DARING GAOL BREAKER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1037, 30 April 1912, Page 4

DARING GAOL BREAKER.

ESCAPES ON A TIGHT ROPE

A militant socialist named Thomas, who had been condemned to five years’ imprisonment for highway robbery, has made a daring escape from Chartress Prison. Pending an appeal, he was spending his days in the prison office. He slipped unnoticed into the carpenters’ shed. There he seized a large bundle of string and a folding ladder. When he reached the outer prison yard he had two walls, iSft. and 29ft. high, and only twelve feet apart, still between him and liberty Outside, however, an accomplice was waiting. Tying a weight to one end of the string, Thomas threw a line over the two walls. To the string his friend attached a stout rope, of which the prisoner soon had possession. With his rope ladder he climbed to a stoutly grilled window opening, on one of the prison corridors. He tied the rope to the bars, and when it had been pulled taut by his accomplice he swung himself on to it. Suspended by his hands, he slowly worked his way along the rope, scrambling over the two walls and then slipping down the end of the rope into the street. A moment later he was in a motor car speeding away from Chartress. The police have found no trace of him.