Rambles and Recollections of an Indian OfficialSleeman, W. H. (William Henry), Sir
History
Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official
Sleeman, W. H. (William Henry), Sir
India -- Description and travel
Between 1826 and 1835, 1,562 prisoners were tried for the crime of
Thuggee, of whom 1,404 were either hanged or transported for life.
Some individuals are said to have confessed to over 200 murders, and
one confessed to 719. The Thug approvers, whose lives were spared,
were detained in a special prison at Jubbulpore, where the remnant of
them, with their families, were kept under surveillance. They were
employed in a tent and carpet factory, known as the School of
Industry, founded in 1838 by the author and Captain Charles Brown. If
released, they would certainly have resumed their hereditary
occupation, which exercised an awful fascination over its votaries.
Most of the Thug gangs had been broken up by 1860, but cases of
Thuggee have occurred occasionally since that date. A gang of Kahârs
(palanquin bearers) committed a series of Thug murders in, I think,
1877, at Etâwa, in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. The office
of Superintendent of Thuggee and Dacoity was kept up until 1904, but
the officer in charge was more concerned with Dacoity (that is to
say, organized gang-robbery with violence) in the Native States than
with the secret crime of Thuggee. Secret crime is now watched by the
Central Criminal Intelligence Department under the direct control of
the Government of India, and has to deal with novel forms of evil-
doing. In India it is never safe to assume that any ancient practice
has been suppressed, and I have little doubt that, if administrative
pressure were relaxed, the old form of Thuggee would again be heard
of. The occasional discovery of murdered beggars, who could not have
been killed for the sake of their property, leads me to suppose that
the Megpunnia variety of Thuggee, that is to say, murder of poor
persons in order to kidnap and sell their children, is still
sometimes practised.
Among the officers named by the author the best known is Sir Mark
Cubbon, who came to India in 1800, and died at Suez in 1861. During
the interval he had never quitted India. He ruled over Mysore for
nearly thirty years with almost despotic power, and reorganized the
administration of that country with conspicuous success (Buckland,
_Dict. of Indian Biography_, Sonnenschein, 1906).
The Hon. Frederick John Shore, of the Bengal Civil Service,
officiated in 1836 as Civil Commissioner and Political Agent of the
Sâgar and Nerbudda Territories. In 1837 he published his _Notes on
Indian Affairs_ (London, 2 vols. 8vo), a series of articles dealing
in the most outspoken way with the abuses and weaknesses of Anglo-
Indian administration at that time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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