1336.] 



Gustoms and practices of the Thugs. 



of having successfully put their tens and twenties to death daily ; 

 and that they say an enumeration of all the lives, they have personally 

 assisted in destroying, would swell the catalogue to hundreds, and, as 

 some declare, to thousands, some conception of the horrid reality may 

 be formed. Of the amount of the property that they have yearly made 

 away with, it must be impossible to form any calculation ; for, inde- 

 pendent of the thousands in ready money, jewels and bullion, the loads 

 of valuable cloths-, and every description of merchandize, that conti- 

 nually fall into their hands, the hoondies, that they invariably destroy, 

 must amount to a considerable sum. The impunity with which the 

 Thugs have, heretofore, carried on their merciless proceedings, the faci- 

 lity they have possessed of recruiting their numbers, which are re- 

 stricted to no particular caste or sect, the security they have had of 

 escaping detection, and the ease with which they have usually pur- 

 chased their release, when seized by the officers of the weak native 

 governments, in whose dominions they usually committed their great- 

 est depredations, have altogether so tended to confirm the system, and 

 to disseminate it to the fearful extent to which it has now attained, that 

 the life of no single traveller, on any of the roads in the country, has 

 been safe, and but a slight chance has been afforded to large parties, of 

 escaping the fangs of the blood thirsty demons, who have frequented 

 them. 



For the last four years I have been employed, under the orders of 

 the Supreme Government, in directing the operations that have been 

 carried on in the Dekhan, for the suppression of the horrid crime of 

 Thuggee* The public, of course, is aware that a systematic plan is now 

 in operation all over India, for the extirpation of the race of Thugs, 

 and sixteen or seventeen officers are engaged in the duty. The infor- 

 mation we commenced upon was obtained from Thugs, who were 

 arrested in this vicinity, and who came forward and gave intelligence 

 of the existence of the confederacy all over India. They placed on 

 record all the various murders they had assisted at, and told the names, 

 and places of residence, of every member of the community they were 

 acquainted with. These have been sought after and arrested, and as 

 informers were admitted from every successive batch of seizures, we 

 have carried on the chain of evidence, wherever our researches led 

 us. The inhabitants of districts have often been aware of, and con- 

 nived at, the existence of the Thugs, from whom they levied contribu- 

 tions, but my information of the habits of these people has been entirely 

 obtained from those who have confessed. 



Nearly two thousand members of the fraternity have been arrested 

 in the upper provinces of Hindostan, Bimdlekund, Malwa, Rajpootana, 

 Behar, in the states of Nagpore, Hyderabad and Sattara, and the Bom- 

 bay Presidency. We have just commenced operations in the Madras 

 territories, and have information of great numbers being resident 



