sion should escape, and be left freely and impudently to follow every where their murderous trade, than that one innocent man should suffer the inconvenience of temporary restraint; and wherever the maxim has been so understood and acted upon, the innocent have been necessarily punished for the guilty. In a country like India, abounding in associations of this kind, and with every facility they could desire to promote their success, and with little communion of thought or feeling between the governing and the governed, the necessity of prosecuting gang robbers and murderers, with such a maxim so understood and acted upon, is often found to be a greater source of evil to the families and village communities who have suffered, than the robbers and murderers themselves; for the probability is always in favor of the criminals being released, however notorious their character and guilt, to wreak their vengeance upon them at their leisure, after the innocent and the sufferers have been ruined by the loss of time and labour wasted in attendance upon the Courts to give unavailing evidence."

6th. That the Thugs themselves are as much the proper objects of commiseration as their crimes are of a just and irrepressible abhorrence and indignation, since they are from their very childhood trained to this diabolical trade, thus taught them by those whom nature urges and duty obliges them to reverence and obey.

"Phansigars bring up all their male children to the profession, unless bodily defects prevent them from following it. The method observed in initiating a boy is very gradual. At the age of ten or twelve years, he is first permitted to accompany a party of Phansigars. One of the gang, generally a near relation, becomes his ustad or tutor, whom the child is taught to regard with great respect, and whom he usually serves in a menial capacity, carrying a bundle, and dressing food for him. Frequently the father acts as the preceptor to his son. In the event of being questioned by travellers whom he may meet, the boy is enjoined to give no information further than that they are proceeding from some one place to another. He is instructed to consider his interest as opposed to that of society in general, and to deprive a human being of life is represented as an act merely analogous and equivalent to that of killing a fowl or a sheep. At first, while a murder is committing, the boy is sent to some distance from the scene, along with one of the watchers: then allowed to see only the dead body: afterwards more and more of the secret is imparted to him; and, at length, the whole is disclosed. In the mean time a share of the booty is usually assigned to him. He is allowed afterwards to assist in matters of minor importance, while the murder is perpetrating: but it is not until he has attained the age of 18, 20, or 22 years, according to the bodily strength he may have acquired, and the prudence and resolu tion he may have evinced, that he is deemed capable of applying the Dhouti, nor is he allowed to do so, until he has been formally presented with one by his ustad. For this purpose a fortunate day being fixed upon, and the time of the Desserah is deemed particularly auspicious, the preceptor takes his pupil apart and presents him with a Dhouti, which he tells him to use in the name of Jayi; he observes to him that on it he is to rely for the means of subsistence, and he exhorts him to be discreet and courageous. On the conclusion of this ceremony, his education is considered to be complete, he is deemed qualified to act as a Pháusigar, and he applies the noose on the next occasion that offers.

"After his initiation, a Phánsigar continues to treat his preceptor with great respect. He occasionally makes him presents, and assists him

in his old age; and, on meeting him after a long absence, he touches his feet in token of reverence."

"Such is the effect of the course of education I have described, strengthened by habit, that Phánsigars become strongly attached to their de testable occupation. They rarely, if ever, abandon it. Some, narrowly escaping the merited vengeance of the law and released from prison under security, could not refrain from resuming their old employment; and those who, bending under the weight of years and infirmities, are no longer able to bear an active or principal part, continue to aid the cause by keeping watch, procuring intelligence, or dressing the food of their younger confederates."

"Mr. Wilson, Sept. 1835, observes of Makeen Lodhee, one of the approvers, that He is one of the best men I have ever known!' and I believe that Makeen may be trusted in any relation of life save that between a Thug who has taken the auspices and a traveller with something worth taking upon him. They all look upon travellers as a sportsman looks upon hares and pheasants; and they recollect their favorite Beles or places for murder, as sportsmen recollect their best sporting grounds, and talk of them, when they can, with the same kind of glee !'

"Bhanmee is a mild respectable kind of man, who would certainly not appear born for a gallows, and I hope you will let him remain with me. "If el interested, too, for the whole of Laek's family, among whom I do not think there is naturally any vice; and, shocking as their proceedings would appear at home, very many palliating circumstances evidently exist here, and we must be guided by what is expedient. To Laek the sentence of any of his brothers would be most disheartening. When he heard of their arrest, he repeated with great feeling a Hindustání verse to this effect: I was a pearl once residing in comfort in the ocean. I surrendered myself, believing I should repose in peace in the bosom of some fair damsel-but, alas! they have pierced me, and passed a string through my body, and have left me to dangle in constant pain as an ornament to her nose.' I will have his narrative taken and sent to you."

"What constitutes the most odious feature in the character of these murderers, is, that, prodigal as they are of human life, they can rarely claim the benefit of even the palliating circumstance of strong pecuniary temptation. They are equally strangers to compassion and remorse; they are never restrained from the commission of crimes by commisera tion for the unfortunate traveller; and they are exempted from the compunctive visitings of conscience, which usually follow, sooner or later, the steps of guilt. Phansigari,' they observe with cold indifference, blended with a degree of surprize, when questioned on this subject, is their business,' which, with reference to the tenets of fatalism, they conceive themselves to have been pre-ordained to follow. By an application of the same doctrine, they have compared themselves, not inaptly, to tigers; maintaining, that as these ferocious beasts are impelled by irresis tible necessity, and fulfil the designs of nature in preying on other

* Three are known to have engaged in the service of the Company as Sepoys. When closely pursued, Thugs often enter the Regiments of Native Chiefs, or engage in some other service till the danger is over. A great many of the most noted Thugs now in ludia, are in Scindheea's Regiments, at Gwalior, and in those of Oudepore, Joudpore, Jypore, &c., and it is almost impossible to get them, as they always make friends of the Commondants by their presents and their manners. Some are in the Baroda Rájá's service, others were in the King of Oude's service, but that is not now a safe one for them.

animals, so the appropriate victims of the Phansigars are men, and that the destiny of those whom they kill was written on their foreheads*.' "This state of moral insensibility and debasement is calculated to give birth to pity, while it aggravates the horror with which we contemplate their atrocities. It ought not to be forgotten that, unlike many who adopt criminal courses, the Phánsigars had not previously to divest themselves of upright principles, to oppose their practice to their feelings; but that, on the contrary, having been trained up from their childhood to the profession, they acquired habits unfitting them for honest and industrious exertion: that a detestable superstition lent its sanction to their enormities: and that they did but obey the instructions, and imitate the examples of their fathers."

"We all feel pity sometimes, says a Thug, but the goor of the Tuponee changes our nature. It would change the nature of a horse. Let any man once taste of that goor and he will be a Thug, though he know all the trades and have all the wealth in the world. I never wanted food; my mother's family was opulent, her relations high in office. I have been high in office myself, and became so great a favorite wherever I went that I was sure of promotion: yet I was always miserable while absent from my gang, and obliged to return to Thuggee. My father made me taste of that fatal goor when I was yet a mere boy; and if I were to live a thousand years I should never be able to follow any other trade."

The Ramaseeana, or Thug Slang Vocabulary, exhibits little else than a jargon of words of different languages, more or less corrupted, and tropical applications of known terms with perhaps some few new coinages for purposes of secrecy.

If it should seem extraordinary to any that such countless murders of natives should occur while not one is known of a European suffering, we refer them to Dr. Sherwood, who writes

"I have heard of no instance in which a European was murdered by Phansigars. The manner in which they are accustomed to travel in India, is, perhaps, generally sufficient to exempt them from danger; added to which, apprehension of the consequences of strict inquiry and search, should a European be missing, may be supposed to intimidate the Phánsigars,—at least in the dominions of the Company. Similar reasons influence them in sparing coolies and parties charged with the property of English gentlemen, combined with the consideration, that while such articles would generally be useless to the Phánsigars, they would find difficulty in disposing of them, and might incur imminent danger of detection in the attempt.

"That the disappearance of such numbers of natives should have excited so little interest and inquiry as not to have led to a general knowledge of those combinations of criminals, will naturally appear extraordinary. Such ignorance, certainly, could not have prevailed in England, where the absence, if unaccounted for, of even a single person, seldom fails to produce suspicion, with consecutive investigation and discovery."

Many deeply affecting relations are scattered throughout this horribly interesting work, which we recommend to universal perusal. We could only wish, as before stated, that the

A Thug will never kill a tiger, and believes that no man who has violated this rule ever survived long. They believe that no tiger will ever kill a Thug, unless he has secreted some booty, or cheated some of the gang out of their just share. A mere tyro or under-strapper they think a tiger may kill, provided he be not of good Thug descent.

information it conveys were systematized, so that it could be both accurately remembered and advantageously referred to. Should not Captain Sleeman himself find leisure for the digest suggested, we shall certainly endeavour to see it taken in hand, deeming it of very great importance, as we are sure all our readers will acknowledge. May the God of all the families of the earth speedily send forth his blessed light and truth into all the dark places of the earth, which are full of the habitations of cruelty*! CINSURENSIS.

Poetry.

THE AGED PILGRIM.

[FOR THE CALCUTTA CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.]
'Tis twenty years since, said a solemn voice-
It was the voice of one, who long had trod
The narrow way. "Tis twenty years since what?
Another voice was heard to ask. My son,
'Tis twenty years since a most sad event
Befel me; since a very bitter cup
Of woe was put into my hands to drink.
Not soon exhausted were its bitter dregs;
For months and years I drank that bitter cup.
Life was no longer sweet; my joys were gone ;
I fainted oft under the chastening rod,
And thought that I should ne'er see peace again.
But twenty years are gone, and now I look
With calmness on that dark and trying scene.
That overwhelming grief now little seems-
That poignant sorrow now exists no more—
I see the good that bitter cup has done ;
It was a medicine, nauseous indeed,
But salutary; and I now can say,
"'Twas good for me that I afflicted was.
Before affliction came I went astray;"
Forgot my God; indulged a carnal mind;
Loved this vain world too much; and thought
But little of a growth in holiness;

And felt but faint desires after that world
Of light, where all the saints are with the Lord.
But now I feel a change; now this vain world

One passage we cannot forbear extracting from the note in p. 77, respecting the worship of Durgá at Kálí Ghát, and which strongly supports the excellent address in another part of this month's OBSERVER, dissuading Christians from attending the nautches given by monied natives during the Durga holidays.

"They have got a notion, that in Calcutta even the Christians attend her worship and make offerings to her temple; and I believe the priests have always actually made offerings to her image on great occasions in the name of the Hon'ble Company, out of the rents of the land with which Government has endowed the temple. European gentlemen and ladies frequently attend the nautches and feasts of her great days in the Durgá Pújá; and as these feasts are part of the religious ceremonies, this innocent curiosity is very liable to be misconstrued by people at a distance from the scene, and should not therefore be indulged."

Allures but little; and I feel a wish,
A growing wish, sometimes a strong desire,
To stand complete in all the will of God,
To join the perfect spirits of the just,
And see my blessed Saviour face to face.

And what will twenty years to come produce?
O what a change on me, and on my friends!
A change as great as man can undergo;
For little do I think that I and those

Of my own standing will be found on earth
After another twenty years are fled.
With interest deep do I anticipate

That most important change. O what is death!
But why afraid? Think of atoning blood;
Think of that sacrifice of highest worth
Which Jesus offered, and which God approved;
The blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin.
Think of His promise never to cast out,
For any reason, "those who come to Him."
Yes! there, my soul, thou hast a firm support;
On Jesus trust, and fear not the last hour!
It will be sweet to meet in paradise
The fellow travellers of my younger days,
And those companions of my toils and woes,
With whom I fought and travelled long on earth;
And those who are my fellow travellers still,
With whom I still associate and speak
Of better things, and of a better world.
Then we shall have no sins to mourn-no griefs
To tell-no sighs to heave-no fears t' express.
Oh what a change compared with earthly things!
Oh how delightful thus to meet the saints,
Beyond the reach of pain, and sin and death!
What inward joys! what glorious scenes around!
What lofty songs of grateful praise to Him
Who lov'd us, and redeem'd us with His blood!
Oh who can doubt that it is gain to die!

ON PROVIDENCE.

[FOR THE CALCUTTA CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.]
EVEN as a mother, o'er her children bending
Yearns with maternal love: her fond embraces
And gentle kiss to each in turn extending,
One at her feet, one on her knees she places,
And from their eyes and voice and speaking faces,
Their varying wants and wishes comprehending,
To one a look, to one a word addresses,

Even with her frowns a mother's fondness blending

So o'er us watches Providence on high,

And hope to some, and help to others lends;
And yields alike to all an open ear;

And when she seems her favours to deny,
She for our prayers alone the boon suspends,
Or seeming to deny, she grants the prayer.

FROM FILICAJA, BY STAFFORD.