The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1908-09-01
LAST OF THUGS Of INDIA
Men Who Reduced Murder to
i an Art-Victims Sacrificed.
HOW GRAFT FLOURlSHED.
Religious Devotees Thstr Divided
spolls Of Their cElsrG With Tenn.
pie---How Membsrs Of the Band
Were lnltisted--TheIr PaImy


Were lnltisted---TheIr PaImy
Days in Paris.
The Drugs were under vows TO Kali
Devi. fhe black browed consort OF
Sivafthe Destroyer She Is that terri
bic parsonage who appears in the
Hindu Pantheon as a fierce but beau
tiful woman, riding on a tiger, or as a
hideous, blood stained idol garland
ed with skulls. Banded together as
caste brothers, the Thugs hunted men
to offer them to the deity OF destruc-
ton, and because she required blood
less sacrifice they killed their victims
by suffocation.
The Thugs, not being cannibals,
could not live by mere murder. So
they robbed their victims and divided
;he spoils between themselves and the
temples of Kali. AS a religious body
they were protected by the Brahmins
and by pious but impecunious Rajas,
who licensed and taxed them. 1t was
an easy way for a ruler to increase
his revenue and the victims were tray-
cling merchants who would not he
missed.
During the many centuries of war
and anarchy in India Thuggee -four
ished nightly Under Aurungzebe, TO
whom as u Moslem Kali was an aD-
| horred idol, it suffered check.
The Emperor ordered the Thugs to be
strung up by the left hands in the
Jungle and left there to die The Ban
ians, prototypes of the sentimental
lists who present notorious modern
| criminals with bouquets, banqueted
the strangers before the execution.
These terrCrs of the Indian high
way are now extinct, like the sabre
toothed tiger About sixty years ago
many hundreds were executed and the
remainder transported or put to work
| at tent making and other peaceful
trades, in strict confinement.
II was the writer's privilege a few
years ago to visit one of the last Of
| the world famous strangers. He had
been captured young. and sentenced
| to Imprisonment for life in a central
Indian Jail.
Nadhoo, so he was called, had been
| SO long a prisoner that he was rather
cared for as a curiosity, a museum
| specimen, than treated as a criminal.
| He he'd become an expert in weaving
and when the looms we're idle was by
no means unwilling to talk of his eX-
Ieriences as a Thug. He had been
Torn in the caste, and devoted early
to the service of Kali. His father led
him TO a secret place in the jungle
and initiated him, by the wierd rite
OF the corpse and the dagger, into the
freemasonry of the brotherhood. He
learned their signs, how to interpret
the omen of the Owl, the patter OF
the ''ramawsi'- secret language
OF the craft. Being a precocious youth,
as he said. he was selected to play
the part of 'talker," or confidence
man. The old man illustrated with
wrist and knuckle the act of tighten
ing the rumai or handkerchief, round
the neck of the victim. lie told how
the travellers were buried while warm
in the graves that mad been prepared
fer them. For himself II was his des-
tiny to be a Thug. 1T is ou Gus
tom" he said. The potters son takes
10 the potter's wheel; the copper
smiths to the tinkling OF the ham
mer."
The garrotters who infested London
in the COS choked, but did not XIII the
late returning citizens. When chloro-
form came into use in surgery, the
underworld of crime, or at any rate
its master minds at one appreciated its
value II was painless, it was safe
for them; the victim would awake T.
state of mental confusiOn-he cOuld
give the police no clew. The drug De-
came popular with the scientific Grim
nals who operated ON English rail-
road lines, where the closed compart-
ments secure privacy, Sometimes a
subject died under chloroform by mis-
adventure, but that might have hap,
pened at the hands of young med
zeal practitioner.
In Paris, however, the tricks OF In
dian Thuggee have been closely fol-
lowed Look over the files of the
Partisan papers of recent years, you
will find accounts of men found dead
in lonely places with leather cords
around their necks and empty pock-
cts.
A robber dressed like q workman
or petit bourgeois would approach q
belated clubman and offer him fol
sale ring, ostensibly picked up from
the pavement. If Monsieur did not
take alarm the robbers partner, whC
had crept behind his victim, SHARED
his mouth and throat in moose TheT
with a quick jiu-jitsu turn the thug
heayed him off the ground on to his
own back, like sack of coal and his
partner stepped up and riled Mon
sieurs pockets. The latter was then
dropped on the pavement with force
enough to stun him and the thugs
made their escape.
To the Grave In a CAP.
The eccentric life of the late HoratiC
Bright wealthy retired manufacturer