The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-23 00:00:00

SALE OF GIRLS IN INDIA.

Lord Brougham lately resisted the enlistment of
Kroomen for service in India as a deviation from

the anti-slavery policy of Great Brit tin. Enlistment,
he argued, among an African race wouli speedily
degenerate into kidnapping. What will his
lordship say when he hears of officers, paid
and appointed by the British Government, re-
gist, ring in the Judge's Court formally and legally
on stamped paper, the sale of girls of seven for the
purpose of prostitution, such officers, moreover,
being fully aware of the object and character of the
sale. Yet that, it would appear, is a general if not
universal practice among the respectable Mahome-
dam s of Bhaugulpore.
It is barely six weeks since Mr. Toogood, Magis-
trate of Monghyr,discovered that the Cazee or
Mahomedan Registrar appointed by Government
to each Zillah, was in the habit of atteiting deeds
of this infamous description,•and depositing them
as legal documents in the Judge's Court. The
ixactice, it scorned, had been going on for 20 years,
with the full knowledee of every bAly except the
Government which ptides its if on the abolition
of slavery. In one case the deed, which bears date
the 16W August,lBss, sets forth that a Mahomedan,
named, agrees to farm out his daughter by name
Chund, aged seven years, to Mursumut Ameerun,
brothel keeper, for 90 years, in consideration of R'S.
12-8 received in cash. The said keeper is em-
powered to " exact any kind of service" from the
girl, for she engages to keep the child in clothes
and food. In the event of any children being born
to the girl, whether male or female, the purchaser
above mentioned is to have possession of them
for ever. This precious document, which in any
European country would bring the contracting
parties in danger of Lynch law, is writ-
ten on stamped paper, signed and sealed
by the Cazee, and entered in his book No. 1,419,
pages 82 and 83. In a second case registered
on 15th Jur.e, 1847, a Hindoo child of seven,
daughter of a Rajpoot, was sold to a Mussulmau
with like intent, and further investigation proved
that the system was all but universal. Mr. Toogood
took up the case with the eager wrath natural to an
English gentleman. The guilty parties were ar-
rested, and Ameerun quietly deposed that it was all
I rue, that she always did buy children, that she had
ten such in her house, and four of their children who
were equally her slaves. Everybody did it and
why not she Indeed the evidence is much in the

tone of injured innocence an English lady might
adopt if arrested for obstructing the pathway by
undue crinoline. It might be a foible, Ameerun
admitted, but as for an offence, everybody did it.
• The Cazee, a most respectable Mussulman, a
brother of the Principal Sudder Ameen of the
same station, also frankly admitted his offence.
He had always registered such deeds. He knew
perfectly well what they meant, and what they
were for, and he believed them sanctioned by
Government. As to his own conscience, it was
true that the Koran forbade the sale of free-
born children somewhat peremptorily, but these
were not deeds if sal-. They were deeds of
lease for 90 years, not sales by any means. Obvi-
ously he was horribly ill used by the inquiry.
All three, Ameerun; the Mussulman who bougbt
the Rajpoot girl, and the Cazee were committed to
take their trial, the Oozes as an accessory to the
crime. It is, however, very doubtful whether the
law will touch any of them in the end.. The crime
is doubtless slavery in its most atrocious form.
There is nothing in " Uncle Tom's Cabin" more
horrible in all true circumstances of horror than in
this plain story of Behar. We feel more perhaps
when men are cut to pieces under the lash, but it
is only because we do not realise the indefinite
degradation involved in Ameerun's purchases on
shiner ed paper. But by law the crime i 9 still
doubtful. The old regulations, taking the largest
interpretation, only prohibited the hawking of
slaves for sale. Indeed sale within our own domi-
nions is tacitly allowed by the prohibition to ex-
port. Act V. of 1843 indeed orders .that slavery
be ignored, that it be no plea in a court of justice,
eut it does not render the act of enslaving a penal
offence. We are thrown back, therefore, on the
common or Mahomedan law, which undoubtedly
prohibits the sale of freeborn children. In the only
case, however, on the books the Judges of the Sud-
der were divided, one-half holding that suchsalesfor
proei•ut ion were sanctioned by preset iption. 'They
therefore referrel the whole question to their law
officer, and at this moment the only positive law on
the subject is the ipse dixit of a Mussulman Moulavie.
He held the seller criminal, and the Court .sen-
tenced him in conformity with that opinion to five
3 ears' imprisonment. It remains to tie seen if the
Sudder will not admit the Cazee's quibble, and re-
cognize a lease for 90 years made of an unconscious
girl for a pu, pose forbidden to respectable castes by
even the foul Indian creeds, as a fair and rightful
contract. Whether they do or not the sate of
a human being ought at once to be made a felony,
punishable with the same punishment as infanti-
cide, and to be prosecuted by the State.
It is not however to secure an alteration in the
law that wo have published this extraordinary
case. Ten words in Parliament, accusing the Court
of Directors of sanctioning such sales will soon pro-
duce a reform in our legislation. We have related
it as an illustratien of the manners of the people
among whom we live. Here is a man high in
office, of good family, of excellent social position, A
man to be considered altogether respectable, who
quietly assists in a crime forbidden even by iris
own liw. He knew well that the stamped paper,
and. the Cazee,'s seal, and the formal registra-
tion were all weapons to be used against the un.
fortunate girls if they resisted cruelty or aetempted
to escape. And lie strc kes his beard, and talks
about a lease of a human being for ninety years,
a 3 a custom, objectionable perhaps, but still very
general indeed. Aed his mother, chief native
justice of the district, says he knew it all along.
And the procuress who pays the fees which fill
the pockets of the Caz e, looks on the affair as 0110
sanctioned by Government. And the English
judge does not know of the practice, though the
deeds have been filed for twenty years in his
own court. And the Court of Directors congra-
tulates itself on the extinction •of slavery in
Bengal.—Friend of India.