Thug: The True Story Of India's Murderous Cult (65 page)

A sketch by the British traveller Fanny Parks showing a British magistrate or judge – possibly Sleeman’s superior, FC Smith – hearing evidence against a captured strangler during the Thug trials of the 1830s. (British Library)

Thug prisoners, probably photographed at Jubbulpore, sit on one of the carpets they wove by hand. The most spectacular example of their work, a carpet weighing more than two tons, was presented to Queen Victoria and can still be seen in the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle. (British Library)

Convicted Thugs were tattooed with the details of their crimes, in Hindustani if they were to be imprisoned in India and in English if sentenced to be transported to a penal colony overseas. Tattoos were generally applied to prisoners’ foreheads in order to deter attempts to escape. Some men tried to hide them beneath turbans, and this sketch suggests that a few Thugs may have been tattooed beneath the eyes instead. (British Library)

The central courtyard of the School of Industry, opened in Jubbulpore in 1837 to provide useful work for Thug informants and their families. Aside from their celebrated carpets, the Thugs’ main product was latrine tents for the British army.

Gibbets on a roadside in the Madras Presidency, said to have been used to display the bodies of executed Thugs. The practice was officially frowned on, but may have endured in rural districts as late as the 1860s.