Of these Pausies there are supposed to be about one hundred thousand
families in Oude. They are employed as village watchmen, but, with
few exceptions, are thieves and robbers by hereditary profession.
Many of them adopt poisoning as a trade, and the numbers who did so
were rapidly increasing when Captain Hollings, the superintendent of
the Oude Frontier Police, arrested a great many of them, and
proceeded against them as Thugs by profession, under Act III. of
1848. His measures have been successfully followed up by Captain
Weston, his successor, and this crime has been greatly diminished in
Oude. It prevails still, however, more or less, in all parts of
India.
These Pausies of Oude generally form the worst part of the gangs of
refractory tallookdars in their indiscriminate plunder. They use the
bow and arrow expertly, and are said to be able to send an arrow
through a man at the distance of one hundred yards. There is no
species of theft or robbery in which they are not experienced and
skilful, and they increase and prosper in proportion as the disorders
in the country grow worse. They serve any refractory landholder, or
enterprising gang-robber, without wages, for the sake of the booty to
be acquired.
Many of the sipahees of the Mobarick Pultun, on detached duty with
the king's wakeel in attendance upon me, were this morning arrested,
while taking off the choppers from the houses of villages along the
road and around my camp, for fuel and fodder, in what they called the
"_usual way_.
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