25Q Sievenson\'i account of the P'hansigars. [July 



murder of their fellow-creatures. When their means of 

 debauchery and indulgence became limited by the ex- 

 penditure and waste of their ill-gotten wealth, fresh ex- 

 peditions were ordered, and parlies sent to make cir- 

 cuits in different directions, all the plunder being brought 

 to their head-quarters to be shared. They were sworn 

 to a fair division, to secrecy, and to inviolable fidelity to 

 each other. Their standing rules were never to rob 

 without first depriving tbeir victim of life, never to at- 

 tack by open force, and never to leave the smallest traces 

 of their crimes ; the bodies of the murdered being en- 

 tirely defaced or deeply buried, and the property sent to 

 a distant market. As all their murders are perpetrated 

 by means of strangulation, no marks of blood are left on 

 the spot ; and so well have they generally kept their re- 

 solves and contrived their crimes, and so faithful have 

 they generally proved to each other, that there are but 

 few instances of P'hanslgdrs being convicted in a court 

 of justice, although they have been repeatedly appre- 

 hended. A departure from their rules (the commission 

 of a daring robbery which was quite out of their line) 

 led to the seizure of the gang to which I have alluded. 



Their methods of proceeding in their own horrid trade 

 are various ; but the chief object in view is to lull their 

 victim into a sense of security before they proceed to de - 

 prive him of life, which is, as before remarked, always 

 effected by strangulation. When a favourable opportu- 

 nity presents itself, one of the party throws a noose, 

 which is made with a tightly twisted handkerchief,* 

 round the destined sufferer's neck ; an accomplice imme- 

 diately strikes the person on the inside of his knees, so 

 as to knock him off his legs, and thus throw the whole 



* This cloth, or handkercJiief, is stated to be always of a white or a yellow 

 colour, those being the favourite colours of their tutelary deity Makiatta, 

 the goddess of suiall-pox in M,:ilabar, 



