THE EUROPEAN LAW OF TORTURE. 657 



cal construction, and practical use of this machine. It is a wide 

 ladder of two strong poles with many rounds, and is fixed in a 

 slanting position from the stone floor to the dungeon wall. The 

 culprit must climb to the upper part and sit down ; his wrists, 

 previously bound behind his back, are tied to the fifth round. 

 His feet are bound with a rope, which is drawn down by a wind- 

 lass attached to the base of the ladder. As he is pulled downward 

 his arms are twisted upward behind him. When fully carried out 

 the desired result was complete dislocation of the shoulders, as 

 the explanatory notes declare with great exactness of detail. 



The Scharfrichter must stand on the rack beside the Inquisit, 

 keeping one hand on the breast and one on the back to watch his 

 vital condition ; as his accusations are persistently denied, he sig- 

 nals to the windlass-man to apply more force, til] at last the arms 

 are wrenched into a straight line with the body, tearing the liga- 

 ments and breast muscles from their attachments. Then, if the 

 martyr is a hero who can endure still more without denying his 

 faith, the judge may proceed to the fourth grade, if in Bohemia, 

 though it was forbidden in Austria. 



The final grade, ignis, or burning, is figured by several cuts, 

 showing torches of candles bound together, eight in each torch, 

 lighted and burning brig'htly, which the tormentor, bending over 

 his broken victim, applies to the naked sides of the chest until a 

 space about seven inches in diameter is burned to a blackened 

 crisp. The law strictly forbids burning a larger space, or any 

 other region of the body ; but it allows the assistants to aggra- 

 vate the anguish of suspension and of racking by beating with 

 scourges. 



These four grades are extended by equivalent tortures of other 

 forms, such as the Spanisclie Stiefel, or iron boots. Two broad 

 iron plates, curved to fit the shin and calf and extending between 

 the knee and ankle, are connected by screw bolts at the margin to 

 compress them together. The inner surface of each is studded by 

 thirty blunt nails, half an inch long, to be forced into the flesh 

 and bones. To increase the pain in special cases these plates may 

 be hammered upon. One of the most realistic engravings shows 

 a group of inquisitors applying this boot to an old man, who 

 seems visibly shrieking for relief by death. 



Yet there was one heinous sin for which torture had no ter- 

 rors. Suicide had need of a different chapter in our book of jus- 

 tice. When some poor hunted soul had broken the jail of the 

 body, driven from the certain cruelties of this life to the imagined 

 terrors of the next, the torturers were exasperated and disappoint- 

 ed ; yet something must be done to relieve their brutal fury, 

 just as the mob of to-day invariably " riddles with bullets " the 

 corpse of its victim. The chapter on suicide proclaims the great 



VOL. XLIV. 50 



