DANCING-GIRLS. 69 



tionate kind. Drunkenness, quarrelling, and swearing were 

 unknown to them, and in their habits they were temperate, 

 docile, and cheerful. No vulgarity, ingratitude, or decep- 

 tion in their character; they followed their vocation with- 

 out those disgusting traits that are met with in Europe. 

 They were proverbially faithful and cleanly, and to a 

 certain degree modest, although brought up professed cour- 

 tezans from their earliest youth. Never experiencing want, 

 and being never ill treated (as their numbers and community 

 protect them), and living in a fine climate, if the horrors 

 of prostitution (a necessary evil in all countries) can any- 

 where be palliated, it is in India, for there it is unat- 

 tended with those outrages, cruelties, and insults which 

 characterize the treatment and life of that unfortunate class 

 in England. 



" The brutal and unfeeling usage that those poor creatures 

 experience in England in their nightly and desolate walks, 

 in cold and wet, searching for a miserable meal through the 

 opulent metropolis, beset by the rapacity of police officers, 

 and the hypocritical morality of the opposite sex; these 

 helpless creatures, these midnight wanderers, more ' sinned 

 against than sinning,' would present to those who took the 

 trouble, from motives of humanity, to perambulate the streets 

 at night, a more appalling picture of wretchedness and dis- 

 tress than those unacquainted with the subject would believe 

 to be possible. 



" Look at home, Christians and philanthropists, and before 

 you go to India to reform and improve, cast your eyes at 

 home at the suffering thousands in want of shelter, in want 

 of a meal, in want of clothing to cover their bodies. In 

 England you can do good, in India none, and will only 

 produce evil. 



" In the instrumental parts of these performances there 

 was but little to please, and nothing to admire. The vocalists 



