A favourite class of victims were sepoys proceeding to their homes
on furlough and carrying their small savings; such men would not be
quickly missed, as their relatives would think they had not started,
and the regimental authorities would ascribe their failure to return
to desertion. So many of these disappeared that a special Army Order
was issued warning them not to travel alone, and arranging for the
transmission of their money through the Government treasuries. [697]
In this order it is stated that the Thugs were accustomed first to
stupefy their victim by surreptitiously administering the common
narcotic _dhatura_, still a familiar method of highway robbery.