The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1906-05-03

of the victim. He told how the travel
/ lers were buried while warm in the
graves that had been prepared for
them. For himself it was his destiny to
be a Thug. 1T is our custom" he said.
The potter's son takes to the potter S
| wheel; the coppersmith's to the tinkling
manner"
Strangely enough the veteran became
himself a sacrifice to the goddess of his
VOWS. For Kali Devi is also the pa
troness of that scourge Of India, cholera
morbus, and next hot weather the old
Thug passed during an epidemic Kali
had stretched out one Of her hundred
hands and called her devotee away.
From the confession it seems that
| winning the confidence of their victims
| was the mainstay of the Thug business
There was not the bold, overt, Your
money or your life attack of the ban
dit, but the crafty approach of the
criminal tactician. They reekoned on
| taking their man off his guard, as the
| 'ooney catcher" did in sixteenth cen
fury London, as the bunco man does
to-day in Western America, Conf
dence operations are as old as graft it,
self.
The work of suppressing Thuggee was
done by Colonel Sleeman, one of those
| martyrs to exile and official duty that
the Indian civil service needs and
trains. In the district where he re-
placed blackmail and brigandage by
law and order the town Of Shenandoah
-Sleeman's city-stands for his monu-
| me1t. The long task of rounding up
| the. Thug bands was made easier by
powerful religious band was broken
when unbelieving Moslems were adj
mitted as members of the robber caste,
| and rose TO be leaders. Fhen Kali
worship became a mere pretext for rob-
berry and murder and Thuggee fell be-
for the represeive measure Of a strong
executive.
One is not surprised to hear of Euro
pean criminals adopting methods more
or less like those of the Thugs If a
robber can trust his pal two heads and
two pairs of hands are better than
one, A skillful grasp on the throat by
one man stiles the cry for help and
| safeguards the operators Of his partner.
But as no idea of religious duty would
avail in court, they must stop short Of
| strangulation or risk charge of MUIR
der.
The garrotters who infested London
in the Cos checked but did not kill the
late returning citizens When chloro-
form came into use in surgery the
underworld of crime, or at any rate Its
master minds at once appreciated its
value 1t was painless, it was safe-for
them; the victim would awake in
state Of mental confusion-he could give
the police no clew. The drug became
popular with the scientific criminals
who operated on English railroad lines,
where the closed compartments secure
privacy Sometimes subject died
under chloroform by inisadventure, but
that might have happened at the hands
of a young medical practitioner.
In Paris, however the tricks of In
dian Thuggee have been closely fol-
lowed. Look over the files of the Pari-
sian papers of recent years, YOU will
find accounts Of men found dead in
lonely places with leather cords around
their necks and empty pockets. They
had resisted the attacks of strangler
thieves In other cases wealthy men
returning late from the opera on foot,
fell victims to the handkerchief trick.
In this case the "foulard" Of heavy
Lyons silk took the place Of the cotton
''rumal" Of the Thug.
A robber dressed like a workman or
petit bourgeois would approach a be-
lated clubman and offer him for sale
ring, ostensibly picked up from the
pavement. If monsieur did not take
alarm the robbers partner, who had
crept up behind his victim, shared his
mouth and throat In a moose, Then
with a quick jiu-jitsu turn the thug
heaved him off the ground on to his
own back, like sack of coal, and his
partner stepped up and rifled Mon
sieur's pockets. The latter was then
dropped on the pavement with force
enough ito stun him and the thugs
made their escape.
The French gendarmerie trace this
clever and bloodless operation to the
teaching of q professor who lectured In
the criminal quarter of Paris some six-
ty years since. About that time the
Thugs of India were being brought to
trial, and the revelations that followed
excited great interest in Europe 1t Is
very likely that the professor borrowed
his line of treatment from these pub
lished cases. But old Nadhoo of the
jail would have said that the spirit Of
an executed Thug had incarnated it.
self in the Frenchman in order to prop
agate the mystery Of Thuggee in the
virgin soil Of France.
The Thugs of India, 1t is said, began
as devotees, but ended as brigands.
Some form of brigandage, indeed,
seems indemic in Asiatic countries that
are not ruled by the strong hand, Bur-
anah ia a case in point and so are the
PHILIPPINES.
The Thugs of Burmah are called da-
colts. During the first few years of the
British occupation the troops were ae-
lively employed In small detachments
in hunting down the "dakus" and lay
ing their chiefs by the heels. 1t was a
rough school for subalterns. The nature
of the warfare is well Illustrated in
Kipling's THE Taking of Lungtung-
pen,' a tale OF the marrying of a dacoit
stronghold by Mulvaneys detachment.
But dacoity Is now extinct In Burmah
and the country Is polieed by native
eonstabulary.
FgVRR pI1PNfNrf1 MOUNTAINS