iron-boot

Updated: June 11, 2025

But since you are so keen to reason it out, I will remind you that until comparatively recently the torture was one of our own methods of punishment, or coercion, tending to the disclosure of secret conspiracies or any other little matter that the government might want to know and could not otherwise find out, and was practiced, thumb-screws, iron-boot, and all, in the worshipful presence of men of high estate councils, commissions, and what not!

Mary Noailles Murfree - The Story of Old Fort Loudon