A POWELKA STORY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 12, 15 September 1913, Page 5

A POWELKA STORY.

it is about two years since New Zealand lias heard anything of Joe Powelka, its famous 'gaol-breaker aii'l criminal,' whose sentence of 21 years led to so much surprise and a sort of sympathy. A northern exchange gives a detailed account (true or otherwise) of Joe's exit from the Terrace Gaol, Wellington, in so absurdly easy I a manner and how he escaped from the country leaving our police authoritief completely nonplusserl. The burden of. the story is that Powelka, being ;i New Zeajander of Polish parents, excited the sympathy of some Russian Poles in the Palmerston North district. This might have been on account of his race or through the strangely severe sentence of 21 years passed on him. However, whatever the cause might be, Powelka was shown the way out of gaol, in some manner as yet unexplained, by a member or members of the little 'Russian colony settled in the vicinity of Palmerston North; and as soon as.he emerged from the gaol on the hill he was spirited away in a motor car. The paper then goes on to say: "Arrived at the station, three men got out of the car, paid the driver, and disappeared. They wended their way backwards towards the wharf, where "they were joined by what-were in appearance a laboring man and a woman who saw them aboard the boat due to sail for Lyttelton. Arrived there, -they stayed in the 'City of the Plains' for a. fortnight, while the detective sleuth hounds wore, in vain, searching around Ashhurst and the bed of the Rangitikei River. Everything quiet, they steered their course for the golden West Coast, via the Bealey and the Otira Gorge. Here a friendly consul was of use. Croymoutl: had the honor of their biding presence for a few days, when a convenient coal boat spirited them away to Australia's black diamond field—Newcastle. Tlionc jthey wandered up Hie Queensland const to Thursday Island, and succeeded after a couple of months' delay in getting across the Pacific to Va'ncouver. Here they separated,and Joe Powelka drifted to Mexiea, where be has remained ever since, fighting for the rebels and earning distinction in a new field."