CAPTAIN LUX'S ESCAPE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1366, 17 February 1912, Page 17

CAPTAIN LUX'S ESCAPE.

— TRACK OP STRING AND INVISIBLE INK. The full account of the escapo in December of Captain Lux from tho German citadel of Glatz, in which he was serving a sentence for espionage, reads like a chapter from Alexandre Dumas, but unlike the Count of Monte Cristo the gallant littlo French oliicer with tho bristl.-y black moustache was not left to his own resources. His escape was the result of a most ingenious plan conceived by a grouf of devoted friends in the French Army, and carried to success through tho captain's pluck and sang-froid. Tho citadel of Glatz, poised on a loftj hill overlooking the town, is the most rigorously guarded military fortress ir Germany. Captain Lux was under incessant surveillance, yet every day for tho last six months lie received from Franco a packet of papers and magazines tied up with half a.yard or so of stout waxed cord. Tho sergeant of tho guard duly inspected tho parcels, and finding nothing, passed them on to the captain, who carefully preserved the string. Every five or six days books arrived for the prisoner, ponderous volumes on history, principally tho works of Frederic Masson, tho great Napoleonic historian. Captain Lux's warders thought him a voracious reader. Kvery minute except for his daily walk about the fortress ho I spent at his table covered with volumes of history, reviews, and newspapers. Tho gaolers noticed that he used to.bind and unbind tho books sent him and thought ho had taken up bookbinding to pas 3 tho time. MONEY IN BOOK COVERS. Bnt the. prisoner's books .were bound in a remarkable manner. As 600n as tho ■ warders' backs were turned he would rip up tho covers with a penknife and find I in ono perhaps a number of German mark (shilling) pieccs which had been sewn inside, and in another very fine steel saws. By means of "invisible" ink or simply lemon juice, which becomes visible when heated, two complete plans of escape were \ submitted to tho prisoner in the letters ho received in his prison. These letters were duly opened and read by tho governor, who" handed them unsuspectingly to the captain, as they contained only family news. Captain Lux'a friends bctoro despatching letters ungummed flaps of tho envelope and wrote on them private instructions in invisible ink. Ho had only to unfold tho envelopo and hold the ini4do to tho lire to read these secrct'-mes-sages. Through the packets of books tho captain received about .£2O in money, which was reckoned sufficient to bribe a warder and purchase a railway ticket to tho frontier, and four saws of tho finest raid hardest steel to cut his iron bars. Tho string ho had preserved lie worked together to make a rope to aid him in climbing the wall. Everything was arranged. Christmas Day was judged most suitable for tho escape, and the captain vr.is informed that a motor-car would be waiting for him at a certain spot. Tho rest is known.

Captain Lux (says tho Paris correspondent of the "Daily Mail") is the hero of the liour. Suck extraordinarv enthusiasm had been evoked by the oiheer's exploit that he has been ordered to refrain irom accepting any demonstrations ot'^admiration of any kind, (.'aplain Lux will therefore not bo able to acrept the gift for which special subscriptions have been opened by several newspapers. The French Government is somewhat embarrassed by Ihe incident, ami. doul)(le«s prompted I>y a severe article in the "Figaro," the Mi:iUu-r of War has let it be known thai he received the captain yesterday only in a private capacity, as he had known him before. To-day he left Paris 011 a week's leave. At Belforl, on the German frontier, Captain Lux's old garrison, the people are wild to soe tho hero.