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My leper friends

Chapter 2: PREFACE.
By Alice M. Hayes
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About This Book

A first-person memoir describes hands-on charitable work among people afflicted with leprosy in colonial Calcutta, portraying daily life in asylums, personal encounters with sufferers, efforts to raise a dedicated leper fund, public meetings and benefit performances, and the collaboration of clergy and medical practitioners. The narrative stitches together vivid portraits, hospital scenes, advocacy for European and Eurasian patients, and practical details about treatment, while an appended medical chapter provides a clinical overview of the disease. The voice combines humanitarian concern with reporting on social attitudes, institutional shortcomings, and attempts to improve care through local fundraising and organized support.

PREFACE.

The objects I had in view when writing this book were to interest the public in the white lepers who are homeless in India, and to obtain money for the “Leper Fund” which I raised, and which is now being administered by the Very Reverend Archdeacon Michell of Calcutta. My publishers, Messrs. Thacker & Co., 87, Newgate Street, E.C., have kindly consented to forward to this gentleman any profit that may accrue from the sale of the book, which, on this account, I trust will be large. I venture to think that, apart from the good intent, all classes of readers will find this small work worthy of perusal, in that it is a series of true pictures of a very sad phase of human misery, namely, the inner life of sufferers whom I have known so well and have cared for so much, that I can in all sincerity call them “My Leper Friends.”

I hear, with deep regret, that, since my departure from India, subscriptions to the “Leper Fund” have decreased. As it is the means of brightening the lives of the most wretched of all human beings, I would appeal to the generosity of the public to support it by sending contributions to Archdeacon Michell, Calcutta, who personally superintends the distribution of the fund. I may mention that aid is given without any distinction as to creed.

My best thanks are due to Dr. G. G. MacLaren for his sympathy in my labours, and for his kindness in writing a chapter on leprosy for this book. I, also, am glad of this opportunity of expressing my great indebtedness to “Brother John,” who was my fellow-worker among the lepers and in the hospitals of Calcutta.

I shall be happy to answer inquiries on this subject. My address is, care of Messrs. W. Thacker & Co., 87, Newgate Street, London, E.C.

Alice Hayes.

London, 3rd September, 1891.