I took with me, on the occasion of my visit to the almshouse, a friend, Brother John, of the Society of St. Paul, who was engaged in the work of the Calcutta Seamen’s Mission, under the direction of his superior, the Reverend Father Hopkins. I became acquainted with Brother John through Father Hopkins, who called and asked me to sing at one of his weekly concerts for sailors in Bentinck Street, arranging to send Brother John to take me to the place in a cab. Father Hopkins said, “You must not be shocked on finding the brother a rough sailor, who drops his ‘h’s’ and is afraid of women, never having been accustomed to ladies’ society. You will find he has a good heart. The sailors all like Brother John.” On the evening appointed, the brother arrived with the cab for me. He was shown into our drawing-room, and was evidently keeping those refractory “h’s” of his well under control, for I could not get him to talk at all, and thought him rather stupid, as he sat nervously clutching his hat. Afterwards, when he knew me better, he told me that he suffered agonies on that evening, and begged Father Hopkins not to depute him to fetch me, but to send, instead, Brother Paul, who knew how to behave to ladies. Poor Brother John little knew me, if he thought that the mere fact of his being insufficiently educated would render me heedless of the many good traits in his fine character! I liked him as soon as he had overcome his nervousness enough to permit of his saying, “I hope you’ll excuse me if I’m not accustomed to ladies’ society. I’m only a rough sailor, and I don’t know how to speak or what to say to ladies. I get along all right with the sailors. I’ve never had any education, and I feel the want of it now badly.” This honest speech of his made me his friend at once, and I often went to the sailors’ concerts after that night. He was one of nature’s gentlemen, who seemed always able to say and do the right thing instinctively, and whose quiet, simple manner would command the respect of his fellows. I used to like going with Brother John every week to visit the sick sailors in the Calcutta hospitals. On such occasions he would provide a good supply of plug tobacco (beloved of Jack) and newspapers. It was while going our weekly round one day that I mentioned my intended visit to the almshouse, and arranged with him to accompany me.

When we arrived at the place, we were shown into the office of a soldierly-looking man of about sixty years of age, who was evidently a thorough disciplinarian. He was obliging and communicative; and told me he had read with pleasure my articles on “Calcutta Charities” in our paper, and heartily endorsed every word I had written. He said a great deal more, and before I left the office showed me his discharge certificate from the Army, in which he had been a sergeant, and also his Mutiny medal. We went with him over the male ward of the almshouse. I need not describe the occupants; poor things! They all looked becomingly miserable. I think there were some Eurasians among them, but the majority were pure Europeans. Mr. McGuire—for that was the superintendent’s name—asked us to stay and see them fed, as it was their dinner-hour. We saw stew being doled out of a big saucepan into small bowls and put on a table. Each bowl was taken by its owner to a long, bare table, with forms down each side, and the meal, after grace being said, commenced. I felt uneasy while watching the poor things eating as if they were animals, so made a move to the women’s quarters. As we walked up the stairs to the top of the building set apart for females, Mr. McGuire called out, “Mrs. Smith!” and the matron of the place, a woman of about forty, appeared. I spoke to her but little. She showed me the women working at a table, mending or making house linen, and also their rooms. The inmates themselves took small notice of me: they looked bored and sad, evidently remembering that visitors who give them no substantial help, but who beam on them with a patronizing smile, are in these parts as common as they are useless. I felt that I should have liked to have spoken to the poor women, and to have asked them if I could help them in little presents of tea or other things; but Mr. McGuire seemed to have divined my wish, for he told me they live very comfortably, having everything they could reasonably wish for as paupers. The word “pauper” jarred on me, but I said nothing as I gazed sorrowfully on them. One old woman, evidently with bad sight, was trying to hem a quilt. She appeared to be working under such difficulties on account of her eye-sight that I thought a pair of spectacles might be got for her. However, she was a “pauper,” and paupers are not beings to be favoured with such luxuries! I asked if I might read to them once a week, but was referred to the committee of the District Charitable Society for permission, which I applied for, but received no answer to my letter. If I had been given the least encouragement, or even sanction to have done so, I could have provided these poor women with many little comforts; but I was not. Brother John said little, but was as much struck with the defensive attitude of the officials as I was; for he was the first to speak of it on our way home.

I must here explain that Indian institutions, like the one in question, are usually presided over by Government officials, who have little time to spare from their routine work for the exhibition of sympathy and practical kindness. The climate, too, greatly militates against philanthropic efforts in the cause of unpaid duties. Hence, the tendency to shift the onus of superintendence on subordinates, whose actions their superiors have to support, or to burden themselves with a large amount of personal attendance. With such an alternative, the choice generally accepted can easily be guessed. As long as things go outwardly smoothly, the subordinate draws his salary, plays the vicarious part of big man, and no doubt enjoys the well understood perquisites of such offices. If a public exposé takes place, the high official gets worried and questioned about a subject with which he has failed to keep himself in touch; the subordinate sees with dismay the chances of his direct and indirect emoluments being snatched from his grasp. Hence, the entire staff bitterly resent any journalistic comments on their working that are not wholly laudatory. All such officials, therefore, act on the principle of L’état, c’est moi. “If” say they, “you have got anything to find fault with, report it to me; but don’t write to the papers.” If the would-be reformer acts contrary to this dictum, he will make such officials his bitterest enemies. In such an ignoble category, men like Dr. MacLaren, superintendent of the Dehra Dun Asylum, and Mr. Ackworth and Dr. Weir, of Bombay, find no place; for their object is not to gain credit for charitable work they do not perform, but to relieve and comfort those under their kindly charge.

We were about to depart from the almshouse when I espied a number of low red-brick buildings enclosed in a small compound on the opposite side of the road. On inquiring the name of the place, I was told it was the Leper Asylum. “May I go over it?” I asked the superintendent of the almshouse. “Yes, if you are not afraid,” he replied; “I am also superintendent of the Leper Asylum; but I may tell you that I have never taken a lady over the place before.” I looked at Brother John, and asked him if he would prefer to wait for us outside, or go into the abode of leprosy. He said he would like to accompany us; so we all went. I had frequently seen and pitied lepers in the streets; but had never before been brought into communication with them.

The illustration facing this page will give my readers an idea of the leper, as he is to be seen in the Indian public thoroughfares. We throw the poor things a few coppers in passing; but, as there are no lepers in England, the majority of us know little about the horrible disease from which they suffer, and are therefore inclined to regard them as ordinary beggars. I had read “Life and Letters of Father Damien,” and from that little book, which was lent me by the nuns of the Loretto Convent in Calcutta, I learned something of leprosy; just enough perhaps to make me wish to know more and to see for myself what was the condition of the sufferers.

A Leper Beggar

A Leper Beggar.
p. 12.

We were taken into an enclosure bounded by a high wall, and containing three long, one-storied, detached brick buildings, which, I was informed, were for the female lepers, and that there were three similar buildings on the other side of the compound, separated by a wall, for the men. As I walked up a few steps which raised the building from the level of the road, and entered the first ward, I was conscious of a “faint” smell (which is peculiar to the disease) emanating from it. We entered a long room with a stone floor, and rows of beds ranged down each side. Lying or sitting on these beds—for there was not a vestige of any other kind of furniture—were several native women, all more or less bandaged. They looked up at me with a pitifully sad expression on their faces. One woman tore off her bandages and exposed a few diseased stumps remaining from what had once been fingers. The smell in the place was very bad; the sheets on the beds were discoloured and dirty; the bandages covering the sores of these poor wretches were filthy. I would fain have spoken a few words of comfort to them, for my heart was sad within me; but knowing very little of the language, I could do no more than make a few friendly gestures. Brother John told them we should come again, and we were just turning to depart when the superintendent said, “You haven’t seen Bridget.” On saying this, he lifted a filthy sheet that was tied on to a stick placed across an opening at the further end of the building, which contained a small room, or alcove, and disclosed a white woman sleeping! I was horrified to find a European woman in the Leper Asylum, and with nothing more than a dirty sheet dividing her from natives. The poor old thing, who had grey hair, was sleeping so peacefully that I begged the man not to disturb her. When we got outside I asked who she was, and found that she was an Irishwoman who had been an inmate of the asylum for many years.

The next ward we visited was constructed on exactly the same lines. In this there were, I think, seven women. The superintendent had a deal to say of a girl called Bella, who, he told us, had been studying medicine at the Umritzar Medical Mission when the disease broke out in her. Poor Bella lay on a dirty bed, and smiled feebly as we approached. Her fingers and toes were in a terrible state. The former had been dressed with something black that looked like tar. She wore no bandages on them, and there were great holes in her poor fingers, as though some wild animal had been biting pieces of flesh from them. Bella was a Eurasian, so spoke English. I could have cried aloud as I stood gazing helplessly on this young girl, cut down in the very flower of her youth, and doomed to spend the remainder of her days in this horrible abode of disease and death. “Oh, can nothing be done for her?” I asked. “Nothing,” replied the superintendent; “I will give her three years to live—three years at the outside.” I felt sorry that my question should have called forth such a reply; for poor Bella heard it in sad silence. I longed to comfort her, but I could think of nothing to say; it was all so horrible. I determined, however, that as no woman regularly visited the place, I would do so myself. I did not fear the disease; I only felt wretched on seeing its poor victims. I turned and spoke to another woman in European dress. She was a Polish Jewess, and was evidently afflicted with a different kind of leprosy, for her skin was the colour of indigo, and was much puffed and swollen, though no open sores were visible on her. She told me that she was married and the mother of a family. She could in no way account for her present state. When leprosy first showed itself on her, her husband cast her adrift, and refused to see or help her in any way. She had saved a little money and had been to doctors in Austria and Germany, and had tried all sorts of pretended cures, but without success. “Have you any money now?” I asked. “Yes,” she replied, “I have a hundred and fifty rupees [about ten guineas] in the bank; but I would sooner starve than touch it. I am a pauper in this place; but after death I will be again a lady. The money is for my funeral; I will be buried in my own coffin, as a Jewess.” I asked them if they would like some books to read, but they shook their heads sadly, and said that their sight was going fast, and reading hurt their eyes too much. They tried to speak cheerfully; but it was all terribly sad. Brother John could hardly trust himself to speak to poor Bella, while she herself seemed ready to cry. I looked at the miserable bareness of the place, and at the native women squatting about on the floor, and inquired if they had no chairs or washstands, or any more furniture than what I saw. They shook their heads. The Jewess pointed to a little oil-stove that was worn out and full of holes, and asked me if I would try to get her a new one, as she had no stove to boil water for her tea. I found that they washed themselves at a tap in the enclosure, but had neither bath-tubs or washstands. The sheets on their beds were supposed to be changed once a week: it was evident from their colour that they could not have been washed oftener. I wish to lay particular stress on the need there was of clean bed-linen and underclothing, both from the offensive nature of the disease and from the tropical heat of the climate. In the alcove attached to this ward we found another girl, called Daisy, whom the superintendent informed me was of Scotch parentage, but who had been suckled as an infant by a Madrassi nurse, who had afterwards turned out to be a leper. Her features were terribly distorted by the disease. Her fingers and toes were in much the same state as those of poor Bella, and she wore a green shade over her eyes. There were a couple of wicker chairs in her little room, also an accordion, with which the superintendent told me she used to accompany herself to songs; that she had a sweet voice, and often sang to the other lepers. “To whom do these women apply for their wants?” I asked. “To me,” said Mr. McGuire. “I come here once a week.” “But is there no woman to look after such things?” “No,” he said; “women don’t care to come to such places as these.” I passed sorrowfully out, telling Daisy and the others that I would soon return with fruit, flowers, etc., which they said they would like. They smiled sadly, as though doubting my word, having had, as I afterwards discovered, many other promises of the kind which had not been kept. Poor Bella was tortured by flies, which surrounded her open sores in swarms. The smell, too, of the disease was so great that I was perforce obliged to walk with my handkerchief to my face the whole time. It was a very hot day, and I felt bitterly sorry for these poor sufferers, without fans, lavender water, or any little comforts whatever. I would fain have fled from this pestilent abode, and yet I lingered, wishing in my helplessness that I had the power of God behind me to enable me to say to these poor women, “I will, be thou clean.” As it was, I could only stand gazing sadly on them, wondering why God had so afflicted His creatures. I walked as one bewildered through another ward, wherein were nine miserable native women, all more or less terrible to behold. “Is there no English doctor to attend to the European women here?” I asked. “No,” replied the superintendent. “There is a native doctor, at a salary of twenty rupees a month.” “How many lepers are there?” “Seventy-six.” “But you have not half of the lepers in Calcutta in the asylum?” “Half! Why we only touch the fringe of leprosy.” “Has Government done nothing in the matter?” “So far, no, though an inquiry is to be made some day with a view to providing accommodation for lepers.” “Are they allowed to go in and out of the asylum when they like?” “There is no law to prevent them,” he replied. “A leper falls fainting by the way-side, he is seized by the police, and conveyed in a third-class hackney carriage to the asylum. As soon as he has had his wounds dressed, has gained a little strength, and finds himself able to do so, he walks out into the streets again to beg. The Europeans do not go out.”

He then asked us if we would like to see the men, and, on our replying that we would, conducted us to the opposite side of the grounds, through a door labelled “Male Ward,” and into three buildings exactly similar to those we had just quitted. We walked down the first ward, filled with poor diseased specimens of humanity, in silence. The heat and smell of the place, and the filthy sheets and flies surrounding these poor lepers, were a sight that I shall never, never forget. One poor, half-naked creature was sitting in a corner trying to adjust a bandage round his legs, which, with only one or two stumps in the place of fingers, was to him no easy task. My first impulse was to fix the dirty rag for him; but I suddenly remembered that contact with this terrible disease might possibly be fatal to me, so passed on. In the next ward, which was even in a dirtier state than any that I had previously visited, the native lepers were crowded together as thickly as possible. A horrible smell pervaded the place. Bits of dirty stained bandages hung here and there. On the floor, curled up on a piece of Indian matting, lay the form of a man in the last stage of leprosy. His back was turned to me, and, although I spoke a word to him, he made no sign, no movement. I stood and looked at him in his misery. His poor bones were almost protruding through his skin, which was drawn over his body like parchment. He groaned aloud, as if in agony, every now and then moistening his parched lips with his tongue. There was no friend or attendant near to give him a drop of water. All his fellow-sufferers in the wards seemed to be watching for the end. I asked if water could be given him, but was told that he had better be left to die in peace. He was a native, and men of his caste will not, I believe, accept a drink of water from a European’s hands, or from a European water vessel: I know not whether the agonies he was enduring would have induced him to break his caste. Poor wretch, he carried our heartfelt sympathy with him on his journey into the unknown country, as well as our will to have helped him if we could have done so in any way. He died, I was told, a few hours after we left the asylum. About sixpence in coppers had been found on him, which sum was duly handed over to the authorities, who buried him according to the custom of his race.

There were three English-speaking Eurasian lepers in this ward. One man enlisted my sympathies on his behalf about some property which was confiscated to the State on the death of his mother, but which he asserts virtually belonged to him. He had made a struggle to retain possession of it, and had addressed a long petition to Lord Dufferin, who was then Viceroy of India; but, having failed to prove his legitimacy, was informed that nothing could possibly be done for him. I found him a refined, well-educated man, very fond of reading George Eliot’s works, and any well written novels.

The others are two Eurasian lads who are cousins. One about 22, the other 10 years of age. I felt much sympathy for the poor child, cut off from everyone, and doomed to spend what should be his brightest days in this awful place. He is a nice-looking boy, with a bright face, and a sweet, kindly disposition; and is devoted to drawing and painting, which he can do remarkably well. He has often since drawn dogs, cows, and different animals, and laid them out on his bed for me to see and admire. Indeed, so well were some of these executed that I should have liked to have shown them to friends of mine, had it been safe to have handled them. Leprosy was only just asserting itself on him; no sores were visible, but his fingers were doubled up, and a few ominous spots were on his body. His cousin is a leper in a more advanced stage, so one would be led to infer from this that the disease has been transmitted by heredity. I do not know how he managed to do his drawing and painting so well as he did, for there was neither a chair or table in the ward, so he must have used the bed as a table, and worked in a kneeling position.

Brother John and I drove home from the leper asylum in silence, as our hearts were too full for words. It seemed terrible that men and women should be living in the very midst of this crowded city as in a living tomb. Women, too, of my own caste and country, left alone to die without a friend in the world. One lady, Mrs. Grant, the matron of an institution known as the Military Orphan School, at Kidderpore, had visited them occasionally; but when I first went there four months had elapsed without their seeing her. This, I am certain, was no fault of hers; as she has many other duties to perform, and the Indian climate seldom allows one to continue well for any lengthened period. The men, poor things! had had no visitor to practically help them. Mr. Hall, the clergyman of the district, was in the habit of reading prayers in the little church attached to the Leper Asylum on certain Sundays; but the lepers did not appreciate mere words. His wife, Mrs. Hall, took to visiting the native leper women after I had published articles in our paper, and after I had raised a substantial fund for the cause I had at heart; but, though she would distribute flowers to the natives, she always refrained from giving any to the European and Eurasian women, who would have greatly appreciated such presents.