Oriental Prisons: Prisons and Crime in India, the Andaman Islands, Burmah, China, Japan, Egypt, TurkeyGriffiths, Arthur
Religion
Oriental Prisons: Prisons and Crime in India, the Andaman Islands, Burmah, China, Japan, Egypt, Turkey
Griffiths, Arthur
Crime -- Asia -- History; Crime -- Middle East -- History; Prisons -- Asia -- History; Prisons -- Middle East -- History
The Budhuks were professional Dacoits who always murdered their
victims; the Khunjurs were wanderers who robbed in many widely
separated districts both in Madras and Bombay, and in times far back in
Jalna, Bolarum near Secunderabad, at Bellary (Madras) and Sholapore.
The Mooltani robbers were assiduous in attacks on convoys of cargoes of
piece goods, opium and sugar. There were also Bedowreahs, freebooters
and desperados of the North-western Provinces, Kaim Khanees, camel
postilions, who were also Dacoits, and Khaikarees and Lambanees, much
given to crime in the Dharwan district and so determined in their
misdeeds that no severity short of perpetual banishment had any effect
on them. After a large capture, the native magistrate sentenced every
offender to have his right hand chopped off. Yet they at once resumed
their depredations when set free and were long recognised as members of
the “lop-handed” gang.
The Ooreahs, or men of Orissa, were poisoners by descent, adepts
at dissimulation and low cunning, much given to the despoiling of
unsuspecting females of the oldest profession in the world, the
hereditary dancing girls who were brought up to the business by their
mothers. A troupe of these girls were often maintained privately by
rajahs and wealthy natives, and for ceremonial purposes at Hindu
temples. Despite the taint of ill-repute attaching to their trade,
they were often modest in manner and of refined tastes, very much like
the old Grecian “Hetæræ”; but when living at large in their public
capacity, they were often the victims of greedy miscreants who coveted
their possessions, their plentiful ornaments and jewelry, for many
were personally rich. The Ooreahs worked in gangs and three of them
visited the house of some of these women in Dum-Dum and brought with
them a present of food, curry cooked by themselves and drugged. This
had the usual effect and ended in a great robbery. Again, four Ooreahs
took lodgings with a woman in the Sham Bazaar, near Calcutta, and
established friendly relations, exchanging sweetmeats. Those given by
the Ooreahs soon produced insensibility, and the poisoners cleared out
the place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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