DESPERATE FIGHT IN A PRISON.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLIII, Issue XLIII, 29 January 1909, Page 2

DESPERATE FIGHT IN A PRISON.

BATTLE FOX LIFE. A midnight fight of the most desperate character, the combatants bein" a prisoner and a warder, took place in the Moabit Gaol. Berlin, on a recent Monday. A young man of 20, named Rubin, \n custody for embezzlement, was much incensed by his treatment at the hands of the overseer warder, and contrived, while in the workshop in which he is engaged, to secrete a knife among his clothes. With this he managed to loosen the iron bar across the observation window in the inner door of his cell, making the aperture large enough for him to squeeze his body through. Late one Monday evening he climbed through the transome and waited, knife m hand, for the arrival of the overseer, named Bastard, who made the round of the cells at midnight. The moment -Bastard opened the outer door leading to the court Rubin flung himself upon him, and, before he could do anything in self-defence, had stabbed nun several times in the head, the blade in one case penetrating the skull and exposing the brain. The overseer, however, had now drawn his revolver and fired three shots in rapid succession. Two of these struck Rubin, one in the hand, and the other in the abdomen, end he fell to the ground. The wounded warder, feeling his strength ebbing, then tottered to the neighbouring telephone, but as he grasped the call-handle he was overcome by unconsciousness and collapsed. His colleagues in the adjoining corridors had, however, heard the shots, and ran to see the cause. They could not, however, at once get to the assistance of their comrade, as the keys to the doors between the courts are at night taken to the central offioe of the gaol. At last, after some delay, ono of them, named Genske. succeeded in scaling the wall, 15ft high, and appeared upon the scene of the struggle. Rubin had by this time picked himself up from the ground, and. in spite of his serious injuries, dashed at his fresh adversary b£andS.hine bis knife. Genske howeyer. cut him down with a well-aimed blow from his sabre. It is very doubtful, whether either Bastard, who is a married man with four children, or Rubin, will recover I from their wounds. J