Sentence:  Occasionally you might have beheld us chasing up scores of Dorkings,—which had been our admiration for the twelvemonth, and massacreing them remorselessly for the public good: our turkeys and geese, too, were in continual jeopardy of their lives. But,—these <WSD>Thuggish</WSD> propensities notwithstanding, we took a paternal interest in our feathered family. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Resembling (the behaviour of) the assassins known as thugs or Thuggees (often capitalized in this sense).