MATTHEWS' CAREER

Hokitika Guardian, 4 November 1920, Page 1

MATTHEWS' CAREER

A DARING ESCAPE . Matthews is a short man, lightly built ,but very active. He escaped from Lyttelton gaol on September 12th 1919 while undergoing a sentence of • nine months' imprisonment iipppsed on August 25th, 1919, in the Magistrate’s Court for committing an indecent act j-U ,v v .J. ,» ..9. -J •- ■ • in tlie Gardens on August I,2th. Tlie escape from Lyttelton Gaol was assisted by fog. Majtjiews was a cleaner in the gaol and liad access to tbo room where the bqmniock ropes were kept, tied together two blankets'in the drying yard and added two fourfoot lengths of hammock rope. }le threw the blankets over a wall eighteen feet high, arid they caught on barbed wire arid broken glass,'enabling him to climb on to the top, throw the rope over, and slide down twenty feet to the ground. ! He l made liis way through the cemetery and disappeared into a fog on the hill top. It was befievpd that lie had' gone down in the ill-fated Tairiui' when she was'burned at sea off Cheviot on Tuesday, September 16 ; tli just four days after his escape. Matthews was at one time a seaman, and it was thought, that he would try to stow away op a Home boat. However, a very close watch was kept in this direction. It is stated, however, that fie served for some time as fireman or trimmer on one of the Union Company s vessels ,and signed off the vessel on October stb lost, when bp was in possession of a good dea] of money. Matthews was seen in tlie Christchurch Gardens on Sunday, Oct. I7tf). The gardener who saw him had no doubt of fiis identiy, for b e had helped to arrest him on a previous occasion. He was closing in oriiiim when Mat-, thews drew a pistol and" held him off while he'escaped.' Previously lib had been serin at odd tirries, but the police found him a very slippery customer.