The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1842-11-18 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

THE THIYGGEE DEPARTMENT.  (From the Agra Ukbar.) In our issue of the 19th, we stated that we believed it to be beyond a doubt, that the Thugs. although they have been greatly thinned, are not altogether exterminated ; therefore, that it would be a most unwise measure to reduce the Thuggee department for many years to come. Since then we have had our supposition confirmed, and we now know for a certainty, that several leading members of the Thug fraternity, in the Deckan and Southern India, together with many others of minor note, are still at large: indeed the number is estimated as approaching fifty ; and we understand that, besides these, who are in themselves quite sufficient to revive Thuggee throughout India, there is very strong reason for believing that another class of these miscreants exists under the guise of Biragees—Hindoo religious mendicants. In fact, most direct and positive evidence on this point has been obtained by some of the officers of the department ; and these Biragees have hitherto only escaped detection through their migratory habits, a constant change in their appearance, and by their having kept the other Thugs in the dark as to their permanent abiding places, or indeed the particular province whence they come, though there is no doubt of their being from some part of Hindostan. These wretches cannot, however, much longer escape detection ; even now parties are on the look-out for them, as the routes they frequent are well known, it having been ascertained that they travel even to the southernmost point of India, and being besides further surmised that they occasionally visit Ceylon. If no impediment be thrown in the way to prevent the continued exercise of that persevering zeal which has hitherto been so conspicuous in the Thuggee department, the same exertions which were so successful in tracing out and exterminating the race of Thugs of the Golah caste, who were for so many ages safely and unsuspectedly located in the dense jungles of the Cuttack province, will ere long trace out this class likewise of those vile murderers. Besides these, we are informed, that a set of miscreants infest almost all the great thoroughfares, throughout India, who make it their business to poison any traveller who unwarily trusts himself to their hands ; and they are equally as much to be dreaded as were the Thugs themselves. It is quite necessary for the safety of the traveller, that these wretches should be traced out and put down ; and, with the knowledge that the government have of their existence, it will be criminal to desist until we have well grounded reason to believe the whole class have been exterminated ; but as we cannot expect that the ordinary police of the country, although reformed according to the plan proposed, will be able to effect this, we hope that the important task will be entrusted entirely to the Thuggee department, which has so satisfactorily rooted out the greater portion of these secret murderers. But to return to the Thugs already known, and of whom a pretty good account has already been given, thanks to the zeal and activity of Major Sleeman and his assistants, we are told that active measures are still being carried on against them, though in some parts of India they have been completely eradicated; and there the endeavour is to keep down " the system," but which will, we are convinced, inevitably:revive, should this vigilance be withdrawn ; for the seed of that system, we are assured, on good autborito, exists throughout the peninsula. In the Deckan and Southern India, as we said before, many Thugs are, it is well known, still at large • and, notwithstanding all the endeavours made to trace them out,—for now they have no fixed dwelling-places,—the generality of them continue to elude their pursuers; but the chase is not altogether fruitless, for, during the last year, the offices in the south have been able to bring eight of these wretches to justice, and we hear that parties are now out in various quarters in search of others, whose traces they are following on good information. The success of the last year is mainly owing to the removal of one of the offices to the southern province ; and parties from that office are constantly to be heard of in those districts, as our correspondents have from time to time made known.