Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-03-08
THE THUGS OF INDIA.
The People of "a Religion OfCOId- FLOODED
Murder Fast Dy Ing Out.


Having finished my inspection of the in
dustrial school, / cross over TO the Thug
colony, still attended by the obliging custo-
dams. Here again the contrast between the
outward appearance and real character OF
the place is absolutely startling. Third-rate
novelists, when creating villains of the
deepest dye, kindly offer their victims
a chance of escape by labelling every
miscreant with "Mephis!opheles eye" and
sinister expression which say palmer than
any words, Il am villain" But in real
life such convenient danger signals are far
less frequent. Nero's cast OF feature was
mild and somewhat pleasant. The fresh,
childlike face of Marie de Brinviniers
might have suited one of RaphaePs
cherubim. In Mana Sahib's handsome,
INDECENT, somewhat sensual countenanCe,
the men who trusted him could read
no warning of the nameless horrors Of
Cawnpore. One of the brightest and most
attractive young fellows that l have ever
met was a Circassian murderer, in whose
company / crossed the Caspian sea, and
who was then on his way to lifelong exile in
Siberia for a crime too hideous to bear de-
scription. SO, too. with the Thug village
and its people. Men are cooking their food
women washing their clothes, children play
ing in front OF the huts, goats and bullocks
grazing quietly around them, Just as you
may see them in any HindV village from
the Himalaya to Cape Comorin. Who can
realize in such scene of peaceful and harm
| IS domesticity that he is standing among
the priests of religion OF cold blooded muir
der. men who prayed daily in all sincerity
for succefs in their work of blood, took their
allotted parts in the strangling of some help
less victim as gravely and methodically as
if engaged in a religious service, made an
equitable division Of the plumber, and went
home fresh from this sacrament of he'll to
embrace their wives, fondle their children
and eujoy their evening meal with just the
same feeling of honest satisfaction with
which man Of business returns to his home
circle after good days work.
Suddenly three tall, gaunt gray-h aired
men come slowly forward from the buts on
our left, and my guide whispers that these
are veteran Thugs the last survivors of the
original colony. | look at the nearest Of the
three and recognize the living likeness of
''Juma, the Stranger" in Lord Lyttons
Strange Story. The spare, elastic figure, the
the shqrp, feshless, vuture-like profile are
all there. To the custodian's question of how
many men ne has murdered, he answers,
with the nearest approach to laugh which
a Hindu can make, that he cannot tell, hav-
ing long since lost count of them. ] bare
my wrist, and, giving him a handkerchief,
tell him to show me how the fatal twist was
given. The fierce Joy that instantly lights
mp the old savage'5 lean, wolish face and
those ef his two comrades is hideous to see
He clutches eagerly at the handkerchief
and, making knot in it TO give hm bet
ter hold. twists it round my arm with sud
aeu wrench that seems TO snap the very
ne. Then, Tor the first time with the feel
ing Of that murderous grip, cones upon me
the full horror OF this ministry OF death.
which has hovered for ages in the back
ground OF the glorious Indian scenery, in
visible, but ail-pervading, and ready at any
moment to swoop on its unsuspectiug victim.
Even here, among friends and in perfect
safety, the vision Of such death far in tine
depths of the lone jungle, with those merci-
! IS faces bent over him, and that
grasp at his throat, might
well make the boldest men quail. As | turn
away in disgust my guide points to the half
effaced foundations OF several mud walls, and
tells me that as each Thug dies the hut in
which he lived is destroyed. A fit end, indeed,
to such colony; but there is q kind of grim
poetry in the idea Of making the village
Itself waste with the wasting numbers OF in
habitants, as If TO blot from the face Of the
earth all vestige of a creed in which even
the horror breeding East has fairly sur
DaSsed itself