Morning journal and courier., 1885-05-26
KEY OF DEATH.
A Needle That Carried Murder With
 

Needle That Carried Murder With
 In the collections of curiosities preserved in the arsenal at Venice there is key, of which the following singular tradition is re- lated: f'About the year 1000, one of those dangerous men, in whom extraordinary talent is the only fearful source of crime and wick edness beyond that of ordinary men, came to establish himself as merchant or trader in Venice. The stranger, whose name was Tebaldo, became enamoured of the daughter of an ancient house, already affianced to another. He demanded her hand in mar riage, and was, of course, rejected. Enraged at this, he studied how to be revenged.
 Profoundly skilled in the mechanical arts, he allowed himself no rest until he had in vented the most formidable weapon which could be imagined. This was key of large size, the handle of which so constructed that it tcould be turned with little difficulty; when turned, it discovered spring, which, on pressure, launched from the other end a needle or lancet of such subtle fneness that it entered into the flesh and buried itself there without leaving external trace. Tebal- do waited in disguise at the door of the church in which the maiden whom he loved was about to receive the nuptial benediction. The assassin sent the slender steel unper- ceived into the breast of the bridegroom.
 "The wounded man had no suspicion of injury, but, seized with sudden and sharp pain in the midst of the ceremony he tainted and was carried to his home amid the lamen- tations of the bridal party. Vain was all the skill of the physicians, who could not devise the cause of the strange illness; and in 8 feN days he died. Tebaldo again demanded the hand of the maiden from her parents, and Tl,orr4 4<1, -l.l miserably in a few days. The alarm which these deaths-which appeared almost mirac- ulous-occasiohed excited the utmost vigi- lance of the magistrates; and when, on close examination of the bodies, the small instru- ment was found in the gangrened flesh, ter TOT was universal; everyone feared for his own life. The maiden thus cruelty orphan ed had passed the first months of her mourning in a convent, when Tebaldo, hoping to bend her to his will,e entreated to speak with her at the grate. The face of the foreigner had been ever displeasing to her, but since the death of all those most dear to her it had be- come odious Gas though she had prssump- tion of his guilt), and her reply was most de- cisive in the negative. Tebaldo, beyond himself with rage, attempted to wound her through the grate, and succeeded; the obscur- ity of the place prevented the movement being observed. On her return to her room the maiden felt pain in her breast, and un- covering it she found it spotted with a single drop of blood. The pain increased. the sur geons who hastened to her taught by the past-waited no time in conjecture, but cutting deep into the wounded part, ex- tracted the needle before any mortal mischief had commenced, and saved the life of the lady. The State inquisition used every means to discover the hand which dealt these in sidious and irresistible blows. The visit of Tebaldo to the convent caused suspicion to fall heavily upon him. His house was care fully searched, the infamous invention dis covered, and he perished on the gibbet."