The Press.
London, England, 1854-03-18 00:00:00

256

months from January to July inclusive, there were sixty.
four admissions to the hospital, or, on the average, 41 per
cent. per month ; and only two deaths, both of dysentery.
Many of these men had suffered frequently in the plains
from acute dysentery and hepatic affections, and many
others had aggravated these complaints by excessive
drinking, and two were cases of delirium tremens. During
the same period the number of entries at Calcutta or Dina-
pore would probably have more than trebled this.
Dr. Hooker rarely deals with the affairs of
British India, rightly deeming that field al-
ready too well trodden; but his few notes on
Indian affairs aro valuable enough to make
us wish for more. As a specimen we select
the description given of " Thuggee ":
Here I had the pleasure of meeting Lieutenant
Ward, one of the suppressors of Thuggee (Thuggee, in
Hindostan, signifies a deceiver; fraud, not open force,
being employed). This gentleman kindly showed me
the approvers or king's evidence of his establishment,
belonging to those three classes of human scourges, the
Thug, l)akoit, and Poisoner. Of these the first was the
Thug, a mild-looking man, who had been born and bred to
the profession : he had committed many murders, saw no
harm in them, and felt neither shame nor remorse. His
organs of observation and destructiveness were large, and
the cerebellum small. He explained to me how the gang
waylay the unwary traveller, enter into conversation with
him, and have him suddenly seized, when the superior
throws his own linen girdle round the victim's neck and
strangles him, pressing the knuckles against the spine.
Taking off his own, he passed it round my arm, and showed
me the turn as coolly as a sailor once taught me the
hangman's knot. The Thug is of any caste, and from any
part of India. The profession have particular stations,
which they generally select for murder, throwing the body
of their victim into a well.
•
• • • •

Major Sleeman has constructed a map demonstrating
the number of "Bails," or regular stations for committing
murder, in the kingdom of Oude alone, which is 170 miles
long by 100 broad, and in which are 274, which are
regarded by the Thug with as much satisfaction and
interest as a game preserve is in England: nor are these
" bails " less numerous in other parts of India. Of twenty
assassins who were examined, one frankly confessed to
having been engaged in 931 murders, and the least guilty
of the number to 24. Sometimes 150 persons collected
into one gang, and their profits have often been immense,
the murder of six persons on one occasion yielding 82,000
rupees ; upwards of 8,0001.
Of the various facilities for keeping up the system, the
most prominent are, the practice amongst the natives of
travelling before dawn, of travellers mixing freely together
and taking their meals by the wayside instead of in
villages ; in the very Bails, in fact, to which they are
inveigled by the Thug in the shape of a fellow-traveller ;
money remittances are also usually made by disguised
travellers, whose treasure is exposed at the custom-houses,
and, worst of all, the bankers will never own to the losses
they sustain, which, as a visitation of God, would, if
avenged, lead, they think, to future, and perhaps heavier,
punishment. Had the Thugs destroyed Englishmen they
would quickly have been put down ; but the system being
invariably practised on a class of people acknowledging the
finger of the Deity in its execution, its glaring enormities
were long in rousing the attention of the Indian Govern-
ment.
A few examples of the activity exercised by the sup-
pressors may be interesting. They act wholl) through the
information given by approvers, who are simply king's
evidences. Of 000 Thugs engaged in the murder of 64
people, and the plunder of nearly 20,0(X)l.,all except seventy
were captured in ten years, though separated into six
gangs, and their operations continued from 1826 to 1830:
the last party was taken in 1836. Aud again, between the
years 1826 and 1835, 1,562 Thugs were-seized, of whom 382
were hanged, and 909 transported; so that now it is but
seldom these wretches are ever heard of.
To show the extent of their operations I shall quote an
anecdote from Sleeman's Reports (to which I am indebted
for most of the above information). He states that he was
for three years in charge of a district on the Nerbudda, and
considered himself acquainted with every circumstance that
occurred in the neighbourhood; yet, during that time, 100
people were murdered and buried within less than a quarter
of a mile of his own residence !

It would be an improvement if some of the
botanical and scientific details which encum-
ber these journals were removed to an appen-
dix, or otherwise reserved for separate discus-
sion. They interfere with the narrative, and,
being scattered up and down, want method
and arrangement.

Purple Tints of Paris : Character and Manners
in the New Empire. By Bayle St. John.
London : Chapman and Hall.
WE cannot be expected to agree with all the con-
elusions of a writer who regards the late French
RV Inc with \be- \ ded admiration, and corn-
all who opposed it.
een us upon this large
ier our criticism contro-
to consider at all the
. the work is written.
k to indicate by a few
nature of the materials
There is a charm in
th which Mr. St. John

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Republic with unbounded
prehensively condemns
. The antagonism betweei
T Jiff fa.Lkx2 "valc4velarendc
if we undertook
• :r! • :; •a .1 Which
'Ail: I ;.41:re • me tasl
xle as r tip
ble na
t stration.
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