110 THE GOSPEL AND THE PLOW 



treated as a criminal and be put on prison diet. The 

 lepers so often have said to me, "Sahib, we are not 

 criminals, we are only unfortunate." The food for a 

 leper, who is a sick man, must be better than the food for 

 the prisoner in jail. When the Mission to Lepers took 

 over the asylum we started our building program and 

 immediately displaced the miserable old mud huts with 

 brick and mortar structures having good roofs with iron 

 battens instead of bamboos, and good French pattern 

 tile instead of the small country tile. The hospital was 

 built with two wards for men and one for women and 

 a dispensary properly equipped, a store room, two large 

 tanks in the asylum for the washermen to wash the 

 clothing. Heretofore the washermen had taken the 

 lepers' clothing down to the river to the regular "Dhobi 

 Ghat" where all the city clothing is washed, much to 

 the danger of the general public. When the lepers were 

 comfortably housed and the hospital built and running, 

 we next secured, about a mile away, a home for the un- 

 tainted children of the lepers where the children could 

 be kept apart from their parents, trained, educated and 

 given their chance in life. An Indian widow gave the 

 site. After this the next building to be built was the 

 church and instead of having beautiful, stained-glass 

 windows we have great big arches with chicken-wire 

 screens. This is to make certain that the ventilation 

 is good. My wife and I like to be present for the Sun- 

 day morning services. With a congregation of from 

 three to five hundred lepers, unless the ventilation is 

 good, one is apt to be in distress. 



The Mission to Lepers placed at my disposal twenty- 

 five dollars a year for each adult leper and twenty dol- 

 lars for each child. Out of that, all food, clothing, medi- 



