without doubt was not republished in
America; it was probably never even seen there. Government Reports have
no general circulation. They are distributed to the few, and are not
always read by those few. I heard of this Report for the first time a
day or two ago, and borrowed it. It is full of fascinations; and it
turns those dim, dark fairy tales of my boyhood days into realities.

The Report was made in 1889 by Major Sleeman, of the Indian Service, and
was printed in Calcutta in 1840. It is a clumsy, great, fat, poor sample
of the printer's art, but good enough for a government printing-office in
that old day and in that remote region, perhaps. To Major Sleeman was
given the general superintendence of the giant task of ridding India of
Thuggee, and he and his seventeen assistants accomplished it. It was the
Augean Stables over again. Captain Vallancey, writing in a Madras
journal in those old times, makes this remark:

"The day that sees this far-spread evil eradicated from India and
known only in name, will greatly tend to immortalize British rule in
the East."

He did not overestimate the magnitude and difficulty of the work, nor the
immensity of the credit which would justly be due to British rule in case
it was accomplished.

Thuggee became known to the British authorities in India about 1810, but
its wide prevalence was not suspected; it was not regarded as a serious
matter, and no systematic measures were taken for its suppression until
about 1830. About that time Major Sleeman captured Eugene Sue's
Thug-chief, "Feringhea," and got him to turn King's evidence. The
revelations were so stupefying that Sleeman was not able to believe them.
Sleeman thought he knew every criminal within his jurisdiction, and that
the worst of them were merely thieves; but Feringhea told him that he was
in reality living in the midst of a swarm of professional murderers; that
they had been all about him for many years, and that they buried their
dead close by. These seemed insane tales; but Feringhea said come and
see--and he took him to a grave and dug up a hundred bodies, and told him
all the circumstances of the killings, and named the Thugs who had done
the work. It was a staggering business. Sleeman captured some of these
Thugs and proceeded to examine them separately, and with proper
precautions against collusion; for he would not believe any Indian's
unsupported word. The evidence gathered proved