8g 



Customs and practices of the Thugs* 



[JuLT 



which they are known. Of the number of Mussulman Thugs, some 

 are to be found of every sect, Shaikh, Sied, Mogul and Puttan ; and, 

 among the Hindoos, the castes chiefly to be met with, are Brahmins, 

 Rajpoots and Holees. In a gang of Thugs, some of every one of 

 these castes may be found, all connected together by the peculiar plan 

 of murder practised by them ; all subject to the same regulations, 

 and all, both Hindoos and Mussulmans, joining in the worship of 

 Bhowanee. 



They usually move in large parties, often amounting to one hundred 

 or two hundred persons, and resort to all manner of subterfuges, for 

 the purpose of concealing their real profession. If they are travelling 

 southward, they represent themselves to be either proceeding in quest 

 of service, or on their way to rejoin the regiments they pretend to 

 belong to in this part of the country. When, on the contrary, their 

 route lies towards the north, they represent themselves to be sepoys 

 from corps of the Bombay, or Nizam's, army, going, on leave, to Hin- 

 doostan. 



The gangs do not always consist of persons who are Thugs by birth. 

 It is customary for them to entice, by the promise of monthly pay, or 

 the hopes of amassing money, that are held out, many persons who are 

 ignorant of the deeds of death, that are to be perpetrated for the attain- 

 ment of these objects, until made aware of the reality by seeing the 

 victims of their cupidity fall under the hands of the strangler. 

 The Thugs declare that novices have, occasionally, been so horrified at 

 the sight, as to have effected their immediate escape ; others, more cal- 

 lous to the commission of crime, are not deterred from the pursuit of 

 wealth by the frightful means adopted to obtain it, and, remaining with 

 the gang, too soon begin personally to assist in the perpetration of 

 murder. 



Many of the most notorious Thugs, are the adopted children of others 

 of the same class. They make it a rule, when a murder is committed, 

 never to spare the life of any one, either male or female, Who is old 

 enough to remember and relate the particulars of the deed. But, in the 

 event of their meeting with children, of such a tender age, as to make 

 it impossible they should be able to reveal the fact, they generally spare 

 their lives, and, adopting them, bring them up to the trade of Thugee. 

 These men, of course, eventually become acquainted with the fact of 

 the murder of their fathers and mothers, by the very persons with 

 whom they have dwelt since their childhood, but are still not deterred 

 from following the same dreadful trade. 



It might be supposed that a class of persons, whose hearts must be 

 effectually hardened against all the better feelings of humanity, would 

 encounter few scruples of conscience in the commission of the horrid 

 deeds whereby they Subsist \ but, in point of fact, they are as much the 



