Report of the Committee appointed by the Secretary of State for India to inquire into the rules, regulations, and practice in the Indian cantonments and elsewhere in India, with regard to prostitution and to the treatment of venereal disease : together with minutes of evidence and appendices.

  • Great Britain. India Office. Committee on Prostitution in India.
Date:
1893
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee appointed by the Secretary of State for India to inquire into the rules, regulations, and practice in the Indian cantonments and elsewhere in India, with regard to prostitution and to the treatment of venereal disease : together with minutes of evidence and appendices. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    187/524 (page 137)
    3617. You see that the mahldarnis had books ?— Yes. 3618. They are in the same handwriting as the hospital books ?—The entries were. 3619. Relating to the same persons ?—Yes. 3620. And initialled by the same surgeon ?—I believe so. 3621. Do you think they differ in any important respect from a certificate ?—Not in any respect I should think. In regard to the women living in the regimental chaklas, I should think it was a joint certi- ficate to all women in that particular chakla. 3622. So that if tickets to particular women were abandoned, and these mahaldarnis' books were kept, it amounted practically to the same thing, except that it gave the mahaldarni a little more control over the women ?—Just the same with respect to the women regarding whom these books were maintained. 3623. It would also be true that any soldier know- ing that any woman had been to examination on a given day, and finding her at large, would know prac- tically that she was healthy ?—Yes, he would ; be- cause if she did not stay in hospital she would be ordered out of the cantonment probably. 3624. Will you turn to page 35 of the Report, line 1892, this is a general question about what constitutes a voluntary examination or a compulsory examina- tion ?—Yes. 3625. I want just to try to get exactly your view on the point; I want to put this question to you : that supposing the caretaker of these offices in which we ;are at this moment, was required to attend at Westminster Abbey on Sundays under penalty of not being allowed to remain here, would his or her atten- dance at the Abbey be voluntary, or not ?—I should say it would be voluntary if he had the office of care- taker of another office close by at the same pay but not quite so conveniently situated at his disposal. Just that difference there would be in this case. All the penalty that the women incurred was transfer from one bazar to another not quite so convenient to them. It seems to me there is no compulsion there, but it is purely a question of what you mean by a word. I ( suppose no two men would agree. 3626. Now I get on to the summary of conclusions at page 42 ; I want to direct your attention again to the opening words of No. 1 and Nos. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 33, 44, and 47 ?—Yes. 3627. Now, I want to ask you, do you not think the opening words of those paragraphs are calculated to convey to the ordinary reader, who has not much time, and who wants to see what the conclusions are, that they have a very much wider application than merely the three cantonments you visited ?—The whole of the conclusions, no doubt, would convey that impression, if you took them without reading the lines before them. 3628. And that if such words as these had been used in each of the three cantonments, and in no case in the three, and so forth, instead of saying none, no, it would have made that impossible ?—Yes, only that I should have had to du that probably in almost every one of my 48 headings. 3629. It only applies to those I have given you. I want to ask you whether you happen to have seen the Times of India of the 6th July 1893 ?—No, I never see the Times of India except by the merest chance; that I am sure I have not. 3630. This is given : The Report of the Com- mittee (that is your Committee) on the Con- tagious Diseases question makes out a strong case for the Government of India. In nine cases out of ten the orders given by the Government of India have been Y 24265. scrupulously observed. And then it goes on to Mr. D. throw imputations on the ladies ?—That is purely Ibbetson. imaginary. l5Augu.st 1893 .3631. It has produced that effect?—Our Report was not published ; it is a confidential document presented to the Government of India. We have none of us said anything to anybody, that is the pure imagination of a penny-a-liner. 3632. It refers to several of the points of your Report ?—That may be. 3633. Printers' boys and people of that sort may have got access to it ?—When they begin by saying that nine out of ten cantonments are to be reported upon, and mentions certain points in nine out of ten cantonments, it shows the whole thing is imaginary, because we only went to three. 3634. But it says that this Report, which is bound up in a Blue Book, and which is called a Blue Book, and which will be considered of greater authority than the military Reports at the end. Tbe im- pression that is produced on a person who has read it is, Tthink, that it relates to tbe whole ?—I do not think even the proofs were passed on the 6th of July. Yes, I passed them on the 4th or the 5th, but they were only just passed. 3635. I only want you to see how liable it is to mis- conception ?—I do not say it is misconception ; I say it is imagination. I doubt if that man had ever seen the Report, or known anything about it. 3636. Will you look at your conclusion in clause 35, you state there : The examination was made in- dividually by the British medical officer ?—Yes. 3637. You have already, I think, admitted one case, and I have said there was another which I could not give the reference for, and in which the actual examination was made by the dhai ?—Yes. Well, unless there was some sign of disease, in which case the officer, who stood where he could see what was going on, and if he saw the slightest suspicious appearance, or had any doubt on the subject, used then to go down and examine ; that is what we then under- stood. 3638. Still it is not strictly correct that it was made by him where in two cases out of the three it was made by the woman ?—I doubt the second case ; and in the one case I should say it was absolutely correct to say that the examination was made by the medical officer, although the actual insertion of the speculum might have been made by the dhai under his superintendence. {Surgeon-Colonel CIeg horn.) If the medical officer was present and deputed the duty of examination to the other, and it was done in his presence ; it was certainly done by the medical officer if he was looking on. 3639. Now, will you look at the summary of con- clusions, page 47, paragraph 41 ; if I have read the rules correctly this is not correct in two re- spects : If a woman suffering from a contagious disease leave the hospital before being formally dis- charged. Now the words of the rule are Leaves the hospital before such medical officer has pro- nounced such person to be free from the disorder. There is an important distinction, surely ?—Do you think so ; sufficiently important ? 3640. I will tell you what I think the distinction is, that if the woman was found to be incurable she would never be discharged. She has to be pronounced free from the disorder before she can go away at all ; is not that so ?—That is so. I merely took the words as they stood ; they seemed to me to be almost the same thing as the rules. 3641. I ask you upon these rules, is it not the case that a woman who is incurably diseased could not be legally discharged ?—She would have to leave cau- S