Part 3

At other times we had opportunities to revisit this large chakla. There were about one hundred inmates, and accommodations for many more. The building was scarcely less than a huge fortification. High blank walls--excepting tiny well-barred windows high up, surrounded an open space of ground, or court; and the inner side of the wall was lined with small numbered rooms for the accommodation of the inmates. Most of the girls, here as elsewhere, because of constant association with British men, had learned to speak a little English, while a few spoke quite fluently. Although we always were accompanied by a good interpreter, yet often we were able to converse quite freely ourselves with the girls.

Our interpreter recognised one girl on our first visit, whom we shall call by her nickname, which was "Katy," and asked her if she was not the girl who had run after her carriage two or three times, begging the interpreter to take her away. Katy said she had done so, and with streaming tears reiterated her desire to escape from a life of which she was so ashamed, and pleaded with us to take her. When we consented to take her that very day, she faltered, and then decided that she did not dare try to go until after the following day, which was the day of the bi-weekly examination, but she said that if we would give her our address she would come herself on the day following. As we drove away in our cab, and the girls waved farewell, poor Katy, with pitiful and despairing countenance, burst into tears. Her face haunted us for days, and as she did not come of her own accord to us, in a few days we went after her again.

We learned afterwards that Katy had made ineffectual attempts to come 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."