feature of the general management, than the extreme care evinced by the medical
officers to eradicate all póssible causes of disease residing in the registered women.
And nowhere has this been effected with greater care than at Lucknow. Yet, in the
paragraph last quoted, it is stated, apparently in condemnation of the scheme, that
during the year more than half the registered women there, were in a condition fitting
them to impart disease.
As a fact, the monthly average number of registered women at Luckuow was 119,
and the monthly average number in hospital 30, leaving a monthly average balance of
8.9 women perfectly fit for intercourse. And, indeed, the exact balance was 94. For
the average in hospital includes 46 unregistered women, each treated for 39 days,
equivalent to a monthly average of five.
That an average of 25 women, out of 119, should always be in hospital, may
appear discouraging, until it is explained that at least 20 of that average were detained
in hospital on account of leucorrhoea and abrasion, which are not diseased conditions
likely to affect the soldier. These detentions witness emphatically to the care and
reality of the management, as exercised for the benefit of the women, who suffer in
undue measure from these comparatively trivial complaints, which can only be cured
b y r e s t f r o m t h e i r o c c u p a t i o n . T h i s r e s t t h e y f i n d w h i l e d e t a i n e d i n h o s p i t a l .
I have not the slightest doubt that a considerable average of admissions to hospi-
tal amongst the women is inseparable from good management. And I think the quite
extraordinary amount of good which has resulted to the women of the system, by the
establishment of lock hospitals far outweighs in value the money spent upon them.
110. I believe the hitherto bad result of the scheme have arisen entirely from
the soldiers perverseness in continuously introducing the disturbing element of inter-
course with unprotected women. A practice hurtful to himself, and hurtful to the
registered women. These women submit cheerfully to much inconvenience and per-
sonal unpleasantness, in obedience to the requirements of the system, and upon the
full understanding that it is for the soldiers benefit. But the soldier as a rule takes
no heed of this. Over and over again it has been recorded that soldiers bring disease
to the registered women ; that they spend their money on unprotected women to the
neglect of the protected, who, for livelihood, are driven to receive the visits of native
men.
The soldiers do this for various reasons, some from dislike to open visitation of
the brothel, some from parsimony, an unprotected woman asking very little.
But chief reason of all is the extraordinary opportunity afforded to the soldier to
offend against the system in this way. The more I learn of this subject the deeper
becomes the conviction that, given the presence of women, the soldier cannot abstain
from intercourse with them.
111. The obvious course of action then is to keep the soldier away from places
where many women must reside, and to remove the unprotected women from places
w h e r e t h e s o l d i e r s m u s t l i v e . I n t h i s c o u r s e l i e t h e e l e m e n t s o f s u c c e s s , a n d I h a v e n o
doubt good general results would have followed, if, during the past year, it could have
been reported from all stations, as from Lucknow and Roorkee, that unceasing vigi-
lance of the authorities for the prevention of every cause of disease bad been exer-
cised, and an active interest of the regimental and cantonment authorities, to the
extent of keeping all vagrant women out of cantonments, evinced.surely, as against
them, vagrant women the regimental authorities might, with extreme justice, exercise
great vigilance and a considerable severity.
As a rule these women are abandoned, half-starved, utterly forlorn, waifs and
strays of humanity, quite unfit for sexual intercourse, and very prone to generate
disease. No sensible man would venture to approach such women, and the soldier
ought not to be allowed to do it. With undoubted certainty such women ought not to