been held ready in confident anticipation of a great victory and a
multitude of prisoners.

The nearest approach to a mention that we find after that is in the Book
of Psalms: "To bind their kings in chains and their nobles in fetters of
iron." But in the Greek, the Latin, Wickliffe's, and Anglo-Saxon Bible
we invariably find a word of which handcuffs is the only real
translation. It is also interesting to note that in the Anglo-Saxon
version the kings are bound in "footcops" and the nobles in "handcops."

In the early Saxon times, therefore, we find our instrument is familiar
to all and in general use, as it has continued to be to this day. But
during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there is no instance of the
use of the word "handcop"; its place is taken by "swivel manacle" and
"shackbolt," the latter word being often used by Elizabethan authors.

Handcuffs, like other things, have improved with time. Up to 1850 there
were two kinds in general use in England. One of the forms, most common
in the earlier part of this century, went under the name of the "Figure
8." This instrument does not allow the prisoner even that small amount
of liberty which is granted by its modern counterpart. It was chiefly
used for refractory prisoners who resorted to violence, for it had the
advantage of keeping the hands in a fixed position, either before or on
the back of the body. The pain it inflicted made it partake of the
nature of a punishment rather than merely a preventive against
resistance or attack. It was a punishment, too, which was universally
dreaded by prisoners of all kinds, for there is no more unbearable pain
than that of having a limb immovably confined.

[Illustration: NO. 1.--THE "FLEXIBLE."]