16.  The crime of poisoning travellers is still prevalent, and its detection is still attended by the difficulties described in the text.  In some cases the criminals have been proved to belong to families of Thug stranglers.  The poisoning of cattle by arsenic, for the sake of their hides, was very prevalent forty years ago, especially in the districts near Benares, but is now believed to be less practised.  It was checked under the ordinary law by numerous convictions and severe sentences.

17.  In the Saharanpur district, where the Ganges issues from the hills.

18.  A small principality in Rohilkhand, between Muradabad and Bareilly (Bareli).

19.  The special laws on the subject, namely:  Acts xxx of 1836, xviii of 1837, xix of 1837, xviii of 1839, xviii of 1843, xxiv of 1843, xiv of 1844, v of 1847, x of 1847, iii of 1848, and xi of 1848, are printed in pp. 353-7 of the author’s Report on Budhuk alias Bagree Decoits, &c. (1849).  See Bibliography, ante. No. 12.

20.  I may here mention the names of a few diplomatic officers of distinction who have aided in the good cause. Of the Civil Service- -Mr. F. C. Smith, Mr. Martin, Mr. George Stockwell, Mr. Charles Fraser, the Hon. Mr. Wellesley, the Hon. Mr. Shore, the Hon. Mr. Cavendish, Mr. George Clerk, Mr. L. Wilkinson, Mr, Bax; Majors-General—­Cubbon and Fraser; Colonels—­Low, Stewart, Alves, Spiers, Caulfield, Sutherland, and Wade; Major Wilkinson; and, among the foremost, Major Borthwick and Captain Paton. [W.  H. S.]

The author’s characteristic modesty has prevented him from dwelling upon his own services, which were greater than those of any other officer.  Some idea of them may be gathered from the collection of papers entitled Ramaseeana, the contents of which are enumerated in the Bibliography, ante. No. 2.  Colonel Meadows Taylor has given a more popular account of the measures taken for the suppression of Thuggee (thagi) in his Confessions of a Thug, written in 1837 (1st ed. 1839).  The Thug organization dated from ancient times, but attracted little notice from the East India Company’s Government until the author, then Captain Sleeman, submitted his reports on the subject while employed in the Sagar and Nerbudda Territories, where he had been posted in 1820.  He proved that the Thug crimes were committed by a numerous and highly organized fraternity operating in all parts of India.  In consequence of his reports, Mr. F. C. Smith, Agent to the Governor-General in the Sagar and Nerbudda Territories, was invested, in the year 1829, with special powers, and the author, then Major Sleeman, was employed, in addition to his district duties, as Mr, Smith’s coadjutor and assistant.  In 1835 the author was relieved from district work, and appointed General Superintendent of the operations for the suppression of the Thug gangs.  He went on leave to the hills in 1836, and on resuming duty in February, 1839, was appointed Commissioner for the suppression of Thuggee and Dacoity, which office he continued to hold in addition to his other appointments.