forced upon him. In this terrible pressure consisted the Maiden's Kiss. After a while the trap-door was opened, and he was " sent to the fishes." The offender fell through the trap-door into a lower chamber, upon a machine composed of a number of movable swords, which, set in motion by the fall of the body, cut it up in a most terrible man ner. Thereupon a sluice was opened, and the water carried away all traces of the barbarous punishment. This cradle of swords makes one believe that originally there were no poniards inside the figure (or, at all events, smaller ones); for, supposing even the spikes which the machine has now, did not kill the prisoner as soon as they had pierced him, he certainly must have been dead before the body could loosen itself from the points on which it hung. Thus the movable swords below would have been perfectly useless. Near the door of the upper room was formerly another door, now walled up; it opened into a subterranean passage that communicated with the Banner House. Thence the prisoners could be brought to the torture-chamber with greater secrecy than by the way open to visitors. It is a fearful place, — that dismal vault, into which the light of day never shone. The skin feels chilled by the damp air, and
the blood runs cold when one looks at the fiendish invention in the middle of the cham ber. The horrid scene of old days passes through one's mind. One fancies one be holds those merciless men sitting in judg ment over a poor offender; one hears his faltering steps, his vain appeals to man, and his fervent prayers to God; one sees his parted lips and starting eyes, as he is led to the infernal machine; a grating noise as it is being closed jars upon the ear; there is a shriek of agony, the cries turn into moans, the moans die away into silence; the judges rise from their seats and walk away; and all again is still, — still as the walls that saw, but never told of those deeds of darkness. There is reason to suppose that the Iron Maid was not invented in Germany. Most of the machines of torture in that country were remarkable for their rudeness and sim plicity, which cannot be said of the object in question. It is far more likely that the Iron Maid was transplanted to Germany from Spain, where a great deal more inge nuity was shown in the construction of such machines, and where something similar, the Mater Dolorosa, is known to have existed.1 1 The above is condensed from an interesting account of the discovery of the Iron Maid, published in Chambers' Journal some years since.
