Delaware inquirer. (Wilmington, Del.) 1859-18??, 1859-11-19
fFUH1 OHu11lUoTo JUullluI
School of Industry for Thugs.

oCuUUl VI Auuu5tly lUk Auu6ni
Some years ago we gave ourreaders sketch
of the race of hereditary robbers and murder
ers in India called Thugs and we have now
the task, as strange as it is pleasing, of DESERT
bing series of measures by which, in the part
of the country where the experiment has been
tried, these preternatural monsters have been
already converted into quiet and useful citi-
zens. We are enabled to do this by the kind
Jubbulpoor, iu the Sauger and Nerbudda terri
tory. He describes himself as "poor, ,unedu-
| Gated man, but one interested in his fellow
beings !" and he addresses himself to this
journal in gratitude for its efforts in the cause
| of human amelioration, and from his desire to
take advantage of circulation which is not
confined to one confined to one country, or one
hemisphere in giving publicity to some impor-
tant suggestions He begins his communica-
tion by referring to our account of the Dundee
School of Industry in March last, perusal of
which led him to suppose that we should be
glad to have sketch of similar establish
ment in India, whose objects are not piferers
and beggars, but outlaws of nature as well as
of man, who inherited from their ancestors, MS
their sole fortune and profession in the world,
the trade of assassination
| Jubbulpoor, we may premise, is a town of
about 10000 inhabitants, and somewhat re-
marksble, even in India, for ignorance and su-
perstition. Its neighborhood was specially in-
tested with Thugs and poisoners, and its citi-
zens, to man, were-and most of them are
still-devout believers in the grossest species
of sorcerery. We mention this to show that
the singular school of industry we are to de-
scribe set out with no peculiar advantages of
locality.
The grand difficulty that was at first found
in the suppression of Thuggee, arose from the
vast extent of the territory it pervaded, and the
want of local courts for the special cognizancc
of that gigantic crime. Such tribunals were at
length formed in the capital cities of various
princes, with our residents for their judges ;
while at Jubbulpoor, Colonel Sleeman estab-
| lished himself in 1896, as chief superintendent
of the whole. Thanks to the energy of this
meritorious officer, murder was now no longer
| permitted to traverse the country unchecked
| Upwards of thousand Thug families were
apprehended and sent in to Jubbulpoor for
trial; and as everything is on great scale in
India, it was no uncommon thing to see in a
single morning fifteen, twenty, even twenty
five, of these wretches swinging upon the gal
lows. The consequence of this virtually Sc
verify was, that the whole race was seized with
a panic; the gangs separated and fed.
But all the convicts could not be hanged, and
many were found useful Ms approvers in OBJ
tanning the conviction of the rest, as they were
captured from time to time. OF these there
had collected at Jubbulpoor, in the year 1887,
45O men with their wives and families, who re-
sided during the day in walled village in the
neighborhood built on purpose for their recep-
ton for their reception, while at night the
men were locked up in the jails of the town.
Each family, according TO size, received from
four to eight shillings month for its support;
but as the mouths Increased in number, this
grew more and more inadequate, and the chill
dren were sent out by their parents to
work, beg, plfer, or forage for themselves in
any way they thought proper. Colonel Slee-
man saw that this system could not go on.-
As the children grew up, their wants would be
greater, and their will stronger, and the con-
vict village would turn out to be a nursery of
crime. Under these circumstances, he sug-
gested to his able and energetic assistant, Lieu
tenant Brown, the necessity of their attempt
ing to introduce habits of industry among the
convicts and their families,
Lieutenant Brown set to work with his Gus
tomary alacrity, and erected a few sheds near
his own house, where he induced about two
hundred of the approvers themselves to repair,
for the purpose of working at some common
manufacture. These men, however, had never
in their lives tried their hands at anything but
murder, and such work as they were now set to
did not come kindly to them. Their reward
was to be the profit on the articles manufac-
tured; but the manufacture was so bad, and the
profit, in consequence, SO small, that the labor
ers became first discontented, then disgusted
and then enraged at their having condescended
to ANYTHING at once so mean and improbable
as regular industry. One day, in order to make
an end of the business they set fire to the
whole plant, and burned it to the ground.
Here they had reckoned however, without their
host, Lieutenant Brown; for the circumstance
only made him the more determined and per-
emptory. He turned out the whole village
morning and evening for six hours, to make
bricks sufficient for shed eighty feet by forty
and having completed the building he borrow
ed ESQ from the government to roof il in. The
lieutenant himself, however, had to attend to
his magistcrial and other duties from ten till
five o'clock and the native guards were useless
in superintendent, as they stood in the most
| abect awe of their desperate prisoners, and
allowed them to work or play just as they
pleased. lie applied, therefore, for AN over
seer, and obtained, in 1910, the services Of
a Mr.. Williams, daring and indefatiga-
BILE officer, who kept four hundred despara-
does at work from seven A. NJ. till FIVE p. NJ,
thrashing with his own hands the idle and re-
fractory. Under this discipline, the convicts
were able in two years to spin hemp, weave