The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 371: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

342 REYNOLDS’ WORKS into her mouth to drown her cries. The peons, ruthlessly tearing off her garments, stripped her to the waist, and a magnificent bust was thus revealed. It was no doubt on account of the superb contours of her bosom she was chosen for the particular torture which was now to be adopted. Firm, rounded, and admirably shaped, as if it were of statu- ary marble, was this young female’s bust, and to each bosom was the kiitee applied. The sticks, fastened two and two at each extremity, and formed of a wood just sufficiently supple to inflict the torture without breaking, were made to encircle and tighten around each breast as if securing those slowing orbs in a vice. The agony was terrific, and all the more so inasmuch as there was no vent for it through the portals of the lips, the suffocating cloth hushing the shrieks and screams that must have arisen as it were up into the very throat. The compressure of the bosom between the accursed sticks was continued with unrelenting ferocity until the torturers fancied that the victim had fainted, but life itself was extinct. She was a corpse! There, however, the wretches let her lie. | Several other species of torture were next administered to other victims. One was fastened to the wall, with a nail driven through his ear, in such a manner that he was com- pelled to keep standing upon the points of his toes. A donkey was led into the room, and the hair of another victim was tied to the animal’s tail. The brute was then lashed with a whip, and it dragged the man rapidly through the open door into the streets, his cries and yells of agony reverberating through the place. At length every one of the captives had undergone some species of horrible chastisement, with the exception of the Burker. For nearly three hours had the proceedings now lasted, and the wretch had been com- pelled to sit gazing upon the sufferings of his fellow prisoners. Every instant he had shudderingly wondered when his turn would come, and which special torture would be allotted to himself. It seemed, however, as if there were an intention either to reserve him to the last, or to pass him over alto- gether, and the man earnestly hoped that this latter alter- native would prove to be the case. The officer of the peons now approached him, saying, in tolerably good English, ‘‘ You are a European, perhaps an Englishman? ” CORNIELOOKKS (E()