There were also, as a class apart, the bruisers, which did not lacerate the flesh, but only crushed the bone.
The sight of one of these gins when set produced a vivid impression that it was endowed with life.

It exhibited the combined aspects of a shark, a crocodile, and a scorpion.

Each tooth was in the form of a tapering spine, two and a quarter inches long, which, when the jaws were closed, stood in alternation from this side and from that.

When they were open, the two halves formed a complete circle between two and three feet in diameter, the plate or treading-place in the midst being about a foot square, while from beneath extended in opposite directions the soul of the apparatus, the pair of springs, each one being of a stiffness to render necessary a lever or the whole weight of the body when forcing it down.
There were men at this time still living at Hintock who remembered when the gin and others like it were in use.

Tim Tangs's great-uncle had endured a night of six hours in this very trap, which lamed him for life.