Let’s take this global, shall we?

*attaches spikes to broom* I'm in

Interesting that they used the descriptor "thug". Historically a "thug" was a member of a religious organization of robbers and assassins in India. Devotees of the goddess Kali, the Thugs waylaid and strangled their victims, usually travelers, in a ritually prescribed manner. They were suppressed by the British in the 1830s.

Those sticks are quite modest, compared to the ones I've seen that woman at the front holding...