STORY OF DARTMOOR PRISON.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9067, 6 February 1908, Page 3

STORY OF DARTMOOR PRISON.

.SOME REMARKABLE: ESCAPES, Hr Basil Thompson, in telling the “Story of Dartmoor Prison” (Eeinemann), wonders that it gbould have been left to so late a comet to write the .first connected history of the most-;f aihons prison in England. ■ ; - Not until it had been established for nearly half a century was it put to its present use. Originally it was constructed as. a i war prison, and took the place of the old hulks for harbouring prisoners captured in all parts .of the world. “It was by caprice that Fate chose 16 acres in the heart of Dartmoor highlands for one of her strangest experiments. Within the double ring of masonry were met men who had been gathered from nearly every nation under heaven to fight against England under the Tricolour and the Stars and Stripes. . . The war prison was an overcrowded city without women; with its own laws, its schools, manufactures, and arts, its workshops where coin could be counterfeited, and Bank of England notes forged. f-V.. - *' ■' f. ~ : •-■ ■ • . sutit gathered- to itself persons drawn from every social rank, “from the officer of the Grand Armee and the negro general from Hayti to the sans-cnlotte from the Fanboufg St. Antoine.” It was in 1805 that the first, batches of French prisoners were transferred from Plymouth to Dartmoor, and the, strangest community to be found in any history was established. The life of the war prison throbbed with romance and comedy and tragedy, and was not without its horrors. Of the latter the most formidable were gambling and duelling. “A mere jest, a word spoken sharply, was followed by a challenge, and a duel fought With all the customary punctilio, though the weapons were scissorblades and compass legs mounted in wooden handles wtih a guard for the hand. Many duellists received dangerous wounds; some were even killed outright.” Escapes from prison were of frequent occurrence. The first one took place five days after 'the first draft arrived. Sevegrau, a naval surgeon, and Auvray, a naval officer, having observed that a guard of 50 men marched into the prison every evening to assist in getting the prisoners into their respective halls if required, made themselves glengarries and overcoats, and strips of tin looking like bayonets at a distance, and fell in at the rear of the detachment as -it marched out. Favoured by the ■ rain which was falling heavily at ■ the time they passed all the gates unI questioned, and as the (company I wheeled towards the barracks, they I left it, and went on through ‘the village towards Plymouth.’’ ’ Speaking English fluently, and being well provided with money, theey got safely to London, and their example was quickly followed. It was in 1850 that England was obliged to cease her old custom of transporting convicts beyond the , seas. The countries to which they despatched refused the undesirable cargoes, and the Mother Country was obliged to provide for them within the limits of her own shores. New prison hulks were established, ■ but were quite inadequate to cope with the increasing tide.of convicted criminals, and so the time 'came for the re-opening of the Dartmoor war prison, which had fallen into disuse after the release of its prisoners many years previously. Here, again, we got many accounts of escapes which were fairly numerous, though not often successful. But one very remarkable escape took place in 1850. “It was that of Thomas Clutch, a man so small and spare that he actually succeeded in squeezing through the bars of the window on the ground door of No. 3 prison. The bars are still"there, and one may judge from them how .marvellous was this feat. Waiting until the sentry turned on his heat, he ran for the boundary wall, which was in sore need of repoiuting, and scaled it by digging his fingers and |toes into the interstices between the •sfconss * * Six years later a most ingenious attempt was made to empty a secthe prison of its inhabitants. James Lake, who had contrived to make a cell key out of beef bones, unlocked his door from the outsid© at two in the morning by tying the key to a stick and feeling for the lock through the ventilation space. He liberated Hepry Beaumont noiselessly, and creep|hg upon the sleepy patrol in hare feet they disarmed him of his bayonet. They would have let out all the convicts in the hall had not the patrol in the scuffle succeeded in ringing the alarm bell, which brought the nignt orderly officer to his assistance, and the men were secured. ’ ’ A serious trouble which the governor of the prison had to face in 1861 was the loss of a cell key by one of the warders. This key was extensively copied by the convicts, several of whom succeeded in liberating themselves. Skeleton keys were discovered in the possession of other convicts awaiting an opportunity to use them, and the trail of the lost cell key can be traced in the prison records for more.’tliau ten years. Mr Thomson gives an interesting chapter on the “Convicts’ Day,” with some reminiscences of old prisoners. Speaking of the routine and monotony of prison life, he says though some offences against prison discipline are due to a revolt aginst this monotony, it does not press hardly on all. “I remember a man who asked •specially to he located on the top floor of No. 5 prison, which is the most unpopular lauding of all. When pressed for a reason, he said •evasively that he preferred to have no one over his head, hut when I had induced him to the confidential, he confessed that he was an old sailor, that reading made his head ache, and that he liked to walk up and down his cell, listening to the howling of the wind, which made him think of the sea.”