Exhibition of Instruments of Torture

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 88, 23 January 1892, Page 3

Exhibition of Instruments of Torture

„••-. ■». „ .■„■.■ ... j An exhibition of peculiar interest has 'been "opened at the galleries in Maddox-street, Regent street, where a collection of torture instruments irom the Royal Castle at Nuremburg is on view., Contrary to a prevailing idea, they belonged to private persons and not to -the municipality, and about two years ago they were purchased by the Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot. ; By far the most conspicuous object in the collection is the : original ■" Iron Maiden ". (Eiserne Jungf rau). It may be doubted' whether a more, terrible instrument of torture has ever been invented. r Mr Ellis 1 , -the chief com* piler ojffche catalogue, gives.the follow^ing description of this figure, the face *• of which seems to have been suggested in some measure by the Sphinx : — It is made of strong wood, bound . together with iron bands. It opens with.two doors to allow the prisoner to be placed inside. The entire interior is fixed with long sharp iron spikes, so that . when the doors are pressed to, these sharp prongs force their way into various portions of the victim's body. Two entered his eyes, others pierced his back and his chest, and, in fact, impaled him alive in such a manner that he lingered in the most agonising-torture. When death relieved the poor wretch from his agonies, perhaps after days, a trap door in the base was pulled open and the body allowed to fall into the moat or river below; ' Persons were condemned to death by -the embraces of the " Iron Maiden" for plots against the governing powers, parricide, religious unbelief, and murder. The date of this rare specimen is the 15th century. It is believed- that the " Iron Maiden" is purely and peculiarly a relic of old Nuremburg, as at that date we do not read of it anywhere else, whilst the annals of that town contain many allusions to its terrors. We find that in the next (16th) century there was an instrument of execution in Scotland known as " Maiden," but it was perfectly different from this one and was really a beheading machine.