Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1887-1895, 1893-01-06
MURDER THEIR PROFESSION.
The Thugs of India Made the Taking OF
Life q Fine Art.

be recognized profession in India"
said an Oriental traveller to a Star
writer "a few years ago those who
practiced the business were divided into
three classes, most important of which
was that of the thugs. They originated
about two hundred years ago, and were
extremely numerous at the time when
the British first gained a foothold in
that country. Some notion may be got
of the scale on which they worked from
the fact that one of them, captured
few years ago, confessed to having
taken part in 931 deliberate killings of
human beings. They travelled in gangs,
and, inasmuch as the native govern
ments took no pains to put them down,
their vocation prospered. Each minor
organization in their association, con-
tanning often one hundred men, alb
stained from the practice of its industry
in its own immediate neighborhood,
which was none the less exposed to &C.
casional visits from other bands, so that
the slaughter went on continually
everywhere. One official of the East
India Company, who was for three years
in charge of district on the Nerbudda
river, testified in his reports that dur
ing that period 100 people were muir
dered within less than a quarter of a
mile of his residence.
''It would be incorrect to imagine
that the thugs were mere brutal crimi-
nails with an appetite for blood. On the
contrary, many of them belonged to the
most intelligent and respectable classes.
They loved their profession, regarded
the killing of people as legitimate sport
and even considered themselves ennis
saries of a divinity, SO that they were
never troubled with pangs of conscience
on account of their deeds. They were
organized as a regu. ar army, rising
through various grades according to
merit. The lowest rank was composed
of scouts, the second of Sections the
third of men whose duty it was to hold
the hands of the victims while the latter
were cholked to death by the strangers,
who formed the fourth and highest
rank. They worshiped the pickaX,
which was symbolical of their profess
sion, and an oath sworn on it was never
broken. In the district of Dude alone,
which is ITO miles long by 100 miles
broad, there were 274 regular stations
maintained for committing murders.
''Fifty years ago the Ganges river be-
tween Benares and Calcutta was in
Tested during five months of every year
with no less than $50 boats which made
pretense of transporting religious pill
grims. When passengers had been taken
on board at a given signal the crew
rushed upon them, strangled them or
broke their backs and threw them into
the stream, where floating corpses are
too numerous at all times of the year to
excite any remark, such being to this
day the ordinary method of disposing of
the dead adopted by poor people who
cannot afford to bury them. Other
plans practiced were to inveigle travel
ers to the murder stations or to capture
them in darkness on the roads, the
night time being commonly chosen in
India for making journeys on account
of the heat of the day. Owing to the
extraordinary notions of fate held by
the natives of the Orient, this wholesale
destruction of human life occasioned
very little remark. If a person died it
| was the will of the Deity, and SO there
| could be no use in stirring up an inves-
tigation of the matter.
"TYe motive of the thugs in their
business of slaughter was two-fold. 1t
was highly stimulating sport to them,
with a certain amount of religious SEN
! timent in it, and it was productive OF
, gain in the shape of plumber. In one
| instance on record the killing of six
persons yielded $40, 900. Because the
| thugs confined their attention to the
native people, who made no complaint t,
long time passed before the British
authorities took any active measures
| for putting down the evil; but when the
| work of suppressing it was once begun
| it was carried on with such activity and
effectiveness that the gangs were soon
wiped out OF one society that included
600 assassins all save seventy were cap
| tured in ten years Between 1926 and
| 1885, 1862 thugs were arrested, of whom
3S2 were hanged and 909 were trans
ported. A part of the code of Thuggee
| was never to practice unnecessary cru
city, nor in any case to rob victim
before killing him. Infants were al
ways spared and were trained to the
| profession. The murder of women was
| not countenanced, though certain gangs
adopted the practice. Most commonly
thug would engage an unwary trav-
eler in conversation, when the superior
stranger would throw his own linen
girdle around the unfortunates neck
and choke him to death by pressing the
knuckles against his spine.
Besides the thugs, there were in
India the prisoners and the robbers
The former all belonged to one class Of
dealers in toddy. They went singly OF
in gangs, haunting the stopping places
of travellers, where they would take ad-
vantage of any opportunity to drop a
small quantity of pounded 'datura
seeds into the wayfarer's food. Then
they would rob him and leave him tc
take his chances of recovering from the
dangerous effects of the narcotic. The
robbers likewise went about in gangs
stealing wherever and whatever they
could, and improving such chances fol
incendiarism as fell in their way. They
were originally all high-class Rajpoots
who, on being conquered by the Mo
hammedans, vowed to to revenge them
selves upon mankind. "-Washingt
Star.
Wonderful Things In Heredity.
1t is fact well established by stu
dents of heredity that children are ap
10 inherit not only the physical, menta
l &c ~ hoi 4,