THE
QUEEN’S DAUGHTERS IN INDIA.
[I.]
Cantonment Life in India.
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:—