A HORRIBLE STORY.

Auckland Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2241, 12 May 1877, Page 3

A HORRIBLE STORY.

[From the "Pilot."]

Tin: tavern of the " Golden Omelette " is situated close under the fortification Avail of the city of Radua. Its proprietor, Trouilleson, is a man of gigantic stature — an old soldier of the Austrian army, Avho was blinded by the explosion of a cannon while tiring a salute from the forts _of Trieste. Returning to his native city with his mistress, a line-looking Russian woman of the Volga, he started the house of call for beggars, which he, up to a feAV Aveeks ago, directed, and made money of. The house is a long, loav, rambling structure—a nondescript of brick, stone and Avood —and when decdended on by the police served as a shelter for nearly tAVO hundred men, women and children, all of whom, with the exception of about a dozen, were professional beggars. Upon the arrest of the host he Avas discovered to be worth in money deposited in the Imperial Bank, over 100,000 dollars—an enormous fortune for the country in which he lived. How this money was obtained was the crowning horror of the Avhole affair. Antoine Cherguille, nicknamed "The Player," is the "brother of Trouilleson's mistress. Among the frequenters of the " Golden Omelette" he is called the " Operateur.'' He is a man of raver iilty, and for thirty years ot his life has been engaged in the business of manufacturing cripples. From the evidence given at the trial, which is likely to send him to the guillotine, his method of procedure was as follows : —The members of a gang of kidnappers, organised by his sister and her sightless paramour, have for the last twenty years been engaged in stealing children from the various cities of "the empire. The unfortunate little ones Avere brought to the head quarters at Radua, where they passed into the merciless hands of the " Operateur.' He took charge of them in a separate section of the inn, where, assisted by a couple of surgeons, avlioso vices had reduced them to ids own level, and by his OAVn knowledge of anatomy—for he had studied the art himself in his youth— evolved the terribly crippled spectres avlio have so long pestered the pilgrims of St. Nepomuck. At the time of his arrest, three children, in various stages of convalescence from mutilation, were found in the filthy cots of this demoniac hospital. One of them, a pretty girl of five, had her right hand amputated. The other two— both boys—had lost their hands and feet respectively. In a pit under the floor,in one corner of the torture-chamber,wore found the putrifying remnants of a dozen human members buried hi a compost of chloride of lime and quicklime. Cherguilo manifested no emotion on his arrest, but utterly refused to render any information, and has been obstinately silent ever since. At the time the arrest avus made the business of the infamous den was in full blast. In the long common room, a hundred miserable Avrecks of humanity, armless, legless, foot less, blind, and awfully disfigured, congregated about the long table. The smoke of their pipes veiled the scene, the reek of foul meat tainted the air, and the clattering of their crutches, the curses and shrieks and loud conversation all about, deafened the ordinary ear. Upon the entrance of the detectives they merely looked up, and noting the artfully disguised figures, _ took them for strange "beggars, and continued their orgies without honoring them with any further attention. The house had been surrounded by a double cordon of police, and at a signal the descent Avas made. The result was that all the frequenters Avere seized except one. This, singularly enough, Avas a man without legs, Avho managed to conceal himself in the cellar, and eventually made his escape. The prisoners Aye re at once loaded into a special train, aud conveyed to Vienna. There the promise of pardon induced a number of them to a series of confessions. The art of crippling children Avas, it seems, not the only one practised by the "operateur." More than one poor innocent had been Avilfully blinded by the atrocious torturer, and at the trial three such victims of his infamous business were produced. Th c money gained by these children was divided between Cherguille and his sister and her paramour. The unfortunate little ones Avere closely watched, and no avenue of escape left open to them. That the circumstances of the case Avere not altogether unknown to the authorities at Radua, is patent from the fact that the Mayor and tAvo other officials have been arrested for accepting bribes to hush the matter up.