276 PRINCIPAL SIP W. TURNER ON 



The nasal index in the skull was 51*1, whilst in the living people the average of the 

 measurements was 75*6, a difference readily accounted for when it is kept in mind that 

 the height of the nose is practically alike in the skull and the face, but that in the latter 

 the alse of the nose produce a width much greater than the width of the anterior nares. 

 It has already been stated that the nasal index computed from the skull was mesorhine, 

 and though in living persons the limits of the groups into which this index is arbitrarily 

 divided are not numerically the same as in the skull, the mean obtained by Mr 

 Thurston is so distinct from the high platyrhine index of living negroes and Australians 

 on the one hand, and the low leptorhine index of Europeans on the other, that it may 

 fairly be regarded as mesorhine, though the range in measurement shows that some 

 faces were distinctly platyrhine and others leptorhine. 



THUGS. Table III. 



In the early years of the nineteenth century the Government of India became 

 aware of the existence of organised gangs of assassins, who frequented the great roads 

 of communication, and, in the character of pilgrims, or men engaged in business, gained 

 the confidence of other travellers, and committed wholesale murder and robbery. 

 Their depredations were not confined to particular districts, but extended throughout 

 India from north to south and east to west.* The name of Thugs was usually given to 

 these assassins. An inquiry into their history showed that murder by strangling had 

 been practised for a long period of time by certain families, who regarded the system 

 of Thuggee as of divine origin, a rite authorised by the goddess Kalee or Bhawanee, 

 and the persons murdered were looked upon by the Thugs as victims offered at the 

 shrine of the goddess. 



Although the practice of strangulation was pursued by families in whom it had 

 become hereditary, and had assumed a caste -like distinction, children were occasionally 

 adopted from other castes and trained to the occupation. There is a tradition that the 

 early Thugs were Muhammadans, but in course of time Hindus became associated with 

 them in the practice. About 1830 reports of the frequent murders of travellers caused 

 the Governor-General, Lord William Bentinck, to take action for the suppression of 

 this crime, and owing to the indefatigable zeal of Sir William Sleeman, political officer 

 at Saugor, Central Provinces, some hundreds of Thugs were captured, many of whom 

 were hanged, and others transported and imprisoned. In course of time the organisa- 

 tion was crushed, and assassination by strangling as a profession has, it is believed, 

 come to an end. 



When, under the guidance of George Combe, the phrenological doctrines and 



* See memoir in Asiatic Researches, by R. C. Sherwood, in which they are called P'hansigars, or Stranglers, vol. 

 iii. p. 259 : Calcutta, 1820. In this memoir, as well as in a Report by Mr John Shakespear, p. 282, the alterna- 

 tive names T'hegs and Badheks are given to them. See also Eamaseena, by W. H. Sleeman : Calcutta, 1836; 

 Edinburgh Review, vol. lxiv. p. 357, 1837 ; Quarterly Review, vol. cxciv. p. 506, 1901. 



