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The Maidens Kiss. is changing. The material wqrld is wellnigh subdued. Man's dominion over the earth is accomplished. There is developing a desire for a more aesthetic and ethical era among mankind; and upon the night of woman's dependence the full moon of her awakened individuality is shining with the silver light of a reflected sun of knowledge. After a little the night shall pass, and upon the world of human life there will burst the full day of woman's emancipation. In that day will be recognized the distinct individu ality of her nature, and the need for full and jierfect justice, that her qualities of head and heart be brought into play. Then in the forum she will take her place by the stde of
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her brother-man, endowed with full powers in the administration of justice. The two shall form a perfect whole, each supplement ing the other, and giving each to the other the benefit of a different organization and a different experience. "And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers, Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, Self-reverent each and reverencing each, Distinct in individualities, But like each other even as those who love. Then comes the statelier Kden back to men; Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm; Then springs the crowning race of humankind. M ay these things be!"
THE MAIDEN'S KISS. IN an old German chronicle may be found the following statement: "A. D. 1533, the Eiseme Jungfrau (the Iron Maid) was constructed for the punishment of evil doers within the wall of the Froschthurm, opposite the place called the Sieben Zeilen" (in Nuremberg). This instrument of pun ishment was an iron statue, seven feet high, which stretched out both its arms in the face of the criminal; and death by this ma chine was said " to send the poor sinner to the fishes," — for as soon as the executioner moved the step on which it stood, it hewed, with broad hand-swords, the victim into lit tle pieces, which were swallowed by the fishes in the hidden waters. The chamber in which this infernal ma chine was said to have stood was well known; but the instrument itself disappeared for centuries, and it was not until 1834 that it was discovered among a collection of an tiquities in the castle of Feistritz, and was restored to its former gloomy abode. The Iron Maid can now be seen in the chamber where the chronicle reports it to have been placed in " the good old times."
Entering a door close to the Max TJwr, the visitor descends thirty or forty steps, and passing through the casements under the town wall, arrives at a sort of antechamber, where the prisoners were detained before being led to execution. Almost opposite this room is a narrow passage, terminating in a door; the visitor opens it, and he is in the torture-chamber. In the middle of this vault stands a figure seven feet high, representing a Nuremberg woman of the sixteenth century. Her head wears a sort of cap; the body is covered with a long cloak ornamented with a curious border. The front part of the figure consists of valves, united with the back by strong hinges. When opened, the Iron Maid presents to view a mass of bars and hoops coated with iron. In the inside of the valves are twentythree quadrangular poniards, thirteen of which stick in the right breast, eight in the left, and one in each side of the face. The bottom is a trap-door, which is opened by touching a spring on the outside of the figure. As soon as the criminal was placed in the Maid, the valves were, by machinery,
