ABOUT MODERN TORTURES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2052, 27 July 1885, Page 2

ABOUT MODERN TORTURES.

Some of our modem tortures aro bo-. coining much wodificd'of late. TalaUha photographing business for instancef®(e old method of tor Wire was to fixjw head in the vice, patterned after the ancient thumb-screw!."'' 'This fixed you so that you could not help yourself, and en- ■ abled you to gaze at : the camera with a cast-iron stare. ■ You.were then requested to rivet your gaze on that part of the wall that contained a card reading .' We do a cash business only," and the operator will place his watch in the palm of his hand and say,' Assume a pleasant? expression, ■ please, ' as he whips off the brass cap from camera. From then on came an eternity. . During that eternity itched,, you'felt a tickling behind: the ear, yo'un face twiched, you want to sneeze, you arS slire your stony stare was rapidly freezing*on: your face, and before the brass cap ig replaced you have an uncontrollable desire to yell a wild Indian war whoop at the top of your voice,' ■ ;Now:all that is changed. The operator lets you sit in a chair and assume any expression that suits 70U. "He gives a rubber-bulb one qttick squeeze, and the camerarwjhks .jovially at you, 1 and' the thing. ' isSdone. V It is astonishing the progress ''that-; has been made in photography. In New York the other day I saw a detectives camera that would take a picture on the/street with the rapidity of a pistol shot. Jt went off not unl&e a pistol, only with less noise, and a picture' complete in the. infinitesimal part of a second. • The Scoville Optical Company, of. New York, manufactures them in the shape of .1 hand-satchel, that is warranted not to raise anyone's bus; picions as to what it, is v ' The one 1 saw . belonged to Mr Wilson, -editor of the 'Philadelphia Photographer, who was on his way to New Orleans, and intended to take character street-scenes with it on the} fly. •• , VJf The dentist's business is another occupation of torture second only to that of the old-time photographer.. The improvements in that art.sf- late years are. jlso wonderful. A friend of mine who belongs to tho craft has just put in a now hydraulic chair that will do much to place tho wretch who sits in it still' further in the dentist's power, A lever moved by tho foot raises 01 lowers the anxious seat, and another lcvor tilts it to any anglo required. A cord that dangles at his good right hand contains a'Couple of elccfcrie wires, which can be attached to two instru monts of torture. ..The one is a little electric lamp and mirror that goes into the mouth and illuminates it like a brilliant : ball-room, The next.' is a sort of pen, which beats the metal into afifrity • of a tooth, : It works literally likmghtning. The next thing ought to be an electric tooth lightning jerker, as it were.