A HORRIBLE STORY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 203, 23 February 1877, Page 17

A HORRIBLE STORY.

The tavern of the "Golden Omelette" is situated close under the fortification walls of the city of Radna. Its proprietor, Trouilleson, is a man of gigantic stature, an old soldier of the Austrian army, jgho was blinded by the explosion of a cannon while firing a salute m the forts at Trieste. Returning to his native city with his mistress, a fine-looking Russian woman of the Volga, he started the house of call for beggars, which he, up to a few weeks ago, directed and made money of. The house is a long, low, rambling structure — a nondescript of brick, stone, and wood— and when descended on by the police served as shelter for nearly two hundred men, women, and children, all of whom, with the exception of about a dozen, were professional beggars. Upon the arrest of its host, he was 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 entire affair. Antoine Cherguille, nicknamed '• The Player," is the brother of Trouilleson's mistress. Amonothe frequenters of the " Golden Omelette " he is called the " Operateur." Ho is a man of over fifty, and for the last thirty years of 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 is 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 were brought to the head-quarters at Radna, 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, whose vices had reduced theni to his own level, and by his own knowledge of anatomy — for he had studied the art itself in his youth — he evolved the terriblycrippled spectres who have so long pestered the pilgrims of St. Nepomuck. At the time of his arrest three chilren, in various stages of convalesence from mutilation, were found on 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 bands and feet respectively. In a pit under the floor, in one corner of the torture-chamber, were found the putrifying remnants of a dozen human members, buried in a compost of chloride of lime and quick lime. Chexguille manifested no emotion upon his arrest, but utterly refused to render any information, and has been obstinately silent since. At the time the arrest was made the business of the infamous den was in full blast. In the lon<* common room a hundred miserable wrecks of humanity, armless 3 , legless, handless, footless, blind, and awfully disfigured, congregated about long tables. The smoke of their pipes veiled the scene, the reek of their foul meat tainted the air, and the clattering of their crutches, the curses, shrieks, and loud conversation all about deafened the ordinary ear. Upon the entrance of the detectives they merely looked up, and noting the artfully disguished figures, took them for strange beggars, and continued their orgies without honoring them with any further attention. The house had been surrounded with a double cordon of police, and at an appointed signal the descent was made. The result was that all the frequenters of the place were seized, with one exception. This, singularly enough, was a man without legs who managed to conceal himself in the cellar, and eventually made his escape. The prisoners were at once loaded into a special train and conveyed to Vienna. There the promise of pardon induced a number of them to a series of confessions. The art of crippling children was, it seems, not the only one practised by the " operateur." More than one poor innocent had been wilfully blinded by the atrocious torturer, and at the trial three such victims of his infamous business were produced. The money gained by these children was divided between Cherguille and his sister and her paramour. The unfortunate little ones were closely watched, and no avenue of escape left open to them. That the circumstances of the case were not altogether unknown to the authorities at Radna is patent from the fact that the Mayor and ( two other officials have been arrested for accepting bribes to hush the matter up.—' Pilot.'