In 19th century, and despite some British officials such as Edgar Thurston praising their trustworthiness as carriers, the British colonial authorities brought the community under the purview of Criminal Tribes Act of 1871. Edward Balfour noted in his "On the migratory tribes of natives in Central India" (1843) that the reduction in the number of wars by that time had contributed to their economic deprivation, whilst East India Company encroachment on monopolies such as salt also affected them. Many also lost their work as carriers due to the arrival of the railways and improved roads. Some tried to work the forests for wood and produce, some settled to be farmers, and others turned to crime. Earlier than this there had been British people who considered them to be undesirable because of their role in passing messages and weapons to armies as they went about their travels, and there was also a general trend among the British to treat criminality as something that was normal among communities without fixed abode. They were sometimes associated by the British with Thugee and by the 1830s had gained some notoriety for committing crimes such as roadside robbery, cattle lifting, and theft of grain or other property. The women took a leading role in such criminality, led by the headman of the gang, and if someone was convicted then the other members of the gang would take care of their families. Poor, mostly illiterate and unskilled, the Banjaras were also resistant to improvement through education, which the British felt left no recourse other than tight control through policing. Their reputation for misdeeds persisted into the early twentieth century.