Rack

An engine of torture, consisting of a large fi'ame upon which the body of a person could be gradually stretched until the joints became dislocated.* Was used^for extorting confessions from convicts and suspected persons.* Trial by rack is unknown to the law of England. Certain ministers of Henry IV, as a beginning to the introduction of the civil law into the kingdom, erected a rack of torture in the Tower of London; and this was used as an engine of state, not of law, more than once in the reign of Elizabeth. When, however, upon the assassination of Villiers by Felton, it was proposed to put the assassin to the rack to discover who his accomplices were, the judges decided that the proceeding was not allowable. ° 1 [Bridgewater o. Plymouth, 97 Mass. 390 (1867),, Foster, J. 2 See 1 Steph. Com. CST. s Wilder v. De Cou, 20 Minn. 17 (1879). * Webster's Diet.