1836.] 



Customs and practices of the Thugs. 



99 



A Thug will leave his home at the foot of the Himalayans, will 

 travel as far south as Mysore, where he will meet Thugs, whose faces 

 he never saw before, but of whose existence he has heard from his 

 forefathers. Though unacquainted with the current language of the 

 country, he will be able to communicate through the Ramasee, or 

 slang phraseology of Thugs, which is the same all over India j will 

 pass the signal of recognition, and, having shared in the booty of an 

 expedition, will return home again. It argues a long prevalence of 

 the system, that this should be the case. 



The first trials took place in 1830, when 100 prisoners were tried, 

 for the murder of 70 persons, strangled during two expeditions. 



In 1 83 1 -32 ? a second sessions took place, when twenty-six cases of 

 Thuggee were brought forward, and 340 Thugs were tried, for strang- 

 ling 328 persons, at various times and places. 



In 1833, another sessions took place, when sixteen cases were com- 

 mitted, and 204 Thugs were tried, for the murder of 64 persons. 



In 1834, a third sessions took place, when forty-five cases were 

 brought forward, and 359 Thugs were tried, for the murder of 289 

 persons. 



In 1835, the last sessions took place, when seventy-eight cases were 

 brought forward, and 220 Thugs were tried, for strangling 286 

 persons. 



But, in almost all these cases, the murders for which the prisoners 

 w r ere arraigned, formed but a very small portion of the number they 

 had perpetrated during the expedition. 



Though a gang is known to have murdered persons at forty different 

 places, during a single expedition, it has not been found necessary to 

 send out parties to exhume the bodies at more than two or three of 

 them, and it is usual only to bring forward those cases for trial, at 

 which the bodies have been found, or the relations of the murdered 

 discovered. Many of the prisoners tried, have followed the practice 

 for forty successive seasons, and small indeed is the proportion of the 

 murders they have engaged in, that we have been able to bring for- 

 ward. 



Another sessions for the trial of Thugs is about to take place, but I 

 can give no idea of what are likely to be the results. 



in a trice. They have another curious trick also to catch travellers. They send out a 

 handsome woman upon the road, who, with her hair dishevelled, seems to be all in tears ; 

 sighing, and complaining of some misfortune which she pretends has befallen her. Now, 

 as she takes the same way as the traveller goes, he easily falls into conversation with her, 

 and finding her beautiful, offers her his as sistance, which she accepts : but he hath no 

 sooner taken her up on horseback behind him, but she throws the snare about his neck, 

 and strangles him, or at least stuns him ; until the robbers who lie hid come running in 

 to her assistance, and complete what she hath begun, ^-^T^epenot, part 3, p. 41. 



Burder's Oriental Customs, voL 2, p. 2%. 



