No. LXXXVI.
A chair made à-la-mode, and yet a stranger, being persuaded to sit down in it, shall have immediately his arms and thighs locked up, beyond his own power to loosen them.
NOTE.
Chairs of this description are stated to have been employed by the monks in the darker ages of Christianity; and were originally designed for the purpose of entrapping those who, possessing more courage, or less of prudence than their neighbours, ventured to penetrate the mysteries of papal seclusion. They were formed like a common arm-chair, and provided with two levers at the extremity of the arms; and the same number were fixed immediately below the seat. These, on pressing the cushion, were immediately discharged like a man-trap: four powerful springs acting on the levers for that purpose; and so firmly will the occupant of a chair of this description be fixed, that it will take the united force of four or five persons to free the prisoner. A similar chair was exhibited at the Villa Borghese, Rome, in 1644—"They shew'd us also a chayre wch catches any who sitts downe in it so as not to be able to stir out, by certaine springs concealed in the armes and back thereoff which at sitting downe surprizes a man on the suddaine, locking him in by the armes or thighs, after a true tretcherous Italian guise."—Vide Evelyn's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 107.
No. LXXXVII.
A brass mould to cast candles, in which a man may make five hundred dozen in a day, and add an ingredient to the tallow, which will make it cheaper, and yet so that the candles shall look whiter and last longer.
NOTE.
The usual method of dipping store candles is subject to many objections, though the expense attendant on casting those called moulds has hitherto been an impediment to their general manufacture. A more simple method now offers itself, which is equally advantageous and economical. A quantity of drawn tubes being first cut into the given lengths, metal collars must then be soldered on the extremity of each length, with an orifice of sufficient size to allow the tallow and wick to pass through the whole series of tubes. They must then be connected together by a screw cut in each alternate end, and the whole, thus formed, passed through a steam pipe of sufficient size to prevent the tallow chilling in its passage through the moulds. When cold, each joint of the mould must be separately unscrewed and the candles separated by a sharp knife.
A means of purifying the tallow, and as such, of rendering the candles whiter and more durable, likewise suggests itself in the following simple process. The vat, or copper, containing the melted tallow, must be provided with a shower bath placed immediately over the surface, to which must be attached a reservoir of cold water: this, by the action of a lever, may be thrown through the grating of the bath, and falling upon the tallow, will, in its passage, carry to the bottom of the vat the whole of the carbonised animal matter and other impurities with which it is charged. After allowing a few minutes for the lighter fluid to rise, the water may then be drawn off, by a cock placed at the bottom of the vat for that purpose, and the same process repeated till the tallow is fit for use.