PHANSIGARS. 
113 
petrate their deeds of blood. Despised but dreaded 
by every class of the community, save only those out- 
cast tribes with whom alone they maintain any inter- 
course, they look upon themselves to be the common 
enemies of mankind, and act generally therefore upon 
a principle of fierce retaliation wherever they make 
their base reprisals for the general odium in which 
they are held. 
Among the most detestable of the dacoit tribes in 
India, are the Phansigars, a race of robbers probably 
unequalled in any part of the world for cold-blood- 
ed and heartless depravity. Their system of plunder- 
ing is as peculiar as it is horrible: when they rob 
they invariably murder, except where the victim 
happens to escape, which is a circumstance of rare 
occurrence. 
These robbers derive their name of Phansigars from 
the instrument with which they accomplish their atro- 
cious murders. Phansigar signifies a strangler, and 
they employ a phansi, or noose, which they sud- 
denly cast over the heads of those whom they in- 
tend to plunder, and strangle them. By this method 
of murderous precaution, their victims are unable to 
raise any outcry ; for the compression of the noose 
upon the throat effectually prevents the voice from 
rising to the lips. They thus secure their booty with- 
out resistance, and with little chance of detection, 
acting invariably upon the maxim that dead men tell 
no tales. 
It is strange that these tribes belong to no particu- 
lar caste, but are made up of all, being composed 
of Hindoos and Mahomedans, Pariahs and Chandel- 
l 3 
