Following the Equator by Mark Twain (best e books to read TXT) 📖

and delicate a sort that they lift their breed of rascality to a place among the fine arts, and almost entitle it to respect:

"The records of the Indian courts might certainly be relied upon to
prove that swindlers as a class in the East come very close to, if
they do not surpass, in brilliancy of execution and originality of
design the most expert of their fraternity in Europe and America.
India in especial is the home of forgery. There are some particular
districts which are noted as marts for the finest specimens of the
forger's handiwork. The business is carried on by firms who possess
stores of stamped papers to suit every emergency. They habitually
lay in a store of fresh stamped papers every year, and some of the
older and more thriving houses can supply documents for the past
forty years, bearing the proper water-mark and possessing the
genuine appearance of age. Other districts have earned notoriety
for skilled perjury, a pre-eminence that excites a respectful
admiration when one thinks of the universal prevalence of the art,
and persons desirous of succeeding in false suits are ready to pay
handsomely to avail themselves of the services of these local
experts as witnesses."

Various instances illustrative of the methods of these swindlers are given. They exhibit deep cunning and total depravity on the part of the swindler and his pals, and more obtuseness on the part of the victim than one would expect to find in a country where suspicion of your neighbor must surely be one of the earliest things learned. The favorite subject is the young fool who has just come into a fortune and is trying to see how poor a use he can put it to. I will quote one example:

"Sometimes another form of confidence trick is adopted, which is
invariably successful. The particular pigeon is spotted, and, his
acquaintance having been made, he is encouraged in every form of
vice. When the friendship is thoroughly established, the swindler
remarks to the young man that he has a brother who has asked him to
lend him Rs.10,000. The swindler says he has the money and would
lend it; but, as the borrower is his brother, he cannot charge
interest. So he proposes that he should hand the dupe the money,
and the latter should lend it to the swindler's brother, exacting a
heavy pre-payment of interest which, it is pointed out, they may
equally enjoy in dissipation. The dupe sees no objection, and on
the appointed day receives Rs.7,000 from the swindler, which he
hands over to the confederate. The latter is profuse in his thanks,
and executes a promissory note for Rs.10,000, payable to bearer.
The swindler allows the scheme to remain quiescent for a time, and
then suggests that, as the money has not been repaid and as it would
be unpleasant to sue his brother, it would be better to sell the
note in the bazaar. The dupe hands the note over, for the money he
advanced was not his, and, on being informed that it would be
necessary to have his signature on the back so as to render the
security negotiable, he signs without any hesitation. The swindler
passes it on to confederates, and the latter employ a respectable
firm of solicitors to ask the dupe if his signature is genuine. He
admits it at once, and his fate is sealed. A suit is filed by a
confederate against the dupe, two accomplices being made
co-defendants. They admit their Signatures as indorsers, and the
one swears he bought the note for value from the dupe. The latter
has no defense, for no court would believe the apparently idle
explanation of the manner in which he came to endorse the note."

There is only one India! It is the only country that has a monopoly of grand and imposing specialties. When another country has a remarkable thing, it cannot have it all to itselfsome other country has a duplicate. But Indiathat is different. Its marvels are its own; the patents cannot be infringed; imitations are not possible. And think of the size of them, the majesty of them, the weird and outlandish character of the most of them!

There is the Plague, the Black Death: India invented it; India is the cradle of that mighty birth.

The Car of Juggernaut was India's invention.

So was the Suttee; and within the time of men still living eight hundred widows willingly, and, in fact, rejoicingly, burned themselves to death on the bodies of their dead husbands in a single year. Eight hundred would do it this year if the British government would let them.

Famine is India's specialty. Elsewhere famines are inconsequential incidentsin India they are devastating cataclysms; in one case they annihilate hundreds; in the other, millions.

India had 2,000,000 gods, and worships them all. In religion all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire.

With her everything is on a giant scaleeven her poverty; no other country can show anything to compare with it. And she has been used to wealth on so vast a scale that she has to shorten to single words the expressions describing great sums. She describes 100,000 with one word a 'lahk'; she describes ten millions with one worda 'crore'.

In the bowels of the granite mountains she has patiently carved out dozens of vast temples, and made them glorious with sculptured colonnades and stately groups of statuary, and has adorned the eternal walls with noble paintings. She has built fortresses of such magnitude that the show-strongholds of the rest of the world are but modest little things by comparison; palaces that are wonders for rarity of materials, delicacy and beauty of workmanship, and for cost; and one tomb which men go around the globe to see. It takes eighty nations, speaking eighty languages, to people her, and they number three hundred millions.

On top of all this she is the mother and home of that wonder of wonders casteand of that mystery of mysteries, the satanic brotherhood of the Thugs.

India had the start of the whole world in the beginning of things. She had the first civilization; she had the first accumulation of material wealth; she was populous with deep thinkers and subtle intellects; she had mines, and woods, and a fruitful soil. It would seem as if she should have kept the lead, and should be to-day not the meek dependent of an alien master, but mistress of the world, and delivering law and command to every tribe and nation in it. But, in truth, there was never any possibility of such supremacy for her. If there had been but one India and one languagebut there were eighty of them! Where there are eighty nations and several hundred governments, fighting and quarreling must be the common business of life; unity of purpose and policy are impossible; out of such elements supremacy in the world cannot come. Even caste itself could have had the defeating effect of a multiplicity of tongues, no doubt; for it separates a people into layers, and layers, and still other layers, that have no community of feeling with each other; and in such a condition of things as that, patriotism can have no healthy growth.

It was the division of the country into so many States and nations that made Thuggee possible and prosperous. It is difficult to realize the situation. But perhaps one may approximate it by imagining the States of our Union peopled by separate nations, speaking separate languages, with guards and custom-houses strung along all frontiers, plenty of interruptions for travelers and traders, interpreters able to handle all the languages very rare or non-existent, and a few wars always going on here and there and yonder as a further embarrassment to commerce and excursioning. It would make intercommunication in a measure ungeneral. India had eighty languages, and more custom-houses than cats. No clever man with the instinct of a highway robber could fail to notice what a chance for business was here offered. India was full of clever men with the highwayman instinct, and so, quite naturally, the brotherhood of the Thugs came into being to meet the long-felt want.

How long ago that was nobody knows-centuries, it is supposed. One of the chiefest wonders connected with it was the success with which it kept its secret. The English trader did business in India two hundred years and more before he ever heard of it; and yet it was assassinating its thousands all around him every year, the whole time.


CHAPTER XLIV.

The old saw says, "Let a sleeping dog lie." Right.... Still, when there is much at stake it is better to get a newspaper to do it.
Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

FROM DIARY:

January 28. I learned of an official Thug-book the other day. I was not aware before that there was such a thing. I am allowed the temporary use of it. We are making preparations for travel. Mainly the preparations are purchases of bedding. This is to be used in sleeping berths in the trains; in private houses sometimes; and in nine-tenths of the hotels. It is not realizable; and yet it is true. It is a survival; an apparently unnecessary thing which in some strange way has outlived the conditions which once made it necessary. It comes down from a time when the railway and the hotel did not exist; when the occasional white traveler went horseback or by bullock-cart, and stopped over night in the small dak-bungalow provided at easy distances by the governmenta shelter, merely, and nothing more. He had to carry bedding along, or do without. The dwellings of the English residents are spacious and comfortable and commodiously furnished, and surely it must be an odd sight to see half a dozen guests come filing into such a place and dumping blankets and