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It was administered in various ways, the forms differing from province to province. They included the application of fire to various parts of the body, the distension of the stomach and lungs by water poured into mouth, thumbscrews, the rack, the boot. These were but methods of investigation, used on men and women whose crime was not proved.
The general notion was that he was a knave and a coward, and that the first sight of the boots and thumbscrews would bring out all the guilty secrets with which he had been entrusted. But Payne had a far braver spirit than those highborn plotters with whom it was his misfortune to have been connected.
Quashee, black and ignorant as he may be, will not "get himself made a slave again." The mission of the "beneficent whip" is there pretty well over; and it may now find its place in museums and cabinets of ghastly curiosities, with the racks, pillories, thumbscrews, and branding-irons of old days.
To this effect wooden clamps were placed on the foot and screwed down by thumbscrews, causing a torture that would have been unbearable to many. No benefit was experienced from the treatment, although it was continued by another physician at London soon after. A schoolfellow of Byron's visited him in his room when his foot was encased in a wooden compress.
As they had a salable value the captains employed every possible device to defeat this end every device, that is, except kind treatment, which was beyond the comprehension of the average slaver. Sometimes the slaves would try to starve themselves to death. This the captains met by torture with the cat and thumbscrews.
I want you to understand that where this Bible has been, man has hated his brother there have been dungeons, racks, thumbscrews, and the sword. I want you to know that the cross has been in partnership with the sword, and that the religion of Jesus Christ was established by murderers, tyrants and hypocrites. I want you to know that the church carried the black flag.
Judson could not have told, under the thumbscrews, why he was prompted to tell Gridley a plain lie. But he did it. "I can't remember," he denied. Then then needle-pointed brain got in its word, and he added, "Why?" "I saw you there when I was going up to dinner. You called me in to tell me what you were going to do to Lidgerwood if he slated you for getting drunk. Don't you remember it?"
Wessels in the course of his address received a reprimand from the Bench for stating that he now recognized the force of the State Attorney's contention that the law of evidence as obtaining in South Africa was not sufficiently wide; for, he added, he thought it would suit the purpose of the Government better if they reverted to an older system under which racks and thumbscrews were popular.
Long afterwards, I learned that I was detained while Captain Barlow spoke to a magistrate about me, asking if I might be "questioned," that is, put to the thumbscrews, till it could be learned whether I carried a verbal message to my uncle, Mr. Blick.
Calvin was a good man, but he watched Servetus burn, and our own Pilgrim Fathers on the other side were just about as hard men as any when it came to arguing out a religious question with whips and pillories and thumbscrews, and the like. I don't want to offend any one's sentiment or question any one's faith.
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