As to the torture itself, it combined all that the ferocity of savages and the ingenuity of civilized man had till then invented. Besides the ordinary rack, thumb-screws, and leg-crushers or Spanish boots, there were spiked wheels over which the victims were drawn with weights on their feet; boiling oil was poured on their legs, burning sulphur dropped on their bodies, and lighted candles held beneath their armpits. At Bamberg they were fed on salt fish and allowed no water, and then bathed in scalding water and quicklime. At Lindheim they were fixed to a revolving table and whirled round till they vomited and became unconscious, and on recovery remained in so dazed a state that they were ready to confess anything.[297] At Neisse they were fastened naked in a chair ‘with 150 finger-long spikes in it’ and kept there for hours. And so effective were these tortures that nine out of ten innocent persons preferred to die as confessed sorcerers rather than undergo a repetition of them. The Jesuit Father Spee, a worthy successor of John Weyer, accompanied nearly two hundred victims to the stake at Würzburg in less than two years. At the end of this time his hair had turned grey and he seemed twenty years older, and on being questioned as to the cause, declared that he was convinced that all these persons were innocent. They had, he said, at first repeated the usual confession, but on being tenderly dealt with had one and all protested their innocence, adjuring him at the same time not to reveal this, for they would much rather die than be tortured again. He added that he had received similar reports from other father confessors.[298] A few years later, 1631, he plucked up courage to publish anonymously his _Cautio Criminalis_, in which he exclaims: ‘Why do we search so diligently for sorcerers? I will show you at once where they are. Take the Capuchins, the Jesuits, all the religious orders, and torture them--they will confess. If some deny, repeat it a few times--they will confess. Should a few still be obstinate, exorcise them, shave them: they use sorcery, the devil hardens them, only keep on torturing--they will give in. If you want more, take the Canons, the Doctors, the Bishops of the Church--they will confess. How should the poor delicate creatures hold out? If you want still more, I will torture you and then you me. I will confess the crimes you will have confessed, and so we shall all be sorcerers together.’[299]