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F
.—Registration according to report is not very efficient. Unregistered
coolie women are to ply their trade about cantonments. No records of
the former Lock Hospital exist for reference. The Act is in force over an area
O f s i x m i l e s .
G.—No registration fees are levied.
H.—The attendance at examination was very irregular when the hospi-
tal was first re-opened. No less than 573 reports for non-attendance were made
during the year— vide Statement No.11 The women were not used to the
working of the Act. Fines to the amount of Rs. 66 were inflicted on 17
women, and one was imprisoned in Lahore. At Meean Meer, fines to the
amount of Rs. 93 were inflicted for this cause.
I.—The arrangements for examining the women in Lahore are very un-
satisfactory; an broken down building near the Mayo Hospital is occupied;
there are no proper latrine or bathing arrangements for the women attending
examination ; as every woman washes herself before being examined, ample.
accommodation for this purpose should be provided.
The preparations for the examination of prostitutes is primitive in the
extreme. An old bare table, not even covered with a blanket to lie upon, is pro-
vided in the Lahore room, which is badly lighted.
The apparatus and instruments provided are almost nil . Instead of
complete series of specula of various shapes, skeleton and other wise, only one or
two such instruments of the Ferguson pattern are provided ; uterine sounds,
scissors, vaginal forceps, and a properly fitted case containing medicaments for
local application are all wanting. At Meean Meer, I have had a drawer fitted
up in an old table with-wide mouthed bottles containing silver nitrate, iodine,
zinc chloride solutions, iodoform, nitric acid, Ricord's paste, glycerine and
sweet oil. Also a supply of mops made by winding minute portions of cotton
wool round the one end of pieces of bamboo chick. A supply of 200, half
large half small, should be provided before the examination, also tampons or
plugs of cotton wool or pieces of lint, containing powder, such as potassium
iodide, alum, &c., for local applications to the os uteri.
J
.—Disease is generally of a mild type ; the women who came in with
the Duke of Wellington s Regiment suffered severely, although according to their
dhai's report book they had been frequently and recently inspected. My
opinion is that some substitution and impersonation must have been resorted to.
K —Three dhais are employed,—one in the Royal Artillery Bazar, one in
the European Infantry Lines, one at the Lock Hospital. The woman at the Lock
Hospital is a good servant, who knows her work well. The other two women are,
as far as I can see, useless ; they never report their women as being diseased.
They appear to live upon the women, waxing fat on the spoils and taking half
an anna dastúri in every rupee .from the women. They should ;be abolished
; t h e y h o l d a n o b j e c t i o n a b l e m o n o p o l y .
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L.—At the present time when the existence of the Acts is threatened,
I would suggest that the English method be followed and that no cards be given
to the women. It is this registration and issuing of tickets marked "clean"
which is so objectionable. It is my practice to make no remarks on the cards
beyond certain private marks for my own information. In England the fact that
a registered prostitute is not in hospital, is the only presumption given for
thinking . her not diseased. She has no card to show to her customers, neither
is it necessary to give her one in India.
I see no objection to the practice, and it would minimise the opposition
of Exeter Hall, if some zenana lady teachers were allowed to attend at the
examination room and to talk to the women during the two or three hours that
they remain in attendance.
Stringent measures should adopted to prevent prostitutes soliciting in
the streets or sitting at their windows and doors rover the street. In the
Bombay Gazette this disgraceful state of things was called
a t t e n t i o n t o 2 6 t h S e p t e m b e r l a s t .