pulation as they have ever done, and will
continue to do as long as they are in existence, unless they are forcibly
restrained by our Government and converted, as the Thugs have been, into
useful members of society.

They are essentially outcasts, admitted to no other caste fellowship,
ministered to by no priests, without any ostensible calling or
profession, totally ignorant of everything but their hereditary crime,
and with no settled place of residence whatever; they wander as they
please over the land, assuming any disguise they may need, and for ever
preying upon the people. When they are not engaged in acts of crime,
they are beggars, assuming various religious forms, or affecting the most
abject poverty. The women and children have the true whine of the
professional mendicant, as they frequent thronged bazaars, receiving
charity and stealing what they can. They sell mock baubles in some
instances, but only as a cloak to other enterprises, and as a pretence of
an honest calling. The men are clever at assuming disguises; and being
often intelligent and even polite in their demeanour, can become
religious devotees, travelling merchants, or whatever they need to
further their ends. They are perfectly unscrupulous and very daring in
their proceedings. The Sanseeas are not only Thugs and Dacoits, but
kidnappers of children, and in particular of female children, who are
readily sold even at very tender ages to be brought up as household
slaves, or to be educated by professional classes for the purpose of
prostitution. These crimes are the peculiar offence of the women members
of the tribe. Generally a few families in company wander over the whole
of Northern India, but are also found in the Deccan, sometimes by
themselves, sometimes in association with Khimjurs, or a class of
Dacoits, called Mooltanes. It is, perhaps, a difficult question for
Government to deal with, but it is not impossible, as the Thugs have been
employed in useful and profitable arts, and thus reclaimed from pursuits
in which they have never known in regard to others the same instincts of
humanity which exist among ourselves. Sanseeas have as many wives and
concubines as they can support. Some of the women are good-looking, but
with all classes, women and men, exists an appearance of suspicion in
their features which is repulsive. They are, as a class, in a condition
of miserable poverty, living from hand to mouth, idle, disreputable,
res