Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-07-20
THINGS IN GENERAL.
The Atrocious Iron Maiden of Nuremburg-
She Will Spend the Summer in London
Her Household Horrors Go With

She Will Spend the Summer in London
Her Household Horrors Go With
Her-Cruelties of the Past.
WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPATcH.1
see that the Iron Maiden OF Nurembure
has gone to spend the summer-and per-
haps make even a longer visit-in London,
at Madame Tussaud's. Everybody is ac-
uuainted, at least by reputation, with
Madame Tussaud. She is one of the very
few people who have made fortune out of
a skeleton in a closet Madame Tussaud has
a whole suite of closets crowded with the
most interesting skeletons, open to the daily
inspection of crowds Of inquisitive people,
and obtrusively advertised in the news
papers.
The Iron Maiden, however, may need an
introduction. The Iron Maiden is craven
image. She is one of the most atrocious of
all the craven images of history. When you
see her you think of those old iron statues
of hungry gods, with q furnace for O
stomach, in which they used to put children
and fair youths to be consumed, in the days
of human sacrifice. There Is no fire inside
the Iron Maiden but instead of that, cold
steel, made in the shape of long, sharp
prongs. They used to put man inside and
shut the iron doors on him. The space Is
exactly big enough for mans body. The
steel prongs are fastened to the inner sur
face of the doors. The left hand door closes
and the victim is pierced by half dozen of
these steel prongs. Then the right hand
door is shut, and q steel prong penetrates
each of his eyes. And that is the end of the
man.
The Maiden's Household Goods.
The Iron Maiden, removing out of Nurem-
burg Castle to Madame Tussaud's, has taken
some of her household furniture along with
her. This consists of thumb-screws, flesh
scrapers, eye-gougers, ducking stools, boots
to hold not only human feet, but melted
lead at the same time, racks and wheels.
She stood in the midst of them when I saw
her. The walls were covered with these i'm
plements for making human beings miser-
able. Some of them had probably been used
on the spot. The grim room in the old cas-
tie had no doubt echoed to the cries of mar
tyrs. The Iron Maiden and the furnishings
of her chamber of horrors Will never look so
belongs in CASTLE She Is in her fit place in
a medieval town like Nuremburg.
l never understood until L visited the
Iron Maiden what it meant to be ''broken on
the wheel" One reads of that sort of thing
often enough in the old histories, and it is
evident, even ut this distance of space and
time, that the operation was by no means q
A good many people think that the martyr
was tied to big wheel and trundled
over and over along a rocky road; and
that, in all conscience, would have been
crime of Independent thinking. But the
real wheel-breaking was worse than
that. Behold stout plank six feet long
and three feet wide. Across this plank,
from head to foot, at intervals of dozen
inches, are fastened marrow strips of iron,
up perhaps five inches high and
rather sharp Mt the top. Along this plank,
hereto. Then comes the wheel 1t is a
common wheel, only uncommonly heavy,
bound with iron. On either side of the plank
stands stout man. And the two stout men
vi their might across the body of the man
the iron projections, beginning at
lis ankles. Every blow breaks q dozen
)ones-the neck last!
All Such Cruelties Banished.
These things are not any of them to be
ound within the walls of Sing Sing prison.
Nor anywhere else in this land of the free
md home of the brave. They are utterly
.bolished out of all civilized countries.
electrical executions, done in secret, and
With every care to avoid needless suffering,
lave taken the place of them. A most sig
lifcant change! People who look back
With longing to the good old times" and
Who question If the world has really grown |
my better, ought to interview the Iron
iRideE.
In the days when the Iron Maiden was
unfortunates into her fatal en- |
'races, no man, except brave man, dared |
o think. Or II he could not refrain from |
linking, he contented himself with taking |
out in thinking. He said nothing. People |
yho talked too much got into the Iron |
iaiden. That means that if we were still |
linking the thoughts and doing the deeds |
II our MISREPRESENTATION we would |
,ut DR.. Briggs on the rack till he should |
hange his mind: we would clap the thumb
crews upon Heber Newton; we would shut |
p Phillips Brooks in the Iron Maiden.
Yes, we have got a long way beyond that. |
We live in a day when all honest men have
he privilege of uttering their honest
bandoned the idea that truth needs steel |
rongs and hot lead to emphasize her argu-
nents, and are getting nearer and nearer to
he older idea of Him who declared that be-
ause His kingdom was the kingdom of |
ruth therefore His disciples would not
ght with swords. Think of the Inquisition |
nd the Star Chamber of the rack and the |
'heel, of the Ecclesiastical Commission and
he Index Expurgatorious! These are bogs
itfalls and brigands which beset the path |
ehind US. We have got out Of that and |
eyond.
The Progress of Peace.
We have got out of a great many things,
nd beyond. When Mark Twain's Connecti-
ut Yankee paid his remarkable visit to
ling Arthur's court he was greatly i'm
ressed with the universal idea that when
wo gentlemen chanced to meet along the
Dad the correct thing was for them to stop
nd fight, just for the sake of fighting Why,
70 are getting toward the time when even
ations will have better sense than that
We haven't arrived there yet but with
ripple alliances, and smokeless powder and
lachines for numbering men by Wholesale |
wain's Yankee noticed the wonderful dis
omfort of those old days; no stoves, no
lass, clothes made of cast iron, no forks; to
~ nothing of the absence of railroads and
10 %a1ar hon nrad 1
hose old castles may have been very fine |
an artistic way. They are pleasant to !
cad about, and tho old ruins are delight
} the meditative tourists. But the pudd1ers
l the mills of Pittsburg have comforts and
onveniences which princes, in the good
Id times" had not even begun to dream Of
Here is fragment of a letter written from
nivesrsitNy 10 College; ggS,,. Oxford, by student
Lowing mother" he says, "send also,
ray you, by Briggs, green tablecloth of
ard and half quarter, and two linen table |
oths. If the green tablecloth be too little
hus remembering my humble duty, take
" leave. Your loving son."
Warm stockings out OF green tablecloth!
hat was before the DAYS of knit stockings, |
hich Queen Elizabeth was the first person
England to wear.
The central idea of the practice of medf-
ne in those old days was that disease came
ON the devil. If you were sick there was
devil inside of you. The mission of the
Dctor was to get the devil out of you. And
this end he did whatever he could think
to make your body a distateful residence
II your diabolical tenant. This is the idea
hich the Indians have still. On the Onon-
igo reservation, near Syracuse, when any
,dy is sick his pagan friends get the bed
1t into the middle of the room and proceed
dance around it, beating tin pans and
m-toms and yelling like fiends of the pit
scare the devil out!
To Danish Old Satan.
The medieval doctors, accordingly, ran
cked all the cobwebbed corners of creation
L disgusting doses, which might disoour-