. Pen and pencil sketches; being reminiscences during eighteen years' residence in Bengal. ling catastrophe—Disasters in Af-ghanistan and surmises thereon. Quis novus hie nostris successit sedibus hospes ?Quam sese ore i^x^n^V—Yinjil. What new guest is this, who has approached our dwelling ?And how proudly he bears himself! Op the many plague spots infesting Hindustan whiclithe Government of the Honourable Company struckat with a powerful and unsparing hand, Thuggeemay be considered to have been the principalquarry. Infanticide, Satee, Jngannatli, and human sacri-fices all shrink to a mere van
. Pen and pencil sketches; being reminiscences during eighteen years' residence in Bengal. ling catastrophe—Disasters in Af-ghanistan and surmises thereon. Quis novus hie nostris successit sedibus hospes ?Quam sese ore i^x^n^V—Yinjil. What new guest is this, who has approached our dwelling ?And how proudly he bears himself! Op the many plague spots infesting Hindustan whiclithe Government of the Honourable Company struckat with a powerful and unsparing hand, Thuggeemay be considered to have been the principalquarry. Infanticide, Satee, Jngannatli, and human sacri-fices all shrink to a mere vanishing point in thedestruction of human life, when compared with thehorrible crimes of Thuggee. Properly speaking, the name of these miscreantswas Thags, or Phansi-gars. But as Thug has be- THE THUGS. 147 come anglicised, I reluctantly adopt the popularspelling to avoid the offensive charge of , in this instance, I can scarcely conceal thatcacography has an advantage over the more homophone us the term is with bug, themore it gains in RAM LOCHEN SEIN. Who was the first king or queen of the Thugs,and how long the dynasty lasted, is vexaia thing is certain, it extended north and south,east and west over the whole of Hindustan. There really was an impenum in imperio, anunwritten law over and above the law of the land, L 2 148 PEN AND PENCIL SKETCHES. whicli bid fair to produce results wliicli would havenstonished even the Eev. Thomas Robert Malthus,had he been living. When once public attention was fairly directed tothese merciless and mysterious rebels, and someknowledge gained of their organisation and path-ways of murder, a silent system of atrocity wasdiscovered, unthought of by tlie higher authoritiesand equally discredited by most of the magistratesand police officers. At length the Supreme Council of Lord WilliamBentinck took the matter up warmly, and soon theefforts of the officers appointed in different loc
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1883
