THE RENOWNED COLLECTION OF INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE FROM THE ROYAL CASTLE OF NUREMBERG.

Nuremberg, the old Reichstadt, the cradle of the Hohenzollerns, the birthplace of many of the fine arts, has a history which dates back to the earliest times. One of its oldest monuments is the burg or castle, of which the five-cornered tower existed in the days of the heathen. Here for many years this collection of torture instruments was an object of interest, not only to the inhabitants of the town, but to all travellers whose wanderings brought them that way. No journey to Bavaria could be counted completed until the burg had been visited and the “Iron Maiden” interviewed. The fiendish ingenuity displayed in the construction of these instruments so that they should inflict the greatest amount of suffering, shows that the question of torture must have not only been well thought out, but that it must have had the sanction and, if we may use the term, patronage of the law-makers and municipalities. As we look through this collection, we see that neither tender youth, weak old age, delicate female, or ailing man was spared its horrors or its shame. And we cannot be too thankful to think we live in an age where more enlightened and humanitarian principles prevail.

This collection, so complete, may be to many somewhat grewsome, but it is of the highest educational value, as showing us the great strides which have been made, not only in arts and sciences, but in the interests of truth, humanity, and justice. No more does vithe Iron Maiden clasp her unhappy and unwilling victim in her deadly embrace; no more are men and women broken on the wheel, tortured on the rack, branded with red-hot irons, driven mad with thumb-screws, stretched on ladders, or suffer the terrible and lingering “peine forte et dure;” and never again will the laws allow tender women to be mutilated by the horrible and sharp-clawed spider. These and hundreds of other instruments of the greater tortures will be found catalogued hereafter. For the punishments of lesser degrees or shame tortures, as great an amount of ingenuity is also evident. Shame masks and stocks for scolds; masks and cages for fraudulent tradesmen; for drunkards and brawlers, the drunkards’ mantle, various masks, stocks, branding-irons, collars, bracelets. For thieves and thief-children there are also torture instruments of various designs, all cruel and pitiless.

Religious or penitential torture is very rich in examples. Here we find branding-irons, for burning on foreheads and backs; martyr lashes, which at every stroke tear away the flesh; pear-shaped screw gags, which entirely prevented any cries or exclamations; iron-spiked collars; torture seats; feet squeezers; iron boots, which were filled with hot water or molten metal; thumb-screws, etc., etc.

The executioner’s axe or sword ended all torture, and no doubt in many cases came as a happy relief. Space forbids our enlarging further upon this interesting subject. To the student of bygone generations, and their cruelty in the dispensation of justice, we commend an inspection of the torture instruments catalogued herein.

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