ESCAPES FROM PRISON

Hokitika Guardian, 24 January 1929, Page 7

ESCAPES FROM PRISON

CONVICTS’ RUSES

CRIMINAL WHO VANISHED

One of the greatest mysteries of the prison world was the disappearance of a notorious criminal, Jonathan For lies, from a famous Mexican prison. Until the time of this incident lie had spent most of liis life im prison, and on this occasion was serving a term ol seven years. He was looked upon by the officials as a confirmed “come-back,” and had always proved himself so docile and untroiihlosome that it never occurred to them that lie might one day give them Lite slip. But this is exactly what lie did do, and he did it, moreover, in such a. mysterious way that nobody lias over iieen able to account for it, says “A Gaoler,” iln an English paper. He was taken into the • yard one morning along with II others of his type, and it so happened that the Governor of the prison had some Government representatives who had been making a tour of inspection, were in the yard at the time, and remained to watch l.hi whole “parade.”

warders put them through their exerwanders put them through their exercise, and when they were lined up in ~io, it was discovered that there were only 11. Forbes had vanished, neither warders, governor, nor Government officials could say how, when, or where I Ho was never heard of again.

THE HANDLE OF A SPOON.

All convicts who manage to escape from prison—and they are few now compared with what there used to be—do not make their way to freedom quite so easily. But sometimes the trick is successfully contrived by very simple moans. For example, a clever rogue who was sentenced to three years’ penal servitude was stated to have previously escaped from Windsor Police Station by picking the lock of bis cell door with the handle of a spoon that had been given to him at dinner time. That was a “soft job” by comparison with the trouble which other criminals have taken to regain their lil>erty. An American convict was out “taking the air’’ one day when he saw] a large nail lying on the ground a few yards away. By a little manoeuvring he managed to get his feet on it, and by throwing his whole weight on one leg the nail became embedded in the sole of his shoe. During the subsequent march round lie thumped his foot on the ground as hard as discretion would allow, and on the way back to his cell he seized a moment when the warders were looking elsewhere to snatch it from his shoes and slip it down his shirt neck. With the point of this nail, the prisoner worked for weeks scoring one or the bars, now at the top, now at the bottom, coughing or making some such triffing noise to deaden the sound. He carefully collected the particles of paint that came off with the surface scratches, and with these and little pieces of soaked bread he covered up all traces of his work when not engaged upon it. It proved a long and toilsome process, hut it in the end it brought it reward, and one morning, when the warder came to arouse him lie found the cell empty and a broken bar and a worn nail lying on the floor.

PRISONER MAKES CELL DOOR KEYS.

This was not the first occasion by any means on which soaked bread had served the gaolhreaker’s purpose to such effect. Probably the man who made the most ingenious use of it was Wcgarte, a notorious convict who in a good liis escape some years ago from tne prison at Lille. With the aid of bread softened by water, which lie had got for his breakfast, he took an impression of the two locks on his cell door, and having melted his pewter mug in some way that lias never been discovered, lie poured the liquid metal into the bread and water moulds, and so made two keys. The rest was easy. He just waited his chance, and scaled the two 12ft. walls, broke into the first tailor’s shop lie enme to, and having put on civilian suit, helped himself to what money had boon left in the till, and vanished Often prisoners arrange among themselves to help each other to escape. Of" case I recall which illustrates how this can he done. A prisoner was being taken hack to his cell after doing a “fatigue,” when another prisoner further along the corridor shouted “Fire!” The warder rushed immediately to the scene of the supposed conflagration only to find out that the cry was a false alarm, and that in the interval the prisoner he had left in the corridor was no longer there. He had bolted! How he managed to get out and away in broad daylight no one ever discovered, nor was the prisoner who raised the false alarm ever discovered.

SAW CONCEALED IN A BOOK

But the eonsof|uo»ros of this warder’s (.•red i! I it,y did not end there. Some days alter this oxritinp incident had occurred a hook was received by the prison chaplain for the use of prisoners, pitted, as lie supposed, by some charitable person interested in their welfareand as it was just the kind of book that prisoners are allowed upon occasions to read, it was innocently placed in the library. The prisoners who were in this scheme, however, knew very well whence and why the book had come,

and the'first one of them who got hold of it cautiously extracted from its padded bindings a watchmaker’s saw. With this and days of patient, surreptitious labour, a bar was sawn out of a convenient window, and every prisoner “m the know” got clean away. Of course, the book with the saw in its binding had been sent according to a pre-arranged plan by the prisoner who escaped when the fire alarm was falsely sounded.

Sometimes the escaping prisoner finds tne wall round the prison much ’ too high for him, hut even .such an obstacle will not stop desperate men, and, besides, few prisoners attempt to get away without having fifst of all thought out a sure plan for overcoming this known difficulty.

GETTING PAST A GATEKEEPER

One prisoner who hud managed to communicate with the outside world through the medium of another prisoner who was being released, managed to get clothes thrown over the wall at a specified time and place, and by changing into these actually got the gatekeeper to let iiini out in the Belief' that he was an outside tradesman going home after his day’s work on the prison premises. There was a further case not long ago of two convicts who hacked a way right through the wall with a pair of scissors they had taken from the prison before leaving; while another one, singlehanded and with nothing to assist him but a piece of blunt iron, dug a way out nnder the great prison gates which lie had tried in vain to climb.