On the thugs : received from an officer in the service of His Highness the Nizam / [Philip Meadows Taylor].

  • Taylor, Meadows, 1808-1876.
Date:
[1833?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the thugs : received from an officer in the service of His Highness the Nizam / [Philip Meadows Taylor]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    measure. These good men were evidently terrified by the panic of 1825, and by the run of the interregnum; and they have not yet recovered from their alarm. Instead of endeavouring to prevent the recurrence of commercial panics, (political ones are beyond the reach of economical science,) by establishing a sounder currency, they have endeavoured to check their cure. The patient requires a course of alterative medicine; the physician prescribes for the crisis of a raging fever. Such is the Government plan. In a mere pecuniary point of view the bargain is a had one for the public, and, speaking superficially, a very good one for the Bank. The currency is not placed upon a sounder footing than before; it is questionable whether it be not rendered more insecure. All the monopolies and privileges of the Bank are not only continued, but extended and confirmed. Changes are made without any sufficient object, and under what we must conceive to he a fearful risk ; whilst not only are no steps prepared for a permanent settlement of the subject, but'the future arrangement of this most momentous and gigantic question is rendered more difficult than ever. RECEIVED FROM AN, OFFICER IN THE SERVICE OF HIS HIGHNESS ; ' ' •••'- : THE NIZAM. The Thugs form a perfectly distinct class of persons, who subsist almost entirely upon the produce of the murders they are in the habit of committing. They appear to have derived their denomination from the practice usually adopted by them of decoying the persons they fix upon to destroy, to join their party; and then, taking advantage of the confi- dence they endeavour to inspire, to strangle their unsuspecting victims. They are also known by the name of Phanseegurs; and in the north- eastern part of the Nizam’s dominions, are usually called u Kockbunds.” There are several peculiarities in the habits of the Thugs, in their mode of causing death, and in the precautions they adopt for the prevention of discovery, that distinguish them from every other class of delinquents; and it may be considered a general rule whereby to judge of them, that they affect to disclaim the practice of petty theft, housebreaking, and indeed every species of stealing that has not been preceded by the perpe- tration of murder. The Thugs adopt no other method of killing but strangulation; and the implement made use of for this purpose is a handkerchief, .or any other convenient strip of cloth. The manner in which the deed is done will be described hereafter. They never attempt to rob a traveller until they have, in the first instance, deprived him of life : after the com- mission of a murder, they invariably bury the body immediately, if time and opportunity serve, or otherwise conceal it; and never leave a corpse uninterred in the highway, unless they happen to be disturbed!. * Pronounced Tug, but with a slight aspirate. ON THE THUGS*, f TV It 1