Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1892-10-14

SHS SruuluS, OflBi
nal and only maiden Of her kind, and it wa,
In the tight embrace OF these very pieces q
wood and iron that many a man endured
the slow agony Of death from prickinr
pain and starvation.
The accompanying sketch shows the
Maiden in the torture chamber OF Nurem
berg castle. Such chamber, by the way
could easily be built in Chicago, 80 that
the collection might be viewed with the ad
vantages OF appropriately lugubrious sur.
roundings In the picture the Maiden ia
empty--that Is, ready for her victim. The
condemned man il placed inside by opening
wide the doors which the artist has shown
slightly ajar. Standing upright his face
hts into the mask at the top Then the
doors are closed and clamped together
The entire interior is fitted with sharp iron
spikes that are forced by the closing doors
into various parts Of the victims body,
Two OF them enter his eyes, others his
back, his chest, his arms and legs-just far
enough to cause excruciating agony, but
not far enough to reach any vital organ,
The victim cannot stir if he would, 80 firm
Is the Maiden's embrace. He simply stands
there impaled twenty times over until ex.
hanstion stops the sense OF pain forever
Then the executioners let fall a trapdoor
beneath the Maiden's skirts, the lacerated
body drops from the spikes into the river
flowing beneath and the Maiden is ready
for another.
But though the Iron Maiden is the most
famous machine of its kind, there are
many others that equal it. In England
nearly every form of torture was applied in
the good old days when America was young
and Chicago wild waste that howled not,
and the noble earl has gathered together
upward OF 600 different instruments under
his roof, besides larger number of quaint
engravings and pictures, all pertaining to
the same subject. Everybody has a rather
distinct notion of such simple devices as the
rack, the thumbscrew, the wheel, but few
OF us have ever seen them. Here are the
real things, every article in the collection
being genuine and many of them showing
marks OF frequent use Not ali of them
are SO horrible as the few noted above
There are, tor instance. all manner of con-
triyances, the application of which would
not be physically painful, however pride
might suffer from them. for the punish
ment OF Seeding wives, habitual drunk
ards. slanderers. etc. But most OF them
involve cruel suffering, and when it comes
to that one would find little choice between
the Iron Maiden, the rack, the iron horse
in whose belly people were roasted to
death, or the barrel with spikes protruding
inward in which a man might be put and
rolled down hill
Among minor features in the collection
are several executioners' swords and axes,
wooden roller with spikes, which was
pushed back and forth over the victims
naked body--sometimes to vary the monot-
ony they rolled the body over the spikes
heavy whips with steel barbs woven into
every lash, an iron mail chain glove, which
was heated red hot before it was put on;
several ingenious gags, pair of tongs,
constructed for the purpose of tearing out
prisoners tongue; pinehing shears, toe
pressers, the oldest known thumbscrew
with which such great pressure was exert
ed that the screw passed clear through the
thumb: copper boot, to be filled before
wearing with molten lead, and SO on and
on through the hundreds of instruments,
each designed to infiict pain on a different
portion of the body or in way peculiar to
itself