The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1876-12-21
A CRIPPLE FACTORY.

The Latest Horror In the German Courts--
Victor Huao's "MRn who Lauahsv In
Real Life. ...r
Some months ago Professor Ember.
OF the medical college ut Prayne, ap.
piled to the Austrian chief of police at
Vienna for assistance in ferreting out
and bringing to justice the most mon
strous society of criminals that ever
existed, The required support was ex-
ten led him, and the patient work of an
exp ,rienced detective, added to that of
the professor himself, eventually achiev-
ed the desired end. The police made a
descent upon the headquarters of the
criminals, and their trial is pending in
the imperial courts.
The story which the facts elected by
this trial tells us is worthy of place in
Dante's "Inferno." The widest dream
of distemp red nightmare never paint
ed picture SO fraught with horror.
On the first day OF the trial bowling
mob endeavored to tear the malefactors
piecemeal, and it was only fourd posi-
BILE to continue the investigation by gar
risoning the courtroom with soldiers and
calling out two regiments of horse to
the court to their prison.
Radna, the chief city Of central Hun
gary, is the scene of continuous pill
grimage. The cathedral of the city
possesses as relics the bones of st. Ne
pomuck, and the yearly sum of pious
visitors TO their shrine numbers hun
dreds of thousands. As natural con-
sequence of this heavy foreign visit the
frtr x,,,tb IL,
put d TO be the most miserable and
hideously deformed in tho world. Men,
women and children, in all degrees of
terrible mutilatiop, exhibit their Grip
pied forms and appeal for charity, aud
the pilgrims believe that by honoring
the claims they will command the pray
ers OF the unfortunate mendicants, and
rarely refuse TO crafty them.
Professor Ember, on HIS return from
a geological tour in the interior of the
empire, spent two days in Radna during
the early part of last summer. A daily
visitor at his inn was young girl OF
sixteen, 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 10 his room. She
came, aud was presented by him with a
liberal gratuity. She had, according to
her own account, been a cripple from
her earliest childhood. and from her re-
markable detexity in the use of her
single limb this assertion seemed O
likely one.
During her recital of her own history
she mentioned number OF other un-
fortunates like herself, and told the
professor that they lived together in q
house in the suburbs, kept by blind
man named Oiopin Ttouil,eson.
This pauper hoste,fy the professor
visited that night, under the guidance
of bis mutilated protege, and the dis
coveries he made there led to his appli-
cation to the imperial police, and the
consequent trial to which we have al
luded.
The tavern of the "Golden Omelette"
ia situated close under the fortification
walls of the city of Radna. lis pro-
prietor, Trouilleson, is man of gigau-
tic stature, an old soldier of the Aus
trian army, who was blinded by the ex-
plosion Of o cannon while firing q salute
from the forts at Trieste.
Returning to his native city he
started the house OF call for beggars,
which he, up TO few weeks ago, di-
rected and made money ont of. The
house is long, low, rambling struc-
ture, q nondescript Of brick, stone and
wood, and when descended on by the
police served as shelter for nearly two
hundred men, women aud children, all
of whom, with the exception of per-
haps dozen, were professional beg
gars. Upon the arrest OF its host he
was discovered to be worth in money
deposited in bank over 500, ,000-an
enormous fortune for the country in
which he lived. How this money was
obtained is the crowning horror Of the
entire affair.
Antoine Cherguile, nicknamed "Ihe
Player" is the brother of Trouilleson's s
mistress. Among the frequenters of the
Golden Omelette he ia called the
"Operateur." He is a men of over
fifty, aud for the last thirty years of his
life has been engaged iu the business Of
manufacturing crippies. Ftom the evil
dence given az the trial, which is likely
to send him to the gui!lotine, his
method of procedure is as follows
The members Of gong OF kidnappers,
organized by his sister and her sight
less paramour, have FOE the last twenty
years been engaged in stealing children
from the various cities of the empire.
These unfortunate little ones were
brought to the headquarters at Radna,
where they passed into the merciless
hands of the "Operatsur.
He took charge of them in a separate
section of the inn, where, assisted by q
couple OF surgeons, whose vices had re-
duced them 10 his own level, and by his
own knowledge of anatomy-for he had
studied the art itself in lis youth-he
evolved the terribly crippled specters
who have so long pestered the pilgrims
of st. Nepomuck. At the time of his
arrest these children, in various stpgss
of convalescence from mutilation, we're
found on the filthy cots Of this hospital.
One of them, pretty girl Of five, had
had her right hand amputated. The
other two, both boys, had lost their
hands aud feet, respectively. In o pit
under the floor, in one corner OF the
torture chamber, were found the putre-
flying remnants of dozen human mem
bers, buried in compost of chloride OF
lime and quicklime Cherguile mani
tested no emotion upon his arrest, but
utterly refused to render any informa.
tion, and has been obstinately silent
sincs.
At the time the arrest was made the