The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1882-03-25
The Thugs Of India.

The following is an extract from
a lengthy letter to the New York
Times by a foreign correspondent
in India:
Having finished my inspection of
the industrial school, cross over
to the Thug colony, still attended
by the obliging custodian. Here
again the contrast between the out
ward appearance and real charac-
ter of the place is absolutely start
ling. Third-rate novelists when
creating villains of the deepest /
dye, kindly offer their victims a
chance of escape by labelling ev |
cry miscreant with 8 "Mephistop- !
pies eyen and sinister expression |
which says palmer than words, Z"
am villain.n But in real life such |
convenient danger signals are far
less frequent. Nero's east of fea-
ture was mild and somewhat pleas
ant. The fresh, child-like face of
Marie de Brinvilliers might have
suited one of Raphaeps cherubim.
In Mana Sahib's handsome, mdo-
lent, somewhat sensual counte-
nance, the men who trusted him
could read no warning Of the
nameless horrors of Cawnpore.
One of the brightest and most at
tractive young fellows that ] have
ever met was q Circasian murder
or. in whose company | crossed
the Caspian Sea, and who was then
on his way to lifelong exile IN ST
IBERIA for a crime too hideous to
bear descriptions. SO, too, with
the Thug village and its people.
Men are cooking their food, wo-
mon washing their clothes, chill
dren playing in front Of the huts,
goats and bullocks grazing quietly
around them, just as you may see
them in any Hindu village from the
Iimalaya to Cape Comorin. Who
can realize in such scene of
peaceful and harmless domesticity
that he is standing among the
priests of a religion Of cold-blood-
ed murder, men who prayed daily
in all sincerity for success in their
work of blood, took their allotted
parts in the strangling of some
helpless victim as gravely and me-
thodically as if engaged in some
religious service, made an equita-
BILE division of the plunder, and
went home fresh from this sacre-
ment of hell to embrace their
wives, fondle their children, and
enjoy their evening meal with just
the same feeling of honest salts
| faction with which q man of busi-
ness returns to his home circle
after a good days work.
Suddenly three tall, gaunt, gray
! haired men come slowly forward
| from the huts on our left, and my
guide whispers that these are vet.
eran Thugs, the last survivors Of
the original colony. look at the
nearest of the three and recog-
nize the living likeness Of Juma,
the stranger in Lord Lytton's
"Strange Story" The spare, elas-
tic figure, the white robe, the blank,
expressionless face, the sharp,
feshless, vulture-like profile, are
all there. To the custodian's ques-
ton how many men he has muir
dered, he answers, with the nearest
approach to laugh which Hin
du can make, that he cannot tell,
having long since lost count of
them. bare my wrist, and, giving
him handkerchief, tell him to
show me how the fatal twist was
given. The fierce joy that instant
ly lights up the old sayage's lean,
wolfish face and those of his two
comrades is hideous to see. He
clutches eagerly at the handker.
chief, and, making a knot in it to
give him q better hold, twists it
round my arm with a sudden
wrench that seems to snap the
very bone. Then, for the first
time, with the feeling of that muir
derous gripe, comes upon me the
full horror of this ministry of death,
which has hovered for ages in the
background of the glorious Indian
scenery, invisible, but all-pervad-
ing, and ready at any moment to
swoop on its unsuspecting victim.
Even here, among friends and in
perfect safety, the vision of such
a death, far in the depth of the
lone jungle, with those merciless
faces bent over him, and that throt-
Ting grasp at his throat, might well
make the bOldest man quail. As
turn away in disgust my guide
points to the half-efaced founda-
tions of several mud walls, and
tells me that, as each Thug dies,
the hut in which he lived is de-
stroyed. A fit end, indeed, to such