THE KING OF PRISON BREAKERS.

Motueka Star, Volume IV, Issue 149, 23 January 1903, Page 4

THE KING OF PRISON BREAKERS.

There died in Carlisle Wbrkhouse recently, at the age of 60, a character with a unique and most extraordinary career, in the person of John Gillespie, who had, until recently, earned a living by chopping firewood. In the forties and fifties, Gillespie was one of the most notorious characters in the Kingdom. His life was one continuous record of 'crime until about 20 years age ; and his history reads like an imaginative novel. He was—years ago-—known as the “king of lock-pick-ers and in his burglarious adventures he displayed an amount of cleverness, ingenuity, and resource which baffled eaeryone who had anything to do with the charges which were brought against him. After “doing” various terms of imprisonment for house breaking, etc., he was at Cumberland Assizes, in 1884, sentenced to death for housebreaking at . Wighon, but his cunning was the means of preventing the dread sentence being carried into effect. He got some rud and soap, and put them in his mouth, and feigned illness. He was reported to be in a dying condition, and the death sentence was commuted to one of imprisonment for life ; but the official record has it that Gillespie was “paidoned in a dy'ing condition,” and to prevent his death taking place in gaol after this some warders were told to convey' him to the Cumberland Infirmary. He was placed on a pait; of stretchers, and two warders carried him out of prison. He was “foaming at the mouth”—or supposed to be, for it was in reality the rud and soap. Once outside the prison doors, the ‘'dying man” sprang to his feet off the stretcher, and bolted, to the amazement of the attendant warders. His narrow escape from death did not tend to put a stop to his law-breaking practices, fur he was soon at his old game again, and quickly found his way back to gaol. He was sentenced to prison for housebreaking at Carlisle, many' times; also at Dual fries, and various places in the south of Scotland, Aberdeen, etc.., Durban and elsewhere, and on several occasions he managed to get away from the police or break out of the prison, his escape from Aberdeen gaol being a very daring and clever act. This, however, was a long time ago, for it is 20 years since Gillespie “reformed.”