2-914-087 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Toys made by Russian prisoners at Lewes, 1854. Wooden puzzles made in England by prisoners of the Crimean War. 'These Toys...are so constructed that they can be taken to pieces and joined together again...The little chain in the foreground...with all the rings and blocks, is carved out of the solid...So great is the demand for these curiosities that it is difficult to supply it...[They] afford a considerable amount of amusement in consequence of the difficulty of finding out their construction, they, in fact, being bolted together in complicated and various ways. It is necessary to discover the last insertion of the woodwork, then the next, and so on, in order that the whole may be gradually dissected without resort to violence, which would break some part - the toy being separated into a dozen or more parts, and these being shapen together, it is equally difficult to get them again into the original form'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.