Another, with face partly covered by her hands for very shame, said her husband had sold her to the mahaldarni for money. By graphic gesture and with the help of the few English words she knew, another told of the agonies of slow starvation until at last her courage gave way, and she came to the British soldiers, who were willing to feed her starving body for the sake of its worth as an instrument of self-indulgence. This is the only right to existence accorded to many women, even in so-called Christian countries, where labour is hard to obtain.
A little girl of ten, gaudily arrayed in the style of the others, thus publishing her candidature for a life of vice before she knew its meaning in the least, played about among the older ones. A little boy of two, with beautiful forehead, and other features that betrayed his English blood, had been forsaken by his father, who had, the girls said, “gone home to England.” We recall having seen other children of Saxon type at Lucknow, Meerut, and at Peshawar, left in the same way by fathers who were officers of the British army in India. While the attempt is being made to create sentiment in favour of protecting the “innocent wives and children” of British soldiers, it might be well to inquire which wives and which children—those that already exist in India, or those that have not yet materialised in England. God knows which are the real wives and the real children of soldiers who have, in many cases in the past, entered into a contract with unsophisticated native women who never dreamed that it was anything less than lawful marriage!
“These bad women promise us everything and then betray us into this life,” said several of the girls, referring to the treachery of the mahaldarnis. They told us of a girl who had recently been set on fire by an angry soldier, and had been burned to death, and related the story of cruelties practised upon them by drunken soldiers. A native guard in uniform drew near to listen. These military guards were there all the time, and were changed every few hours, the girls told us. As the mahaldarnis who own the girls are always at hand to watch against the escape of the discontented, the work of the guard seems to be chiefly to keep order and to prevent the entrance of native men, as the latter are strictly forbidden to associate with women kept for the English soldiers.
Two women of mature years now approached, and we were informed that they were the mahaldarnis. One lived there all the time, and the other was there with her girls for the time being. They said they had each a salary of ten rupees a month from the Government. They also took a share of the girls’ earnings. Another time we went to the hut, close to the chakla, where one of them lived, and she proudly displayed to us some of the recommendations she held from British officers. They were grim and horrid reading; we will give but a single illustration:—
“Ameer has supplied the 2nd Derby Regiment with prostitutes for the past three years, and I recommend her to any other regiment requiring her for a similar capacity.
“S. G. M——,
“Quartermaster 2nd Derby Regiment.”
As to the methods to which these mahaldarnis resort to procure girls, it has been touched upon in the personal stories of girls already given, and will be emphasized necessarily more and more as our story continues. Mahaldarni Rahiman, met in another Cantonment, told us a story closely resembling the methods described in a former chapter (page 20), by a Government official. She said in substance: “If a girl is not sufficiently attractive to earn a living, I send her away and get another in her place. I get the women from the bazaar when more are needed. I go to the Cantonment magistrate, and he gives me five, ten, twenty, or fifty rupees, as the case may demand. To buy a very young, attractive girl I will be furnished with fifty rupees. There is always plenty of money to get them with.”
When opportunity afforded, we called upon the other mahaldarni, and she likewise showed us her recommendations in the handwriting of British military officials, and other interesting papers which she had carefully preserved. There was an original copy of her appointment as mahaldarni to a certain regiment, closing with permission for her to go to Ferozepore to attend to “certain business of her bazaar.” This was signed by the Colonel of the regiment. There was a letter written to her by the Staff-Surgeon of the same regiment, a few days later, saying:—
“Mahaldarni, Seventh Lancers,—You have not brought your women from Meerut and Ferozepore. You will have to do it or the Colonel will think you have broken faith, as it is now fifteen days since you received your appointment.”