PRISONER'S LEAP

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2145, 11 May 1914, Page 6

PRISONER'S LEAP

* FROM FLYING TRAIN HOW HIS CLEVER ESCORT COT HIM ACAIN. (By TeleErauh.—Fiess Association.) 1 Auckland, May 10. 1 being brought from Wellington ' to Auckland on Saturday to answer charges of theft and false pretences, 1 Harold Spencer Caulken lenped from the 1 train near Frankton Juuction when it 1 was going at top speed, and escaped temporarily from custody. | Just beforo evading his escort he had \ thrown a kit bag containing a neces- ' sary change of clothing into tho bushes ■ beside the line. Though dazed he made ; off into the scrub, but, when the train 1 had passed, ho came back for his bag. When searching for it ho saw his escort, 1 Constable Parkinson, coming on horseback and bolted into tho scrub .again. Constable Parkinson, after seeing his man leap from the train, and tumble out of sight into the bushes, had lost 1 little titio in acquainting the guard of the train with his dilemma, and the train was stopped some distance down tho track to let the constable off. Almost immediately the latter camo across a settler jogging along the road on a grey horse, of which he took possession ill 1 the name of the Government, and he set off at a gallop back to the scene of the escape. Ho arrived there in about a quarter of an hour, and caught a glimpse of his man searching the scrub near the line. ' \ At about the same time Caulken saw the constable and that officer left his horse, and a foot chase started. It was a cross-country race with the constable overhauling his man all the time, and, in ten minutes , the prisoner's condition gavo out and he took to a ditch where he was found, taken into custody again, and brought to, Auckland.