Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/82

 and in civilisation there is not one that accords to open flagrant impurity such recognition as this country gives to the 'nautch-girl.' Veiled vice and secret inchastity are to be found all the world over; but sexual immorality as a hereditary and acknowleged profession, living in peace and amity with and amidst other avocations, fortified against the attacks of time or change, and endowed with the privileges of social sanction, is special to this land. By no other civilised people is the thin mask of music, as a profession, suffered so fully to cover (and, for all social purposes, so completely to atone for) the iniquity of a woman openly living a "fast life." In the temple she has not only the free and ready admission of any other lay person, but, in innumerable cases, a position next only to that of the priest or the manager. No part of a town is too respectable for her residence; no circle of society, too high for her invitation. No festive function, civic or social, is too solemn for her presence : to receive a guest or