Breaking Prison.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 July 1922, Page 4

Breaking Prison.

(By H .1.. Adam, author of “The Store of Crime).

The remarkable escape of a convict front Wandsworth Prison by .squeezing his body through a 7in. aperture reminds me that, no so very many years ago, I stood in a topmost cell in tin' same prison, examining a small hole in the wa.ll at the side of the window. Through this a prisoner had squeezed in a vain endeavour to escape. It was a most exti'tiordinnry attempt to achieve freedom.

With infinite patience .and exceptional skill and perseverance the man contrived to work a hole In the outside wall of his cell. There was just room, for his naked body to pass through Making a bundle of bis clothes, he let them down outside by means ol a rope fashioned out of scraps of material lie had accumulated from his work. As I have already stated, his was a top cell in a. lofty building. 1 gazed down from the window, and the height gave me a giddy feeling. ’I he man, who was slim, squeezed his. body through the aperture- it was night—and then brought his weight full upon the rope, which broke. The following morning a. warder found the lifeless Imdy ot a nude prisutler lying across a shallow stone cop- , ing. 1

There have been very few instances in which a prisoner .having broken out of prison, has .succeeded in avoiding capture. Personally, 1 know ol only one ease where n prisoner gained premature freedom and was not retaken, but that was accomplished by means of a ruse, and was not a dash lor Ireodom.

The man whose sentence ran into years, contrived, while in transit by “Black Maria,” to enlist in bis service, by means of a promise ol a liberal bribe, another man whose sentence ran only into months. In short, they changed identities, ami each answered to the other’s name. Consequently, the man who should have gone to penal servitude was free in a few months, and enjoying ill-got-ten gains. Then the other man confessed to the deception, and as he had by that time more than served the term which was originally aw aided him, lie also was released. Subsequently he was rearrested at the instigation of the man he had thus befriended- lie had become “troublesome”—and convicted on a trumpedup charge. The other, a “swell” crook promptly disappeared and was never retaken. , Recently T stood upon tlio watchtower at Borstal, from where many an escape had been signalled in the past,

and viewed tht dark wood into tlie recesses of which many a fleeing convict had penetrated in tlie vain hope of finding a haven of safety. The escape of Hie convicts Soar and King from this place will be.well remembered. One was taken soon after, but the other retained Ids freedom lor some weeks, when he was given away by one of his own class—for money. 'in spite of the daring, skill, and ingenuity exercised by the prison-break-er, the odds are overwhelmingly against his obtaining and retaining bis freedom. ■ - -