Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1894-02-09
TERRORS OF ONE MIG HT.
HlDEOUS VISIONS FOLLOWED
BY BRAIN FEVER.
Awful Experience OF Man Locked Up
In n Chamber of Monstrosities-COns
quenoes of Nap Taken at IA Wax
Work Exhibition.

promised myself an evening at the
waX-works, and l had made arrange
ments for every other night during
my short stay, so | went.
There is nothing so firing as an
exhibition, no matter what its char
acter may be, and after walking up
and down long galleries and climb
ing and descending stairs for several
hours, L was completely ''dead beat"
Consequently, when | found large
block of wood, an executioner's block
have since ascertaincd 1T to have
been, in q secluded corner in tho
Chamber OF Horrors l sat down to
rest.
/ must have Immediately fallen
asleep and escaped the notice OF the
attendants when they closed the
building for the night.
When l awoke the chamber was as
still as tomb. and tho bright moon
light streaming in through the tall
window gave the place a weird and
unearthly appearance as it fell on
the hideous throng of the worlds
great criminals.
What a fool l was! They were
only wax figures. That was all, of
course. 1 tried to laugh at my alb
'surd situation, but the attempt was
a failure, and left me more uncom-
Portable than ever. Perhaps they
were smiling at me in the darkness.
Absurd! How could wax figures
smile?
And yet. suppose that the spirits
OF these evil men and women haunt
ed their counterfeit presentmentsm
Living criminals. it is said, could
not resist returning TO the scenes of
their crimes, and these mute statues
were clothed in the very garments
in which the crimes had been COM
mltted-garments from which the
guilty stains had never been washed.
What was that?
had taken hold or something
made of cold metal. Horror! felt
it to be one OF the knives with which
the murder had been committed. l
was behaving like an idiot, / knew
it, and told myself so. But it was
no use. l could not help wishing
were anywhere else. A vault or a
crypt would be cheerful compared
with this horrible place. The very
air seemed to smell OF crime. crept
forward until came to some steps.
Perhaps this was the way out |
went up and reached out into the
darkness.
A hand! A foot! A body kneeling!
Great heavens! had assembled the
scaffold-was the one solitary living
being present at that awful mute
mummery going on in the dark ness
of the night
This sort of thing leads to mad
ness" told myself, as / crawled
backward down the stairs. But what
was to be done? | must get out
somehow or my nerves would not
stand the strain.
However, / determined that l
would not give way in this manner
Advancing in another direction, |
was stopped by wooden wall or par
tition. Just then the moon came out
for few moments, ard / saw that /
N1o iOOhllits AhbO ll toOiACI , hOCh.
There, close in front of me. Stood
some of the men and women who
during the present century had be-
come most notorious in crime. Their
features were, in number of cases,
familiar to me from old books and re-
cent prints.
/ instantly recognized, among
others. Burke and Hare, the former
of whom was convicted in 1929 of q
horrible series of murders on the evil
dence OF his accompllce; james
Bloomfield Rush, tho Stanfeld Hall
murderer Of 1913; Maria and George
Manning, the two atrocious crimi-
nails OF 1919; William Palmer. the
Rugeley prisoner OF 1853; and Will
lam Fish, Catherine Wilson, Henry
wainwright, the Stauntons, LEROY
and Lipslli OF later dates.
One mans expression tiansfixed
me, held me spell bound and filed
me with loathing and horror Who
he was do not know, but could not
take my eyes from his face. And
when the place grew dark l saw it
hJlll standing OUT IN the surrounding
gloom, with the suppressed grin of
a cruel and unrelenting fend.
l hid my face in my hands.
threw myself on the floor, until the
vision slowly faded away, leaving me
trembling in every limb dare not
get up nor open my eyes for fear that
should see it again.
Suddenly peculiar sound of jang-
ling and creaking fell on my ears.
What could it be? 1t seemed TO come
from the corner OF the chamber where
the instruments of torture were ar
ranged for exhibition. The thumb
screws. tongue pincers, branding
irons, masks and cinctures, the gres-
sillon, the moltier, the cubitoire-
all seemed to my excited imagina-
ton to be in movement and rafting
one against the other.
Thoughts came TO my mind OF all
the unspeakable agonies that had
been inflicted by those diabolical in
ventions. This place would kill me.
/ felt 1 was going mad. Let mo get
free somehow. j sprang TO my feet