Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 7.djvu/93

 TOOLSEE. (360)

OOLSEE is an old dacoit of Central India, and is imprisoned at Jubbulpoor where he has become an approver against dacoits. He has assisted in eleven cases of dacoity, in which one person was killed and ten wounded, and booty obtained to the value of Rs. 5,872, or £587 4s.

Dacoity used to be a normal crime in Central India, perhaps it is so still, though it has been much checked by the energy of the thuggee and dacoity department, whose operations extend all over the petty independent states of that tract of India in which, on payment of a portion of their booty to the chiefs, these criminals used to receive protection. Dacoits are not a caste or a class; they may be Hindoos of any caste, even the very lowest, or Mahomedans; but in many families the practice of the crime is hereditary, and the members join others similarly situated in the commission of the robberies, which are called dacoities. A dacoity is burglary attended by violence, and is classed in a higher degree in the penal code and criminal regulations than burglary by breaking through a wall or door, and stealing without assaulting or hurting the inhabitants of the house. A dacoity is a thoroughly deep planned scheme, and carried out with a degree of audacity and discipline that is hardly conceivable. A house, say of a banker, merchant, farmer, or other rich person, is watched for several days by spies, who observe where it can be most easily attacked, ascertaining, if possible, where valuables are kept or concealed. The gang then assemble, in strength equal to the enterprise, and proceed to the locality; in some instances, attacks are made by daylight, but generally at night. The leader of the party first posts men in. the streets leading to the house, who have orders to strike down any one who approaches. The body of the gang then goes on to the door of the house, or gate, which is battered in by axes: torches are lighted, and the whole rush in, spearing any one who opposes them or creates alarm, and the plunder is then carried off, the scouts covering the rear of the party till they gain the open country outside the village, where they generally separate, and meet at a