THE FIRST HANDCUFFS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 392, 2 September 1911, Page 7

THE FIRST HANDCUFFS.

DIFFERENT FORMS OF DEVICES FOR MANACLING PRISONERS. In Virgil is to be found the first recorded instance; of the use of hand cuffs, for the poet tells us that Proteus was thus fettered and rendered powerless by Aristaeus, who apparently knew that even the go.lf themselves were not proof agains'. this form of persuasion. In the fourth century B.C. an army of victorious Greeks found several chariots full of handcuffs among the baggage of the defeated Carthagin ians, and it is highly probable that the ancient Egyptians had some contrivance of the kind. The word is derived from the Anglo-Saxon 'handcop,' whence comes evidently the slang term "copper." In earliest Saxon days "handcops" were used for nobles, and "foot cops" for kings, but in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries th? word is supplanted by the terms "shack bolt" and "swivel manacle," and the instruments were as cumbersome as the names by which they were known.

• Up to the middle of the last century there were two kinds of handcuffs in general use. One. known a= the "flexible," was very like those which are still used ; the other kind, called the "figure eight," was used to restrain violent prisoners. It was so fashioned that the captive could not move his hands, a nd was uni versally dreaded, for the pain caused by a limb immovably confined is almost unbearable.

A simple but powerful device for securing prisoners was the "twister" now abolished owing to the injurie: it inflicted. It consisted of a chain with handles at each end. The chain was put around the wrists, the handles brought together and twisted until a firm grip was obtained. The least struggle on the part of the captive and the chains bit deep in'o his wrists. Of the same nature, but made of wire, is "la ligote," while in an emergency whipcord has proved perfectly satisfactory.

The handcuff used in some parts ci Eastern Europe is most primitive It consists of a V shaped piece o metal, in which the wrists are in serted, the open ends being then drawn together by means of a cross hook : , which must be kept taut th: whole time. The most handy form of cuff, which is in general use. at present, comes from America. It L lighter and much less clumsy than the old "flexible."

It is no easy matter to clap the "bracelets" on a person who istruggling violently. Inventors ;hould turn their attention to the subject, for much remains to hi done before the fighting prisoner cr.n be quickly and strongly secured with out harm to himself or his captor.— "Globe."