Page:Illustrations of Madness.djvu/72

Rh has never been any fire in the cellar where the machinery is placed.

“X. Suppose the assailed person at the greater distance of several hundred feet, the warp must be so much longer directly towards him, but the farther he goes from the pneumatic machine, the weaker becomes its hold of him, till I should think at one thousand feet he would be out of danger. I incline to think that at such distance or little more, the warp would break, and that the part nearest his person would withdraw into him, and that next the loom would shrink into whatever there held it.

“Y. The middle man working the air-loom, and in the act of Lobster-cracking the person represented by the figure X.

“The assassins say they are not five hundred feet from me ; but from the uncommon