It is not possible to formulate rules for indexing subject-matter as definitely as has already been done with names, places, etc. The judgment of the indexer and his analytical skill will be called fully into play. The effort should be to express in the index, in the clearest yet briefest form, the _idea_ which the author has amplified in his text. As an aid to the nature and form of the entries, a page of text is shown on the opposite page, and the entries which would appear in the index from this page, are given below. This is what would be considered as a medium full index:
Bressani, Joseph, tortured by Iroquois, 73; life spared by Iroquois, 73; sent to Fort Orange, 73; ransomed by Dutch, 73; sent to Rochelle, 73.
Iroquois Indians, the, torture Bressani, 73; spare Bressani's life, 73.
Torture, Indian, Bressani by the Iroquois, 73.
march of several days,--during which Bressani, in wading a rocky stream, fell from exhaustion and was nearly drowned,--they reached an Iroquois town. It is needless to follow the revolting details of the new torments that succeeded. They hung him by the feet with chains; placed food for their dogs on his naked body, that they might lacerate him as they ate; and at last had reduced his emaciated frame to such a condition that even they themselves stood in horror of him. "I could not have believed," he writes to his Superior, "that a man was so hard to kill." He found among them those who, from compassion or from a refinement of cruelty, fed him, for he could not feed himself. They told him jestingly that they wished to fatten him before putting him to death.
The council that was to decide his fate met on the nineteenth of June, when to the prisoner's amazement, and, as it seemed, to their own surprise, they resolved to spare his life. He was given, with due ceremony, to an old woman, to take the place of a deceased relative; but since he was as repulsive, in his mangled condition as, by the Indian standard, he was useless, she sent her son with him to Fort Orange, to sell him to the Dutch. With the same humanity which they had shown in the case of Jogues, they gave a generous ransom for him, supplied him with clothing, kept him until his strength was in some degree recruited, and then placed him on board a vessel bound for Rochelle. Here he