are all supposed to be governed by the same policy as that of England the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts there virtually repealed them in India. But it was not until 1888 that a despatch was sent to India by the Secretary of State for India, whose duty it is to attend to such matters, declaring that the system was “indefensible, and must be condemned.”

A copy of Lord Roberts’ “Infamous Memorandum” fell into the hands of a Christian gentleman who sent it to England. It was there reprinted and distributed to every member of the House of Commons, and created a great sensation, meeting with almost universal condemnation. Following upon the popular indignation created thereby, the House of Commons on June 5, 1888, passed a unanimous resolution that “Any mere suspension of measures for the compulsory examination of women, and for licensing and regulating prostitution in India, is insufficient; and the legislation which enjoins, authorizes, or permits such measures ought to be repealed.”

The publication of the “Infamous Memorandum” in England had shown that the existing Indian Cantonment Acts must be condemned, and they were superseded by rules made under a new law, the “Cantonments Act of 1889.” This was a very specious document, which avoided the issue by merely placing unlimited powers in the hands of the Governor-General in Council to “make rules consistent with this Act, for the prevention of the spread of infectious and contagious disorders within the Cantonment.”

It was so recognised and pronounced upon by the newspapers of India, which favoured licensed vice. Commenting on the new Cantonments Act one newspaper said: “The religious fanatics who howled until a weak Government gave way to their clamour … will probably howl again now at the way the old order of things will be enforced under another name, but with very little difference in manner.” Another said: “Their phraseology is the work of a master in the art of making a thing look as unlike itself as it well can be.” Many others spoke in the same strain. Immediately the advocates of the abolition of licensed prostitution took alarm, and began a vigorous remonstrance; for they saw great danger in any law which put large discretionary power into the hands of officials. The late Rt. Hon. Sir James Stansfeld, M.P., and Professor Stuart, M.P., addressed a letter to the Secretary of State for India concerning this new Act, in which they said, among other things: “If our interpretation of the new proposed regulations is correct, they may be used to set up again a system of compulsory examination of prostitutes, and to regulate and license, within the Cantonment, the calling of those prostitutes who submit to periodical examination, and to certify and license those who are pronounced physically fit.”

The official reply from the Secretary of State for India was to the effect that the Home Government was unwilling to believe, without positive proof, that this new Cantonments Act would be used to foster licensed prostitution.

It should be explained here that Abolitionists have always recognised that to establish the periodical examination is, in and of itself, to license prostitution; for there can be no possible excuse for the reiterated examination of healthy women, in anticipation of possible contagion, without recognising a certain right to practise prostitution, if the women be pronounced medically “fit” for such a calling. The periodical examination of women, then, constitutes the living heart of all those forms of legislation generally comprised under the term, “The Contagious Diseases Acts,” by whatever local name such regulations may be known.

We came to England in the winter of 1890–91, it being the first country visited by us on a round-the-world journey for the World’s W.C.T.U., with which we were, at that time, officially connected.[2]

During this visit we frequently met and talked with Mrs. Josephine Butler, known and revered by lovers of purity throughout the world for her heroic service in the cause of the Abolition of State Regulation of Vice. She expressed a strong desire that while in India in the course of our journey we should make a careful investigation into the conditions prevailing there, and learn, if possible, whether the resolution of the House of Commons of June 5, 1888, was being obeyed. As already noted, this resolution demanded the repeal of all measures that enjoined, authorized, or permitted the compulsory examination of women and the licensing and regulation of prostitution. It was desired also that we should secure for the use of Parliamentary members of the British Committee of the Federation for the Abolition of State Regulation of Vice actual proof that the resolution was being disobeyed, such as would meet the official demand for proof from the Secretary of State, before he would be willing to believe that the new Cantonments Act was being used to foster licensed prostitution. The mission was pronounced by Mrs. Butler “one of the most difficult and even perilous missions ever undertaken in the course of our great crusade.” After due consideration and prayer for guidance, we consented to undertake the task.

The British Committee of the Federation furnished us with all necessary official documents with which to make ourselves thoroughly conversant with the history of the C.D. Acts throughout the British dependencies in the Orient, and supplied us with a letter of introduction to a staunch friend of the cause in India, with whom we were expected to hold frequent consultations.

We took our departure from England in the month of July, 1891, going first of all to South Africa and labouring in the interests of our work there until the cold season set in and we could proceed to India. Reaching India at the end of December, 1891, we conveyed our letter of introduction to this confidential friend, who advised us to proceed northward and consult with a friend of the cause who understood thoroughly the interior life of the people, and, it was believed, would give great aid to our mission. Travelling northward we arrived at the station designated, and sought an interview with this gentleman.

We intimated to him what we hoped to accomplish in India, with a view to obtaining an expression from him of his willingness to aid us. With consternation and embarrassment he protested against our undertaking anything so foolish and impracticable, declaring from his long experience that it was utterly impossible for women to get at the truth, and entreating us to abandon so wild a project. When he saw that we did not yield the matter, he questioned us as to what we were planning to do, how we should proceed to get information in a country whose customs and language were so utterly unknown to us, and concerning a military system with which, as Americans, we were quite unacquainted. We withheld further confidence, simply saying with earnestness, “Whether this is practicable or impracticable, women have a right to this knowledge; and we do not think it foolish or impracticable to trust God to give us all the information we need, without human aid.”

He felt the most kindly interest in us personally, and manifested this by several practical expressions; but doubtless he reasoned that he could not encourage us in what he believed to be an impossible undertaking.

This experience drove us to God, our only helper. We were strangers in a strange land, carrying the burden of a sacred secret which weighed us to the earth. After much prayer and deliberation we called on the chief military surgeon in charge of the station hospital of —— Cantonment. This official began almost immediately when we called upon him, and entirely without suggestion from us, to deplore “the repeal of the C.D. Acts,” and, as he claimed, the consequent increase of specific diseases. He showed us his daily report, which illustrated what he said on this subject. These diseases, he said, were for the most part contracted on the march or in the hills, especially at Ranikhet. This interview took place on January 4, 1892.

The surgeon said he wondered that people did not, from the moral and religious point of view, see the injury that the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts was doing, not only to the soldiers but to the whole country; “and,” he added, “we can do nothing.” We asked, “Is there, then, no form of regulation now?” He answered emphatically, “None whatever.” He said, “We can do nothing about the women outside the Cantonment, and there is the trouble.” He added, “Those inside go on as they used to, and go to the hospital for treatment when diseased. But,” he continued in an aggrieved tone, “this is absolutely voluntary; we have no control.”

He said there was a European physician in charge of the hospital, to whom he had just been talking regarding the matter when we came in. We said, “There is a European physician in charge, then, is there?” He answered, “Yes; but the hospital is not for these diseases only, but also for fevers, dysentery, cholera, and all diseases”; and that there were men there as well as women. We asked, “Is the Lock Hospital, then, entirely disused?” He replied, “Why, there is no Lock Hospital.” He added that many good people were getting their eyes opened now as to the condition of things, and that even some clergymen had the courage of their moral convictions, and had come out in favour of the Contagious Diseases Acts.

Previous to leaving England we had received information concerning this Cantonment and its Lock Hospital. Our information, compared with this official’s inconsistent statements, convinced us that he was endeavouring to mislead us. After other and many futile efforts to reach the truth, we gave ourselves up wholly to prayer, remembering the promise, “They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble.” We felt sure that any mistake at the outset of our work, such as giving confidence to the wrong person, or any indiscreet action that might betray our object in visiting India, would be fatal to our purpose; therefore we cried to God to preserve us from impatience and to keep our feet from stumbling.

We went next to Agra and remained there several days, wandering about the old fort and other places of interest. But surely never was sadder sight-seeing! The way seemed utterly closed against us. The work stretched, vast and difficult, before us, and those towering thick walls that surround the fort, with a deep moat at their foot, represented to our thoughts the pride, strength, and secrecy of the system which we sought to penetrate, and at other times the barriers that separated us from the enslaved women whom we had come to India in the hope of helping.

Nearly five weeks had gone by; the winter season was rapidly passing, and we were yet without a single clue to guide us in our investigations.

One Sunday we set apart for fasting and prayer—in the morning instructing the native servants at the Rest House where we were staying to leave us uninterrupted until the evening, as it was a sacred day with us, and we wished to be alone. We locked our doors and waited on the Father of spirits for guidance. Never shall we forget the hours of that day. At the beginning our hearts seemed completely crushed under a sense of our absolute helplessness and ignorance; but we know now that we were in the very place of power—that it was only there that God could reveal Himself to our waiting spirits. It was at the first, however, inexpressibly dark. Still we held on, in faith that light would come; and before night, light was fully given to us both, as to our next step, which was that we were to go to a friend in a neighbouring city and lay the whole case before her. We obeyed the guidance; and although our friend was exceedingly hopeless as to our undertaking, yet she was willing to give us the assistance of her quick intelligence and long acquaintance with India. She proved of invaluable service to us in teaching us many simple colloquial phrases, and inducting us into a knowledge of the customs of the country, thus making us much more independent in our work and travels.

At this time it became clear to us that we must approach the whole question from the native side. We had gained nothing in seeking information from European officials. Our hope now lay in interviewing the native physicians and the women themselves. We did not at first venture to ask the way to the Lock Hospital, taking it for granted that this term had long before fallen into disuse, as the existence of this hospital was officially denied. But after visiting various hospitals within a Cantonment, and failing to find the “Cantonment Hospital” so called, which term we were told was now applied to the place for which we were searching, we asked for the Lock Hospital, and to our surprise found that in common parlance it was still so named. Our cab-drivers always understood instantly what we meant when we used either this term or the native term, which means a hospital for degraded women. Our first actual interview was held with the dhai, or nurse, and inmates of a Lock Hospital. Besides much valuable information gained from them, we learned the native name used to designate the quarters within the military Cantonments for degraded women, viz., “The Chakla.”

From this time forward, our way became much more plain, as in the ten Cantonments visited[3] we found that we needed only to give directions to our cabmen and they would take us without hesitation both to the Lock Hospital and to the chakla, these places being perfectly well known to the natives residing within the Cantonment.

These Cantonments are all under military rule. As our work lay only within the Cantonments the military regulations, of course, applied to us. One of these rules made it possible at any time for us to be excluded, for it refers to “persons whom the Commanding Officer deems it expedient to exclude from the Cantonment, with or without assigning any reason for excluding them therefrom” (Cantonments Act, chap. 5, sec. 26, clause 23). It was necessary, therefore, that we should not attract attention to the fact that we were making investigations as to whether the resolution of the House of Commons was being obeyed or not by the military authorities. Had our errand been suspected, we could have been sent out of the Cantonment at once, with no explanation and no opportunity for redress. We therefore proceeded as quietly as possible.

Towards the last our enquiries proceeded very rapidly, for we had learned to accomplish as much in one day as would formerly have occupied a week. The winter season was over, and we were now in the month of March, with the heat of the advancing Indian summer daily increasing in terrible force, and becoming oppressive to our unaccustomed Anglo-Saxon constitutions. We travelled by night and worked by day, hastening on to the completion of our task. At times, arriving at our destination in the middle of the night, we rested, exhausted, in the ladies’ waiting-room at the railway station, where there were cane-seated settees, on which we spread our travelling rugs and remained until the morning. A native woman was always in charge, and good refreshment-rooms were at hand, so that we saved much time and avoided publicity in this way. We often travelled in what were known as “intermediate compartments,” knowing that we should attract less attention than as first or second-class passengers. We simply asked for guidance at every step of the way through these months of anxiety and toil; and we knew that our prayers were answered.

We had various interpreters. One of these was a specially gifted woman. She had a sweet, plaintive voice, and sang the native songs with touching effect on the poor women whom we visited; one we always recall as having been a wonderful instrument through God of moving their hearts. It was a pilgrim hymn with a recurring strain of warning against the love of the world, dress, jewellery, and sinful pleasures; and reminding us all that this life is swiftly passing, and that death may soon overtake us. Often before the refrain was finished the poor women would be seen sobbing as they listened, joining in the sorrowful strain that recurred again and again; and as soon as the song was ended pouring out their pitiful histories and their protests against the degradation into which they had been thrust by the infamous system of legalised vice under which they were slaves.

---