Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

W >> William Sleeman >> Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68

'I reside in my hut by the side of the road a mile and [a] half from
the town, and live upon the bounty of travellers, and the people of
the surrounding villages. About six weeks ago, I was sitting by the
side of my shrine after saying prayers, with my only son, about ten
years of age, when a man came up with his wife, his son, and his
daughter, the one a little older, and the other a little younger than
my boy. They baked and ate their bread near my shrine, and gave me
flour enough to make two cakes. This I prepared and baked. My boy was
hungry, and ate one cake and a half. I ate only half a one, for I was
not hungry. I had a few days before purchased a new blanket for my
boy, and it was hanging in a branch of the tree that shaded the
shrine, when these people came. My son and I soon became stupefied. I
saw him fall asleep, and I soon followed. I awoke again in the
evening, and found myself in a pool of water. I had sense enough to
crawl towards my boy. I found him still breathing, and I sat by him
with his head in my lap, where he soon died. It was now evening, and
I got up, and wandered about all night picking straws--I know not
why. I was not yet quite sensible. During the night the wolves ate my
poor boy. I heard this from travellers, and went and gathered up his
bones and buried them in the shrine. I did not quite recover till the
third day, when I found that some washerwomen had put me into the
pool, and left me there with my head out, in hopes that this would
revive me; but they had no hope of my son. I was then taken to the
police of the town; but the landholders had begged me to say nothing
about the poisoners, lest it might get them and their village
community into trouble. The man was tall and fair, and about thirty-
five; the woman short, stout, and fair, and about thirty; two of her
teeth projected a good deal; the boy's eyelids were much diseased.'

All this he told me without the slightest appearance of emotion, for
he had not seen any appearance of it in me, or my Persian writer; and
a casual European observer would perhaps have exclaimed, 'What brutes
these natives are! This fellow feels no more for the loss of his only
son than he would for that of a goat'. But I knew the feeling was
there. The Persian writer put up his paper, and closed his inkstand,
and the following dialogue, word for word, took place between me and
the old man:

_Question_.--What made you conceal the real cause of your boy's
death, and tell the police that he had been killed, as well as eaten,
by wolves?

_Answer_.--The landholders told me that they could never bring back
my boy to life, and the whole village would be worried to death by
them if I made any mention of the poison.

_Question_.--And if they were to be punished for this they would
annoy you?

_Answer_.--Certainly. But I believed they advised me for my own good
as well as their own.

_Question_.--And if they should turn you away from that place, could
you not make another?

_Answer_.-Are not the bones of my poor boy there, and the trees that
he and I planted and watched together for ten years?

_Question_.-Have you no other relations? What became of your boy's
mother?

_Answer_.-She died at that place when my boy was only three months
old. I have brought him up myself from that age; he was my only
child, and he has been poisoned for the sake of the blanket! (Here
the poor old man sobbed as if his heartstrings would break; and I was
obliged to make him sit down on the floor while I walked up and down
the room.)

_Question_.--Had you any children before?

_Answer_.--Yes, sir, we had several, but they all died before their
mother. We had been reduced to beggary by misfortunes, and I had
become too weak and ill to work. I buried my poor wife's bones by the
side of the road where she died; raised the little shrine over them,
planted the trees, and there have I sat ever since by her side, with
our poor boy in my bosom. It is a sad place for wolves, and we used
often to hear them howling outside; but my poor boy was never afraid
of them when he knew I was near him. God preserved him to me, till
the sight of the new blanket, for I had nothing else in the world,
made these people poison us. I bought it for him only a few days
before, when the rains were coming on, out of my savings-it was all I
had. (The poor old man sobbed again, and sat down while I paced the
room, lest I should sob also; my heart was becoming a little too
large for its apartment.) 'I will never', continued he, 'quit the
bones of my wife and child, and the tree that he and I watered for so
many years. I have not many years to live; there I will spend them,
whatever the landholders may do--they advised me for my own good, and
will never turn me out.'

I found all the poor man stated to be true; the man and his wife had
mixed poison with the flour to destroy the poor old man and his son
for the sake of the new blanket which they saw hanging in the branch
of the tree, and carried away with them. The poison used on such
occasions is commonly the datura, and it is sometimes given in the
hookah to be smoked, and at others in food. When they require to
poison children as well as grown-up people, or women who do not
smoke, they mix up the poison in food. The intention is almost always
to destroy life, as 'dead men tell no tales'; but the poisoned people
sometimes recover, as in the present case, and lead to the detection
of the poisoners. The cases in which they recover are, however, rare,
and of those who recover few are ever able to trace the poisoners;
and, of those who recover and trace them, very few will ever
undertake to prosecute them through the several courts of the
magistrate, the sessions, and that of last instance in a distant
district, to which the proceedings must be sent for final orders.

The impunity with which this crime is everywhere perpetrated, and its
consequent increase in every part of India, are among the greatest
evils with which the country is at this time affected. These
poisoners are spread all over India, and are as numerous over the
Bombay and Madras Presidencies as over that of Bengal. There is no
road free from them, and throughout India there must be many hundreds
who gain their subsistence by this trade alone. They put on all
manner of disguises to suit their purpose; and, as they prey chiefly
upon the poorer sort of travellers, they require to destroy the
greater number of lives to make up their incomes. A party of two or
three poisoners have very often succeeded in destroying another of
eight or ten travellers with whom they have journeyed for some days,
by pretending to give them a feast on the celebration of the
anniversary of some family event. Sometimes an old woman or man will
manage the thing alone, by gaining the confidence of travellers, and
getting near the cooking-pots while they go aside; or when employed
to bring the flour for the meal from the bazaar. The poison is put
into the flour or the pot, as opportunity offers.

People of all castes and callings take to this trade, some casually,
others for life, and others derive it from their parents or teachers.
They assume all manner of disguises to suit their purposes; and the
habits of cooking, eating, and sleeping on the side of the road, and
smoking with strangers of seemingly the same caste, greatly
facilitate their designs upon travellers. The small parties are
unconnected with each other, and two parties never unite in the same
cruise. The members of one party may be sometimes convicted and
punished, but their conviction is accidental, for the system which
has enabled us to put down the Thug associations cannot be applied,
with any fair prospect of success, to the suppression of these pests
to society.[16]

The Thugs went on their adventures in large gangs, and two or more
were commonly united in the course of an expedition in the
perpetration of many murders. Every man shared in the booty according
to the rank he held in the gang, or the part he took in the murders;
and the rank of every man and the part he took generally, or in any
particular murder, were generally well known to all. From among these
gangs, when arrested, we found the evidence we required for their
conviction--or the means of tracing it--among the families and
friends of their victims, or with persons to whom the property taken
had been disposed of, and in the graves to which the victims had been
consigned.

To give an idea of the system by which the Government of India has
been enabled to effect so great a good for the people as the
suppression of these associations, I will suppose that two sporting
gentlemen, A at Delhi, and B in Calcutta, had both described the
killing of a tiger in an island in the Ganges, near Hardwar[17] and
mentioned the names of the persons engaged with them. Among the
persons thus named were C, who had since returned to America, D, who
had retired to New South Wales, E to England, and F to Scotland.
There were four other persons named who were still in India, but they
are deeply interested in A and B's story not being believed. A says
that B got the skin of the tiger, and B states that he gave it to C,
who cut out two of the claws. Application is made to C, D, E, and F,
and without the possibility of any collusion, or even communication
between them, their statements correspond precisely with those of A
and B, as to the time, place, circumstances, and persons engaged.
Their statements are sworn to before magistrates in presence of
witnesses, and duly attested. C states that he got the skin from B,
and gave it to the Nawab of Rampur[18] for a hookah carpet, but that
he took from the left forefoot two of the claws, and gave them to the
minister of the King of Oudh for a charm for his sick child.

The Nawab of Rampur, being applied to, states that he received the
skin from C, at the time and place mentioned, and that he still
smokes his hookah upon it; and that it had lost the two claws upon
the left forefoot. The minister of the King of Oudh states that he
received the two claws nicely set in gold; that they had cured his
boy, who still wore them round his neck to guard him from the evil
eye. The goldsmith states that he set the two claws in gold for C,
who paid him handsomely for his work. The peasantry, whose cattle
graze on the island, declare that certain gentlemen did kill a tiger
there about the time mentioned, and that they saw the body after the
skin had been taken off, and the vultures had begun to descend upon
it.

To prove that what A and B had stated could not possibly be true, the
other party appeal to some of their townsmen, who are said to be well
acquainted with their characters. They state that they really know
nothing about the matter in dispute; that their friends, who are
opposed to A and B, are much liked by their townspeople and
neighbours, as they have plenty of money, which they spend freely,
but that they are certainly very much addicted to field-sports, and
generally absent in pursuit of wild beasts for three or four months
every year; but whether they were or were not present at the killing
of the great Garhmuktesar tiger, they could not say.

Most persons would, after examining this evidence, be tolerably well
satisfied that the said tiger had really been killed at the time and
place, and by the persons mentioned by A and B; but, to establish the
fact judicially, it would be necessary to bring A, B, C, D, E, and F,
the Nawab of Rampur, the minister of the King of Oudh, and the
goldsmith to the criminal court at Meerut, to be confronted with the
person whose interest it was that A and B should not be believed.
They would all, perhaps, come to the said court from the different
quarters of the world in which they had thought themselves snugly
settled; but the thing would annoy them so much, and be so much
talked of, that sporting gentlemen, nawabs, ministers, and goldsmiths
would in future take good care to have 'forgotten' everything
connected with the matter in dispute, should another similar
reference be made to them, and so A and B would never again have any
chance.

Thug approvers, whose evidence we required, were employed in all
parts of India, under the officers appointed to put down these
associations; and it was difficult to bring all whose evidence was
necessary at the trials to the court of the district in which the
particular murder was perpetrated. The victims were, for the most
part, money-carriers, whose masters and families resided hundreds of
miles from the place where they were murdered, or people on their way
to their distant homes from foreign service. There was no chance of
recovering any of the property taken from the victims, as Thugs were
known to spend what they got freely, and never to have money by them;
and the friends of the victims, and the bankers whose money they
carried, were everywhere found exceedingly averse to take share in
the prosecution.

To obviate all these difficulties separate courts were formed, with
permission to receive whatever evidence they might think likely to
prove valuable, attaching to each portion, whether documentary or
oral, whatever weight it might seem to deserve. Such courts were
formed at Hyderabad, Mysore, Indore, Lucknow, Gwalior, and were
presided over by our highest diplomatic functionaries, in concurrence
with the princes at whose courts they were accredited; and who at
Jubbulpore, were under the direction of the representative of the
Governor-General of India.[l9] By this means we had a most valuable
species of unpaid agency; and I believe there is no part of their
public life on which these high functionaries look back with more
pride than that spent in presiding over such courts, and assisting
the supreme Government in relieving the people of India from this
fearful evil.[20]

Notes:

1. A town on the Allahabad and Sagar road, sixty-one miles north-east
of Sagar. It was the head-quarters of the Damoh district from 1818 to
1835.

2. The chief town of the district of the same name in Bundelkhand,
situated on the Ken river, ninety-five miles south-west from
Allahabad.

3. Worth at that time 450 pounds sterling, or a little more.

4. An unusual mode of procedure for professed Thugs to adopt, who
usually strangled their victims with a cloth. Faringia (Feringheea)
Brahman was one of the most noted Thug leaders. He is frequently
mentioned in the author's _Report on the Depredations committed by
the Thug Gangs_ (1840), and the story of the Sujaina crime is fully
told in the Introduction to that volume. Faringia became a valuable
approver.

5. Lieutenant Brown was suddenly called back to Jubbulpore, and could
not himself go to Sujaina. He sent, however, an intelligent native
officer to the place, but no man could be induced to acknowledge that
he had ever seen the bodies or heard of the affair, though Faringia
pointed out to them exactly where they all lay. They said it must be
quite a mistake--that such a thing could not have taken place and
they know nothing of it. Lieutenant Brown was aware that all this
affected ignorance arose entirely from the dread these people have of
being summoned to give evidence to any of our district courts of
justice; and wrote to the officer in the civil charge of the district
to request that he would assure them that their presence would not be
required. Mr. Doolan, the assistant magistrate, happened to be going
through Sujaina from Sagar on deputation at the time; and, sending
for all the respectable old men of the place, he requested that they
would be under no apprehension, but tell him the real truth, as he
would pledge himself that not one of them should ever be summoned to
any district court to give evidence. They then took him to the spot
and pointed out to him where the bodies had been found, and mentioned
that the body of the tanner had been burned by his friends. The
banker, whose treasure they had been carrying, had an equal dislike
to be summoned to court to give evidence, now that he could no longer
hope to recover any portion of his lost money; and it was not till
after Lieutenant Brown had given him a similar assurance, that he
would consent to have his books examined. The loss of the four
thousand five hundred rupees was then found entered, with the names
of the men who had been killed at Sujaina in carrying it. These are
specimens of some of the minor difficulties we had to contend with in
our efforts to put down the most dreadful of all crimes. All the
prisoners accused of these murders had just been tried for others, or
Lieutenant Brown would not have been able to give the pledge he did.
[W. H. S.] Difficulties of the same kind beset the administration of
criminal justice in India to this day.

6. Of the Marathas. The district was ceded in 1818.

7. More correctly written Mughal. The term is properly applied to
Muhammadans of Turk (Mongol) descent. Such persons commonly affix the
title Beg to their names, and often prefix the Persian title Mirza.

8. Meerut, the well-known cantonment, in the district of the same
name. The name is written Meeruth by the author, and may be also
written Mirath. Ghat (ghaut) means a ferry, or crossing-place.
Muradabad and Bareilly (Bareli) are in Rohilkhand. The latter has a
considerable garrison. Both places are large cities, and the head-
quarter of districts.

9. The bow and quiver are now rarely seen, except, possibly, in
remote parts of Rajputana. A body of archers helped to hold the Shah
Najaf building at Lucknow against Sir Colin Campbell in 1858. Even in
1903-4 some of the Tibetans who resisted the British advance were
armed with bows and arrows.

10. An inn of the Oriental pattern, often called caravanserai in
books of travel.

11. Then the capital of Ranjit Singh, the great Sikh chief.

12. 'This is commonly given either by the leader of the gang or the
_belha_, who has chosen the place for the murder.' It was usually
some commonplace order, such as 'Bring the tobacco' (_Ramaseeana_,
p.99, &c.). See also Meadows Taylor, _Confessions of a Thug_.

13. The Jamaldehi Thugs resided 'in Oude and some other parts east of
the Ganges. They are considered very clever and expert, and more
stanch to their oath of secrecy than most other classes' (ibid. p.
97). At the time referred to Oudh was a separate kingdom, which
lasted as such until 1856. A map included in the printed Thuggee
papers reveals the appalling fact that the Thugs had 274 fixed
burying-places for their victims in the area of the small kingdom,
about half the size of Ireland.

14. Fakir (fakeer), a religious mendicant. The word properly applies
to Muhammadans only, but is often laxly used to include Hindoo
ascetics.

15. So called because the poison they use is made of the seeds of the
'datura' plant (_Datura alba_), and other species of the same genus.
It is a powerful narcotic.

16. The crime of poisoning travellers is still prevalent, and its
detection is still attended by the difficulties described in the
text. In some cases the criminals have been proved to belong to
families of Thug stranglers. The poisoning of cattle by arsenic, for
the sake of their hides, was very prevalent forty years ago,
especially in the districts near Benares, but is now believed to be
less practised. It was checked under the ordinary law by numerous
convictions and severe sentences.

17. In the Saharanpur district, where the Ganges issues from the
hills.

18. A small principality in Rohilkhand, between Muradabad and
Bareilly (Bareli).

19. The special laws on the subject, namely: Acts xxx of 1836, xviii
of 1837, xix of 1837, xviii of 1839, xviii of 1843, xxiv of 1843, xiv
of 1844, v of 1847, x of 1847, iii of 1848, and xi of 1848, are
printed in pp. 353-7 of the author's _Report on Budhuk alias Bagree
Decoits, &c._ (1849). See Bibliography, _ante._ No. 12.

20. I may here mention the names of a few diplomatic officers of
distinction who have aided in the good cause. _Of the Civil Service_-
-Mr. F. C. Smith, Mr. Martin, Mr. George Stockwell, Mr. Charles
Fraser, the Hon. Mr. Wellesley, the Hon. Mr. Shore, the Hon. Mr.
Cavendish, Mr. George Clerk, Mr. L. Wilkinson, Mr, Bax; _Majors-
General_--Cubbon and Fraser; _Colonels_--Low, Stewart, Alves, Spiers,
Caulfield, Sutherland, and Wade; Major Wilkinson; and, among the
foremost, Major Borthwick and Captain Paton. [W. H. S.]

The author's characteristic modesty has prevented him from dwelling
upon his own services, which were greater than those of any other
officer. Some idea of them may be gathered from the collection of
papers entitled _Ramaseeana_, the contents of which are enumerated in
the Bibliography, _ante._ No. 2. Colonel Meadows Taylor has given a
more popular account of the measures taken for the suppression of
Thuggee (thagi) in his _Confessions of a Thug_, written in 1837 (1st
ed. 1839). The Thug organization dated from ancient times, but
attracted little notice from the East India Company's Government
until the author, then Captain Sleeman, submitted his reports on the
subject while employed in the Sagar and Nerbudda Territories, where
he had been posted in 1820. He proved that the Thug crimes were
committed by a numerous and highly organized fraternity operating in
all parts of India. In consequence of his reports, Mr. F. C. Smith,
Agent to the Governor-General in the Sagar and Nerbudda Territories,
was invested, in the year 1829, with special powers, and the author,
then Major Sleeman, was employed, in addition to his district duties,
as Mr, Smith's coadjutor and assistant. In 1835 the author was
relieved from district work, and appointed General Superintendent of
the operations for the suppression of the Thug gangs. He went on
leave to the hills in 1836, and on resuming duty in February, 1839,
was appointed Commissioner for the suppression of Thuggee and
Dacoity, which office he continued to hold in addition to his other
appointments.

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 Kahars
(palanquin bearers) committed a series of Thug murders in, I think,
1877, at Etawa, 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
Sagar 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.

Mr. F. C. Smith was Agent to the Governor-General at Jubbulpore in
1830 and subsequent years. The author was then immediately
subordinate to him. Messrs. Martin and Wellesley were Residents at
Holkar's court at Indore. Mr. Stockwell tried some of the Thug
prisoners at Cawnpore and Allahabad as Special Commissioner, in
addition to his ordinary duties: correspondence between him and the
author is printed in _Ramaseeana_. Mr. Charles Fraser preceded the
author in charge of the Sagar district, and in January, 1832, resumed
charge of the revenue and civil duties of that district, leaving the
criminal work to the author. The Hon. Mr. Cavendish was Resident at
Sindhia's court at Gwalior. Mr. George Clerk became Sir George Clerk
and Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, Governor of
Bombay, and Permanent Under-Secretary of State for India; he died at
a great age in 1889. Mr. Lancelot Wilkinson, Political Agent in
Bhopal, was considered by the author to be 'one of the most able and
estimable members of the India Civil Service' (_Journey_, ii. 403).
Mr. Bax was Resident at Indore; Colonel (afterwards Sir John) Low,
was Resident at Lucknow, and had served at Jubbulpore; Colonel
Stewart and Major-General Fraser were Residents at Hyderabad; Major
(Colonel) Alves was Political Agent in Bhopal and Agent in Rajputana;
Colonel Spiers was Agent at Nimach, and officiated as Agent in
Rajputana; Colonel Caulfield had been Political Agent at Harauti;
Colonel Sutherland was Resident at Gwalior, and afterwards Agent in
Rajputana; Colonel (Sir C. M.) Wade had been Political Agent at
Ludiana; Major Borthwick was employed at Indore; Captain Paton was
Assistant Resident at Lucknow (see _Journey through Kingdom of Oudh_,
vol. ii, pp. 152-69).