The furniture of the place was very simple. It had been mostly removed when we were there, but it consisted originally of a bundle of straw on the ground and a double lock on the door. There used to be a gymnasium, where they kept a choice lot of racks, thumb-screws, and other luxurious arrangements. Life in the private rooms used to be monotonous, and in order to render it interesting, Nero would take his patrons into the gymnasium to amuse them. Some of them he would play a joke upon by tying them down on a rack and then winding up the machine so that a man of five feet eight would often be converted into six feet two. When he had been played with in this way, they would turn him loose, though releasing him did no good, as he was generally dead before they let him off. [Illustration: NERO’S GYMNASIUM, AN APARTMENT IN “NERO’S PRISON.”] [Sidenote: PROCRUSTES’ BED.] The gymnasium had another arrangement, patented by Mr. Procrustes, which was intended to equalize all men, and make them of a uniform height. This invention, based on the principles of mechanical communism, was a bedstead of iron, and there were various individuals who enjoyed the treat of being placed upon it. A poet has alluded to it as follows:— “This iron bedstead they do fetch To try our hopes upon. If we’re too short we must be stretched, Cut off if we’re too long.” When they laid out a man on this couch, if its length corresponded with his, he was immediately removed before he had time to go to sleep. If he was short, both in money and in stature, they elongated him until he could touch headboard and footboard at the same time; and if he was a tall fellow, they shortened him at the feet with a large pair of shears that were kept for the purpose. When a hundred men had been measured on this bed and placed in a row, they were found to be of the same elevation. A good many of them died soon afterwards, but people were numerous in those days, and the dead ones were not missed by those who didn’t know anything about them.