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search A Survival of Torture  (1897)  From Popular Science
Monthly Volume 51, May 1897 Fragments of Science  A Survival of
Torture.—Although the practice of torture to extract evidence
was formally abolished in 1789, the spirit of the Inquisition
has not yet died out in the continental countries of Europe.
This is shown now and again in criminal cases. But not the
convicts only are treated with the utmost severity. The mere
suspicion of crime is enough to make a man's life miserable. He
practically loses all civil rights, and finds himself at the
mercy of an interrogating magistrate with full power to extract
a confession, by moral suasion if possible, by more forcible
means if need be. Subjected to a prolonged and tortuous system
of cross-questioning, the accused often completely break down
mentally and confess at random whatever has been suggested to
them, much in the manner of the trials for witchcraft in our own
Puritan New England. A case creati