INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE IN

Nelson Evening Mail, 9 March 1872, Page 4

INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE IN

A PRISON. A reporter of the JNew York Times, who has been " investigating " Sing Sing prison, says : — Despite official precautions, it has been discovered that two new instruments of torture are in vogue at the prison. In the " punishment room •" there is what the prison officers facetiously term " the trapeze." It consists of two thin tarred ropes run over a pulley, A harmless looking, contrivance, yet it never fails to drive the color from the face of a convict who expects to feel its power. The ends of these ropes are fastened to the thumbs of the convict who is to be punished. Then one pull by Pat Shinnes, the convict torturer, and the victim is lifted off his feet. As the man dangles in mid-air, his entire weight depending on his thumbs, his Bufferings are really horrible. The most excruciating pains are felt in every part of his body,, and every fibre quivers with keenest agony. The tendons of the arms are stretched to their fullest length, and seem like red-hot wires in the man's flesh. Elbow joints and shoulder blades snap as

if ready to separate, and the thumbs, swollen and black -with compressed blood, often actually split open. At this point, ! the miserable wretch, filled with terror, happily sinks into insensibility. When released, he is generally unable to walk by i I'eason of temporary paralysis. One keeper, who was questioned concerning " the trapeze," said to the reporter : — "I've seen men hung up till their thumbs swelled out like a bullfrog's head. The rope cuts right into the flesh as soon as a man is slung clear from the floor. Very often a man will faint while hanging. When they get through with a man on the 'trapeze' he very frequently gets chucked into a dark cell. Next day he may get hauled out and hung up again." "How long are convicts subjected to this torture ? " was asked. "Sometimes for over an hour. But a good many men will faint before that time's up," was the answer. The convict. Pat Shinness does all the punishiug. He is a big brawny fellow, who murdered a mere boy. But there is still another favorite method of reducing refractory convicts to submission which is fully as bad as the trapeze. The dark cells are stone dungeons, 7 feet long, 3^ feet wide, and 6 feet high, with a solid iron door that shuts off all ventilation. In one of these dark , cells is a companion piece to the trapeze. It is termed the "Bed of Eoses." This luxurious couch is a strong, wooden flooring which covers the cellar bottom. Upon this frame is fastened half spheres of wood, about the size of billiard balls cut in halves. These are secured tightly, with the rounded surface turned upwards. The prisoner to be punished is forced in upon the "bed," after he has been deprived of his coat, shoes and stockings. A few days in a cell containing this worse than stony bed, and a reeking, poisonous atmosphere reduces the convict to a state of utter physical and mental weakness. In vain he seeks for rest in sleep, or for a position of ease. The hard knobs press into his flesh, and fill his body with a thousand pangs; every motion increases his tortures, but his cries for mercy meet with no response. When he leaves his dungeon it is with blinded vision and unsteady gait, with limbs bruised and body lame and sore throughout. Men are often confined in these dark cells for a period of three weeks at a time, occasionally for months. During that time seeds of disease and death are implanted, which, yield their harvest speedily.