Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-03-28
THE THUg=0f INDIA
So
How Crime is Carried on by
Professionals.
INFLUENCE OF CASTE
EFFECT OF THE PREVAILING
PRACTICE OF INFANTICIDE.
British Efforts to Check the Slaughter
Statistics Showing Disproportion
Of the Sexes Surviving.
BY WILLIAM E. CURTIS,
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star and
Chicago Record Herald.

BY WILLIAM E. CURTIS,
Special Correspondence Of The Evening Star and
Chicago Record Herald.
DELHI, India, March q 1904.
Nfzam-u-Din, one of the greatest of the
Hindu saints, lies in the tomb Of marble
lace work and embroidery 1 referred to in
my letter yesterday; as exquisite a bit OF
architecture as you can imagine, SO dainty
in all it's details that it ought to be the
sepulcher of fairy queen instead Of that
of the founder of the Thugs, the secret re-
ligious society of assassins which was sup
pressed and practically exterminated by the
British authorities in the COS and '7Os. He
died in 1852.
He was fanatic, who worshiped the
goddess Kali, the black wife of silva, and
believed that the removal of unbelievers
from the earth was what we call Chris
tan duty. AS Kali prohibited the she'd
ding Of blood. he trained his devotees to
strange their fellow-beings without leav-
ing any traces of their work, and sent out
hundreds Of professional murderers over
india to diminish the number of heretics
for the good and glory of the faith. No
saint in the Hindu calendar is more gener-
ally worshiped or more profoundly revered
unto the present day. His tomb is attended
by groups of Brahmins who place fresh
flowers upon the cenotaph every morning,
and cover 1t reverently with cashmere
shawls of the finest texture and pieces of
rare embroidery.
Professional Criminals.
India is the only country where crime
was ever Systematically carried on as a
regular and legitimate occupation in the
belief that 1t was right, and not only the
Thugs but other professional murderers
existed for centuries, and still exist, al
though in greatly diminished numbers,
owing to the vigilance of the police and not
because they have become converted from
the error of their ways. There are vet
tribes or professional criminals who believe
that In following the customs and the occu-
patton of their ancestors they are acting in
the only way that is right and are serving
the gods they worship.
Criminal organiza tons exist in nearly all
the native states, and the government is
just now making special effort to stamp
out professional 'dacoits, who are asso-
clated for the purpose of highway robbery
cattle stealing and violence, and carry on
marauding expeditions from their head
quarters continuously. sThey are Just as
wen organized and as thoroughly devoted
10 their business as the gangs of highway
men that used to make travel dangerous
throughout Europe in the middle ages And
mere are other criminal organizations with
Wmch 1t Is even more difficult to DEAL A
recent official report from the office of the
home secretary s;ays:e
We all knou thaEtrades go bv "a sizes In
india; a family of~earpenters will be a
famliy OF carpenters a century or five CEN
turtles hence, if they last so long: so with
grain dealers, blacksmiths, leather-makers
and every known trade. If we keep this in
mind when we speak of professional GRIM
inals' we shall realize what the term really
means. 1t means that the members of a
tribe whose ancestors werek criminals from
time immemorial are themselves destined
by the use of the caste to commit crime
and their descendants will be offenders
against the law till the whole tribe Is ex-
terminated or accounted for in the manner
of the thugs Therefore, when a man tells
you he is a badhak, or a kanjar, or a
senoria, he tells you, what few Europeans
ever thoroughly realize. that he is an habit
ual and avowed offender against the law,
and has been SO from the beginning and
will be so to the end. that reform is i'm
possible, for it is his trade his caste-I may
almost say, his religioun-to commit crime
Rounding Up the Thugs.
The thugs were broken up by Captain
Sleeman, brave and able British detective
who succeeded in entering that assassina-
ton society and was initiated into its terri
BILE mysteries A large number of the lead
ers were executed from time to time but
the government, whose policy is always to
respect religious customs of the Hindus
administered as little punishment as posi-
bic, and rounding up" all of the members
of this cult, as ranchmen would say Cor
rallied" them at the town of Jabalpur, near
the City of Allahabad, in northeastern In
dia, where they have since been under sur
veilance Originally there were 1880, but
now only about half of that number re-
main, who up to this date are not permit
ted to leave the Enclosure in which they are
kept without a permit.
One of the criminal tribes, called Bar
wars. numbers about a thousand families
and inhabits forty-eight villages in the dis
trict of Gonda, in the province of Oudh
not far from Delhi. They live quietly and
honestly upon their farms during the
months of planting and harvesting, but be-
tween crops they wander in small gangs
over distant parts of the country and rob-
bling and plundering with great courage and
skill. They even despoil the temples of the
gods. The only places that are sacred to
nauD, in the district of Orissa, and the
shrine of certain Mohammedan martyr
They have q regular organization under
hereditary chief, and If member of the
clan gives up thieving he is disgraced and
communicated. The plumber is divided
pro rata, and certain portion is set aside
for their priests and as offerings to their
gods.
There is a similar clan of organized rob-
bers and murderers known as Sonoriaths,
whose special business is to steal cattle, and
the Nina tribe, which lives in the district
of Gurgaon on the frontier of the Punjab
province, has 1000 members, given up en-
tirely to robbery and murder. They make
no trouble at home. They honest in
pitable and have considerable wealth. but
between crops the larger portion of the men
disappear from their homes and go into
other provinces for the purpose of robbery,
burglary and other forms of stealing. In
the Agra province are twenty-nine different
tribes who from time Eimmemorial have
made crime their serious occupation and,
like all those mentioned, Hook upon it as not
only a legitimate but a religious act ordered
and approved by theodeities they Worship.
Supervision Of, the Clans.
Special laws hated been enacted for re-
straining these castles Or clans. and special
police officers now exercise supervision over
them Every mansis required to register
at the police headquarters and receive a
passport He is required to live within a
certain distance. and cannot change his
abode or leave its, limits without permits
sion. If he does SO he lis arrested and i'm
prisoned The authorities believe that they
have considerably sreduted the amount of
crime committed py them. but they are
too cunning and COURAGEOUS to be entirely