Commission appointed in 1837 to consider means for the suppression of Dacoity--Story of a daring attack upon government--Disguises assumed by Dacoits--The Brinjaras--The “Byragee” or religious devotee--Professional poisoners and highway robbers--The datura--Its action and employment--Hereditary descendants of Thugs--Predatory tribes of criminal instinct--Some noted Dacoits--Female leaders--Theft of government treasure in a British garrison--A Dacoit’s revenge. It has been asserted that although Thuggee has been ostensibly stamped out in India, road murders are still committed in considerable numbers by the agency of poison administered to travellers, and that this is the work of Bhowanee’s votaries carrying on the old business, still impelled by their horrible religion. This impression is believed to be erroneous. There is no evidence that the gang-robbers who undoubtedly use poison such as opium, arsenic, datura and other drugs to stupefy or kill their victims, belong to the fell organisation so long a scourge in Indian society; or that the worship of Bhowanee, observed with such murderous rites, still exists in India. Nevertheless, the administration of poison by professional robbers, who infested the main roads and lurked in the vicinity of large towns, was largely and for the most part mysteriously practised until a comparatively recent date, if it is not indeed still prevalent. It was one of the forms of Dacoity, a crime akin to Thuggee, but without its religious pretensions, and ever one of the most serious evils combated by the British government. This widespread plague throve and prospered by reason of the fierceness and audacity of certain classes and the timidity and submissiveness characteristic of others. “In Bengal proper,” says Sir Richard Temple, “it was a crime with an extensive organisation, having professional ringleaders followed by gangs of enrolled men.” It was repressed and to a great extent broken up by the strong administrative machinery of the British government, but the crime still crops up in a milder form and is “one of the earliest symptoms of impending scarcity, political excitement or any social trouble.”