The growth of the European population, resulting from the expansion of the trade of the port, and an increasing disinclination on the part of Government and society to countenance the old system of _liaisons_ with Indian women, may have induced the authorities to regard the establishment of the European brothel and the presence of the European prostitute as deplorable but necessary evils. Provided that the women were kept under reasonable control and the police were sufficiently vigilant to ensure the non-occurrence of open scandals, no direct steps were taken to abolish a feature of urban life which struck occasional travellers and others as inexpressibly shocking. To the peripatetic procurer, who visited Bombay at frequent intervals in order to relieve the women of their savings and ascertain the demand for fresh arrivals, the Police showed no mercy; and the regular use which they made of the Foreigners Act towards the close of the last century indicates that by that date Bombay (like Calcutta and Madras) had become a regular halting-point in the procurer’s disgraceful itinerary from Europe to the Far East. It must be remembered that the number of European professional prostitutes in India has never been large, and the worst features of the traffic, as understood in Europe, are fortunately absent. That is to say, the women of this class who find their way to the brothels of the Grant Road neighbourhood and to the less secluded rooms in and around the notorious Cursetji Suklaji street, which used to be known on this account as _safed gali_ or “white lane”, are not decoyed thither by force or fraud. The women usually arrive unaccompanied and of their own choice, and they are well over the age of majority before they first set foot on the Bombay _bandar_. Their treatment in the brothel is not bad and they are not subjected to cruelty. The “mistress” of the brothel, who is herself a time-expired prostitute and has sometimes paid a heavy sum to her predecessor for the good-will of the house, feeds and houses the women in return for 50 per cent of their daily earnings; and as her own livelihood and capital are at stake, she is usually careful to see that nothing occurs to give the house a bad name among her clientèle or to warrant punitive action on the part of the police. The “mistress” acts in fact as a buffer between the women of her house and the male visitor, protecting the general interests and health of the former and safeguarding the latter from theft and robbery by the women, who are usually drawn from the lower strata of the population of eastern Europe and who would, in the absence of such control, be liable to thieve and quarrel, and would also commence visiting places of public resort, such as the race-course, restaurants etc., and walking the streets of the European quarter.