The Administration of the East India Company; a History of Indian Progress

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1853 edition. Excerpt: ...treasure from one station to another, they knew that the absence of the man, or the party of men at the accustomed place, would be attributed to the dishonesty of the treasurebearers; and that whilst the police, if set upon the track, were in search of him, they would be far away from the district through which his journey had lain. They took care to leave behind them no living witnesses of their guilt. If they hunted down a man of note, they destroyed all his attendants. They always went forward; they never presented themselves in a town or village through which one of their victims had passed. So that even if they went on, riding the horses or wearing the clothes of the men they had murdered, their appearance excited no mistrust. They had always a ready story at command. They had always a given character to assume. They understood each other thoroughly, and they acted in concert, though often they appeared to be strangers. They had a secret dialect of their own; but often more serviceable than this were the secret signs by which they silently communicated with each other. They played their parts, indeed, with consummate address; and they passed on unsuspected to pursue their dreadful trade in the next convenient locality. For such localities they had keen and disciplined HOMES OF THE THUGS. 363 eyes, as artists have for the picturesque or sportsmen for good covers; and their faces sparkled and their hearts swelled when they chanced on these good murdergrounds. It might seem from this account of the depredational excursions of these professional robbers, that they were men without a local habitation or a name, flitting from place to place, and never establishing for themselves such social connexions as were likely to cause their...