American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1876-12-23
A HORRIBLE STORY.
a Hung arian Mandatory of Cripp


4 Huns arian Mandatory of Cripples
Some months ago Prof. Ember, o
the Medical College at Prague, apple.
to the Austrian Chief of Police at vi
emma, for assistance in ferreting out ant
bringing to justice the most monstrou
society of criminals that ever existed
Their headquarters were located a
Radna, the chief city of Central Hun
gary. A month ago body of police
made descent upon the place, the
criminals were arrested, and their tria
is at present pending in the Imperia
Courts. The story which the facts eli
cited by this trial tell US is worthy of 6
place in Dahte's "Inferno." The
widest dream of a distempered night
mare never painted picture SO fraugh1
with horror. It is said that on the first
day of the trial it was difficult to keep
the mob from tearing the malefactors
piecemeal. They are swift candidates
for the guillotine-a fate they merit.
The following recital of the facts and
circumstances furnishes an illustration
of human depravity never excelled:
Prof. Ember, on his return from a
geological tour in the interior of the
Empire, spent two days in Radna dur
ing the early part of last summer. A
daily visitor at his inn was a young girl
of 16, of remarkable beauty, who had
lost her right leg, and who usually took
her stand in the courtyard at early
morning and remained there until late
in the afternoon soliciting charity. The
beauty and misfortune of the poor crea-
ture excited the Professors sympathy,
and he summoned her to his room. She
came and was presented by him with a
handsome gratuity. She had, accord
ing to her own account, been cripple
from earliest childhood, and, from her
remarkable de1terity in the use of her
single limb, this assertion seemed a
likely one.
During the recital of her own history
she mentioned number of other I'M
fortunates like herself, and told the
Professor that they lived together in a
house in the suburbs, kept by blind
man named Chopin Trouilleson.
This pauper hostelry the Professor
visited that night, under the guidance
of his mutilated protege, and the dis
coveries he made there led to his ap-
plication to the Imperial Police, and
the consequent trial to which we have
alluded.
The tavern of the sGolden Omelette"
is situated close under the fortifcation
walls of the city of Radna. Its propri-
etor, Trouilleson, is man of gigantic
stature, an old soldier of the Austrian
army, who was blinded by the explosion
of a cannon while firing salute from
the forts at Trieste.
Returning to his native city with his
mistress, fine-looking Russian woman
of the Volga, he started the house of
call for beggars, which he, up to few
weeks ago, directed and made money
out of. The house is a long, low,
rambling Structures nondescript of
brick, stone and woodland when de-
scended on by the police served as shell
ter for nearly 200 men, women and
children, all of whom, with the excep-
ton, perhaps, of a dozen, were profess
SIGNAL beggars. Upon the arrest of
its host, he was discovered to be
worth, in money, deposited in the Inn
perial Bank, over $1OO,OOO-an enor-
nous fortune for the country in which
he lived. How this money was OBJ
tanned is the browning horror of the en-
tire affair.
Antoine Cherguille, nicknamed "The
Player" is the brother of Trouilleson's
mistress. Among the frequenters of
the "Golden Omelette" he is called the
"operateur.' He is man of over so,
and for the last thirty years of his life
has been engaged in the business of
manufacturing cripples. From the evil
dence given at the trial, his method of
procedure is as follows:
The members Of gang Of kidnap-
ers, organized by his sister and her
sightless paramour, have for the last
twenty years been engaged in stealing
children from the various cities of the
Empire. These unfortunate little ones
we're brought to the headquarters at
Radna, where they passed into the
merciless hands of the "operateur.
He took charge of them in a separate
section of the inn, where, assisted by
4 couple of surgeons, whose vices had
reduced them to his own level, and by
his own knowledge of anatomy-for he
had studied the art itself in his youth
be evolved the terribly crippled spec
ters who have SO long pestered the pill
grims of st. Nepomuck at Radua. At
The time of his arrest three children, in
various stages of convalesence from
were found on the filthy
cots of this demoniac hospital. One of
hem, pretty girl of five, had her right
hand amputated. The other two, both
boys, had lost their hands and feet re-
'pectively. In pit under the floor, in
one corner of the torture-chamber,
we're found the putrefying remains of
l dozen human members, buried in a
compost of chloride of lime and quick
lime. Cherguille manifested no emo
ion upon his arrest, but utterly refused
20 render any information, and has
been obstinately silent since.
At the time the arrest was made,
The infamous den was in full blast. In
The long common room q hundred mis-