WOMEN'S WORK IN CEYLON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10753, 26 April 1913, Page 4

WOMEN'S WORK IN CEYLON.

( The Common Cause.") _ Ihe crusade in Colombo against infamous houses tolerated, and even protected, by the police and the Governor. is over. Tho scandal could not long survive the publicity given to it by the local Vigilance Society; and the piesence of two ladies actually residing m the sinister thoroughfare evidently gave the finishing stroke. A letter recently received from Mrs Human, one ot those ladies, gives some particulars. On January 10 the police issued an order that the foreign women were to quit the island by the thirty-first cf that month. On February o they were not, she writes, all gone. " However, the 'American' house and the Greek houso are both empty and closed." The house of Chara. the most infamous of all these traders, was still open, but its closing was expected in a few days. Ily* igilance Society was preparing to trace any women and girls who may remain in Colombo, and to offer them the opportunity of living decently. Headers who recall the'refusal of the authorities to help Mrs Human in her efforts to get speech with the very young Sinhalese girls who were literally held imprisoned by Chara, will bo glad to hear that, in spite of that refusal, and in spite also of the gaoler's precautions and threats, she and a Salvationist did succeed in giving to these wronged children the tracts in Sinhalese which she had prepared for them, and -which doubtless told them that there were friends at hand anxious to help them. The value of this communication, now that the girls must be released bv their tyrant, will be great. The vigilance workers propose to turn their attention to other nlaces in Ceylon, where there are still "permitted" bouses. How far they will find the same obstacles in these Jesser towns remains to be seen. These devoted men and women have been doing (in spite of opposition, open and underhand, from the official guardians of Great Britain's honour) an inestimable service to the good name of their country. How could decent Sinhalese people respect a Government which protected such as Chara ? How could ihev believe in the justice of a system which, allowed him and liis like to kidnap their children with impunity? How could thev, if they had one spark of spirit, fail to desire the overthrow and destruction of such a Government? If Ceylon becomes, now, a country in which" the inhabitants can feel their children safe under British rule, the credit for that condition lies at the door, not of tho Governor nor of the Head Inspector of Police, but of those humble persons whom, these authorities have done their best to brow-beat and to discredit.