_The Rack_ was a wooden framework, in which the culprit was fastened and by means of ropes and pulleys his arms and legs were violently stretched and pulled until the tension caused the most intense pain and frequently the bones were broken by the use of this fearful appliance. According to Lord Coke, the appliance was first introduced into the Tower, in England, by the Duke of Exeter, in 1467, and for this reason it was called, “The Duke of Exeter’s Daughter.” The Tower rack was in the long vaulted dungeon below the Armoury and continued as an instrument of torture for many centuries. During the reign of Elizabeth, it was a customary means of torture and in 1580 the Jesuit Priests concerned in the alleged Jesuit Invasion, were terribly racked to compel them to disclose the names of their leaders.[123] Shakespeare makes frequent references to this instrument of torture, so generally used during his time, in England. Thus, in Merchant of Venice, Portia refers to the enforced statements of Bassanio: “Ay, but I fear, you speak upon the rack, Where men enforced do speak anything.”[124] _The Brank_, known as the “Scold’s bridle,” was an iron hood, with a ring, around the face, with a flat tongue of iron to be placed in the mouth, over the tongue. It was applied, with the “scold” or slanderer tied in a public place, where she was subjected to the ridicule of the passers-by and was generally used to correct scolds and fussy women, for many years, in both England and America. It was used on the poor unfortunates during the Salem Witchcraft craze and many an old dame in good old England was made to bridle her tongue and desist from gossiping or henpecking her husband, because of the fear of the “scold’s bridle” and the gag, used indiscriminately, in all such cases.[125] Fortunately, with the dawn of better days, this torture system began to decline and in most civilized countries, such “crimes against criminals” are now but curious and quaint, yet oft-times terrible and fearful examples of the customs and procedure of other days. The strange thing is that such things lasted as long as they did in a growing, increasing world of knowledge, with men who sought the truth and attempted to attain the higher ideals and who should have been imbued with the love of their fellow-man, which the sufferings and mistakes of the past had, for centuries, led them to emulate. With the striking example in history of the horrible punishment by Crucifixion, all men now dread to think of the time when innocence and goodness could be so crucified, yet for two thousand years, in the slow evolution of the human race, other innocents and good men and women have been tortured and racked by men and women holding the superior power and authority over the masses, who through superstition and delusion, were led to endorse the cruel domination of such misused force.