The report states that a "Handbook" has been circulated "to all fresh arrivals in India," and the closing chapter of the report is a reprint of that Handbook, which is especially designed for army chaplains to circulate among the soldiers as a "religious" tract. Interspersed with the quotations of Scripture texts, is abominable instruction to the effect that a young man who will confine his visits to the Government licensed brothel can trust the Lord to keep him from contracting disease. This "religious" tract promises to keep infected women out of the chakla, and warns the soldier not to go "in an underhand way" to houses where he will not be protected from "disease."
O mothers! can you conceive of what would be your feeling to discover that your eighteen-year-old boy, as is the son of many an English mother, was under such "gospel" instruction as this! "We shall never forget what we owe to Lord Roberts," says the report; and we might have anticipated that the author of the "Infamous Memorandum" would likewise be the supporter of such measures for the instruction of young soldiers. Sir George White, who succeeded Lord Roberts as Commander of the Indian forces, said, in the Viceregal Council held in India, July 8, 1897, that "Every effort should also be made to warn young soldiers of the consequences of immorality in this country, to point out to them the terrible risks which they run, and to appeal to their higher moral instincts and to their pride in their manhood to avoid connections that carry with them grave danger that they will return home shattered wrecks, unfit alike for military duty or civil life."
There is not one word here as though evil connections were likewise to be avoided, even if they were not supposed to carry danger of physical disease as a result. The "moral" teaching seems to have been all of that immoral sort that points toward the Government house of shame rather than to the seventh commandment. How many young soldiers may not have met their first temptation by having a superior officer point them to the Government-regulated chakla! Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell says truly: "The first indispensable condition in the prevention of disease is the steady discouragement of promiscuous intercourse. Now I assert positively that such discouragement has never been seriously tried in the army, by Government, but only by unofficial efforts--efforts which are most valuable, but entirely lacking in the force of organization, and in the important recognition and help which Government alone can afford."