REVENGE ON DEBT COLLECTOR

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 276, 20 November 1926, Page 38

REVENGE ON DEBT COLLECTOR

CRUCIFIES UPSIDE DOWN. A NIGHT OF AGONY. The terrible experience of being crucified upside down by an angry debtor befel Andre Combe, who was Bent by hie firm to collect the accounts of farmers in the South of France. After a long day he reached tie house of Jean Delmont and presented his bill for payment. Delmont had just gone to bed, and rose in a fit of ungovernable fury. Before Combe realised what was happening he had been felled by a blow from a heavy club, and was then pusned into the house, where Delmont, aided by his wife, bound him hand and foot and belaboured him with sticks. He was then dragged feet foremost up a ladder and suspended upside down, while his arms were Etretcaed out in the position of crucifixion, one arm being tied to the leg of a heavy table and the other to a hook in the wall. He was then given a further beating. Madame Delmont poured a bowl of boiling water over 'ais head and plucked out several handfuls of his hair. Left alone through the night, Comhc gnawed at the cord which bound his left arm until he had bitten it through, and then he was able to release his right arm and unfasten his feet. He was, however, more dead than alive when he crawled from the scene of his torture. Delmont is now under arrest on charges of robbery with violence ami unlawful detention.