refused to give up the number who had taken refuge in his territory; and had it not been for the firmness of Lord William Bentinck who ordered an army to assemble on the frontier of his dominions, and showed him that it was impossible the Joudpoor province should become the rendezvous of a banditti who would commit their depredations with impunity, upon the other states of the empire, the system would have flourished under such protection to this day.

"The following is a brief summary of what has been effected for the suppression of Thuggee. In nine years more than two thousand Thugs have been arrested, one thousand four hundred and seventy have been tried and convicted in one hundred and sixty-seven trials, for the murder of nine hundred and forty-seven persons. Of these, three hundred and eighty-two have been hanged, nine hundred and nine transported, seventy-seven imprisoned for life, ninety-two imprisoned for certain periods, and twenty-one acquitted. Besides these, eleven have escaped, thirty-one died before sentence, and nearly two hundred and fifty have at different times been admitted king's evidences, and exempted from death or transportation-first, to secure the conviction of those already in custody; and secondly to aid in arresting their associates at large. In Malwa, Guzerat, Rajpootana and Delhi, Thuggee has in a great measure been suppressed. Great progress has also been made in the Lower Doab, in Oude, Hydrabad,

and the Decan. In the Concan and Malabar, it appears never to have existed. But much yet remains to be done throughout the whole of Southern India, in the Carnatic, Mysore, and the Circars, also in Gwalior and Bundlecund, in Orissa, Behar, and Bengal. Captain Sleeman anticipates the greatest difficulty in dealing with the river Thugs of Bengal, who are supposed to be three hundred strong, and who he thinks will probably defy the efforts of our government, unless some special measure be sanctioned for their suppression. In the convictions of all the above trials, the Bhurtote, or strangler has been invariably executed, as the Bhurtote is the most experienced of the party, and must have given proofs of his judgment and skill, before he is permitted to undertake the office; he is always an exceeding villain. The Shumseas, or those employed to hold the hands of the victim, are considered to be a lower order of villains, and with these the sentence has often been commuted to transportation." *

What a system of horror does Hindooism appear to us now, when compared with the representations of other days! Very few years have elapsed since Satan and his emissaries attempted to deceive the church and the world, with the delusion that the Hindoos were a quiet, a mild, a harmless and a happy people; that their system of mythology was admirably suited to advance their welfare and pros

* Asiatic Journal, 1836.

in

perity; and that, by the introduction of Christianity among them, we should only disturb their repose. The hideous deformities of the system were concealed from our view, and Satan thus hoped to maintain his place peace. But God, in his providence, has strangely disappointed the wicked designs, and time after time, has exposed the crimes and the diabolical deeds, of this monster of depravity. As the atrocious Pharaoh as the cruel oppressor, and as the bloodthirsty despot of the East, this fiend has been seen causing the children to pass through the fire unto Moloch, he has made the lives of his slaves bitter with hard bondage, and has tried to overwhelm them in ruin. But what is the blood of infants to satiate his cruelty! No; he has been seen dragging the helpless, the aged and the infirm to the banks of the Ganges to be offered up as victims to his voracious and his murderous appetite. But what is the blood of the aged and the feeble and the dying to quench his insatiable thirst for human sacrifices! He has been seen mounted on the murderous car of Juggernaut, lashing his votaries to their task, driving, in fury his ponderous wheels over the bodies of his victims, and whitening the fields of Aceldama with their bones; he has been seen raising the funeral-pile, and compelling thousands of poor and wretched females to throw themselves into the flames; he has been seen standing at the shrine of Mahin Kallee, demanding his human sacrifices, and practising on the hecatombs the most barbarous cruelty. But as though

these victims were not numerous enough, as though his sanguinary chapter were not half unfolded, and as though he wished to consummate his triumph and consolidate his reign by multiplying the emissaries of his vengeance, he has scattered the Thugs through the empire, has commanded them to kill, plunder and destroy, and has given them a licence. to execute in secret those horrible deeds which the voice of humanity, and public opinion, and good government, and the friends of society, were likely to exterminate, had they been rendered more public. But the villanies which he has thus attempted to perpetrate in secret, have now been published on the house-tops; providence has brought the system of infamy to light; the votaries of superstition themselves are alarmed at the accursed nature of his despotism; and the eyes of the Christian world are opened, and their sympathies are aroused, by the tremendous evils to which so many of their race and of their fellow-subjects are exposed; the strong arm of law and justice have followed his agents into their hiding-places; the system has been arrested in its progress and almost annihilated; and stronger and more determined bands of Christian heroes are advancing to attack an enemy whose villanies are so diabolical, and an empire whose inhabitants suffer such wrongs from the from the powers of darkness.

CHAPTER VI.

EFFECTS OF IDOLATRY.

THE GENERAL EFFECTS OF IDOLATRY DEPLORABLE-FEMALE DEGRADATION-THE PREVALENCE OF INFANTICIDE-THE SUTTEE -DESCRIPTION OF ONE-ABOLISHED BY LAW-GREATER EFFORTS REQUIRED TO ANNIHILATE SUCH ENORMITIES-FEMALE EXERTIONS GREATLY REQUIRED THE SOCIETY FOR SENDING OUT FEMALES TO SUPERINTEND SCHOOLS.

SAD is the character of heathenism, and very deplorable are the prospects of its votaries. Their distance from God; their degradation; degradation; their prostration to dumb idols of wood and of stone, their services rendered to diverse lusts and pleasures; their strong delusions to believe a lie; their superstitions and abominable idolatries; and their exposure to the wrath and the condemnation of the Almighty; all are calculated to fill us with pity and compassion for their state, and to lead us to stretch forth the arm of deliverance for their rescue. if there be one part of this system more cruel and diabolical than another, and which bears more the impress of him who has been a liar and a murderer from the beginning, it is the bearing which it has upon the female part of the community. Nothing

But