By such a system of delivering over the bodies of women as public property, any woman of humble circumstances upon whom any man of lecherous design casts his eyes, could be made to come to his terms of existence by the aid of the police force, if necessary, and magistrates of evil design could condemn any woman to a life of prostitution. And in this hospital all this wicked compulsion was set down in a book, every page of which was headed, "Prostitutes attending Voluntary Inspections." From the Lock Hospital we drove to a large chakla, and talked with a group of about twenty girls, among them a little girl of twelve, and another of four. Everywhere we went among the degraded women of India, we found children in the chaklas, these Government-regulated brothels, with their ever-present guards, so that Englishmen knew perfectly that children were being trained under Government regulation for prostitution. The advocates of licensed prostitution for India are fond of insisting as an excuse for licensing the evil, that it does no great harm because the recruits come from "the prostitute caste." Repeatedly we made enquiries of Englishmen, native physicians, and in one case applied to the census office for some information concerning this special class. Its existence was practically denied, excepting those cases which can be found in every land, in which women of all classes may fall into shame and train their daughters after their own evil ways. It is scarcely necessary in this connection to mention the temple and nautch girls of India, who are found in civil lines. They are a wholly distinct class from the enslaved women who are set apart to minister to the vices of the British soldiers. Among the latter we found Hindus of all castes, from high-caste Brahmins down; and we also found Mohammedans, Arabs, Egyptians, Afghans, Kashmiris, Jewesses,--recruits, in fact, from those among whom "caste" does not prevail. If it were true that all these chakla women constitute one caste, for what object did the Government of India, in times past, provide invariably (so far as our observation extends) for a record of the "caste" of the women to whom registration tickets were given? The ticket which we purchased of a woman at Meean Meer in 1892 (a fac-simile of which is given in this volume, _Appendix B_) recorded her "name," "caste," "registered number," "place of residence," "date of registry," and "personal appearance."[5] But there is a class in India being trained to prostitution, though not a "caste," properly speaking, and they are getting their training in the brothels established and managed by Englishmen, and many of the candidates in this class are the children of Englishmen, who have been deliberately placed there, or allowed to go there, by their inhuman fathers. This is, properly speaking, the prostitute class of India, those born to their fate; the reader may judge whether the existence of the class justifies licensing it for the purpose.