FETTERS AND HANDCUFFS  ,

instruments for securing the feet and hands of prisoners under arrest, or as a means of punishment . The old names were manacles, shackbolts or shackles, gyves and swivels . Until within recent times handcuffs were of two kinds, the figure-8 ones which confined the hands close together either in front or behind the prisoner, or the rings from the wrists were connected by a short chain much on the model of the handcuffs in use by the police forces of to-day . Much improvement has been made in handcuffs of late . They are much lighter and they are adjustable, fitting any wrist, and thus the one pair will serve a police officer for any prisoner . For the removal of gangs of convicts an arrangement of handcuffs connected by a light chain is used, the chain running through a ring on each fetter and made fast at both ends by what are known as end-locks . Several recently invented appliances are used as handcuffs, e.g. snaps, nippers, twisters . They differ from handcuffs in being intended for one wrist only, the other portion being held by the captor . In the snap the smaller circlet is snapped to on the prisoner's wrist . The nippers can be instantly fastened on the wrist . The twister, not now used in England as being liable to injure prisoners seriously, is a chain attached to two handles; the chain is put round the wrist and the two handles twisted till the chain is tight enough . Leg-irons are anklets of steel connected by light chains long enough to permit of the wearer walking with short steps .

An obsolete

form was an anklet and chain to the end of which was attached a heavy weight, usually a round shot . The Spanish used to secure prisoners in bilboes, shackles round the ankles secured by a long bar of iron . This form of leg-iron was adopted in England, and was much employed in the services during the 17th and 18th centuries . An ancient example is preserved in the Tower of London . The French marine still use a kind of leg-iron of the bilbo type .