CLEVER GOAL BREAKERS Prisoners Who Have Boldly Escaped From. Gaol.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 299, 15 September 1888, Page 4

CLEVER GOAL BREAKERS Prisoners Who Have Boldly Escaped From. Gaol.

Piuso^-bkeaking, in the proper sense of the word, is now an event of very rare occurrence, but it may be doubted whether e ven the cleverest prison-breakers of former times could have accomplished their feats in the present day. Not only are the physical difficulties greater than they used to be, but the constant inspection, the ceaseless round of duties, which are a part of the modern prison discipline, give the convict no time for adventures of that kind. When a man escapes from prison in the present age he generally does so by cleverly abusing the liberty of movement which the modern system allows, fie scales a wall while the warder's back is turned, or, without premeditating an escape, finds a door unlocked j and takes advantage of the opportunity. 1 Breaking 1 through windows or tunneling under walls is now impracticable. But it l was not always so. In the old tiny* convicts were left shut up in their cell*, ior many hours together. They had plont \ of time at their disposal, and it is not burprising that they sometime* spent it in attempting toe&cape. Itwonldnot, perhaps, be too much to say that the annals of war I cannot show instances ot greater daring or the records of useful inventions give examples of more admirable ingenuity than prisoners have shown in regaining or endeavouring to regain their liberty. No real escapes, it may be admitted, can match the imaginary adventures of the abbe and the sailor in ' Monte Christo ;' but some do not leave those splendid fancies far behind. A few, but only a few, of the most note worthy attempts have been made in oui country. Two oi them arc recorded in chronicles of the Millbank prison, the names of the heroes of adventure being Pickard Birith and 'Punch' Howard. .Smith was only 18 years old when he made his escape from Millbank ; and, when the lad's age was considered, his achievement may be thought worthy of ranking beside the deeds of more famous pcamps. He was confined in a cell the roof of which was an arch ot solid brickwork, j It was the rule of the prison that on Saturday night clean clothes were served out to the convicts, the soiled one^ remaining in the cells until the following Monday morning. Taking advantage of this circumstance, Smith fabricated out of his double set of clothing four ropes, each of which was nearly long enough to reach from one floor of the building bo another. Then, with the iron pin ot the ventilator, he made a hole in the brick roof ot his cell, crept through it and found himself under the slate*. He \\as soon on the roof ot the pi l.son, from whence he lowered himself by one of his ropes to a window-sill, from that by a second tope to the next window-sill below. Once in the yard, he managed tolay his j hands on a rope, with which he lashed toj jjether two planks, and by their help he "p. iled the outer wall. ' Punch ' Howard's 1 escape was conducted on .-similar principles, l>ut it, was? remarkable for the extraordinary 1 tact that the window through which he -queo/pd himself was a mere horizontal -lit in the- wall, three feet long, but only ' -t\ and a half inches high. He afterwards ! said that he srot his head out first, and then i lying on his- back) wriggled slowly through. When half-way out, he threw himself up, 1 rjiught the coping of the roof, clambered j up to it mid then, by his rope of blanket l-tnpb, loweied himself to the ground, fortunately for him, he landed in the , oi the pri-ori, and the .sentry, i "oein{i .i while ob|ect .-uddenly appear in l hat uncanny place, took it for a ghost, and 1 lied, while Howard scaled the wall by the ! help of a plank, and escaped. j Onu pnson - breaker whose adventures !i.t\e won for him a place in history is I'iederiok. Baron yon Trenck. who had the ■ misfortune to offend Frederick II The facility with which Yon Trenck bribed his i gaoler? and corrupted Frederick's officers ■ and the trequency with which he was him- { self betrayed throw a euiious light on the ideas of honour obtaining in Prussia at that peiiod. At his Hist attempt Yon Trenck attempted to carry off a brother officer, who wfb, like himself, a prisoner. But tlii? v. dividual betrayed him. He atterwnid goUa warder to bring him a file, and constructed a saw out ot a pocket knife. J B\ the help ot these instruments he cut ' through hi^ window, which was sixty feet fiom thcgiound, but in descending he fell and wa= recaptuied. Some time afterward the commandant of the fortress was speak ing to him, when Yon Trenck, with a really splendid audacity, seized the officer's sword, cut his way out of the place, leaped from the rampart, killed a sentry who opposed him, and would certainly have succeeded in escaping but that he met another sentry, who overpowered him. Nothing daunted by his defeats, Yon Trenck bribed soldier after soldier and corrupted one officer after another, only to be again betrayed. Kventually, however, he got his guard to allow him to escape, but in doing so he had the misfortune to sprain his ankle. For hours he and his companion wandered about in the cold and darkness, not knowing where they were. Next day they procured horses from a peasant who had a son in the company of the officer who fled with Yon Trenck and they reached Austrian te-nitory. The Governor of Dantzig, however, delivered him up to the tyrant Frederick. This time Federick threw him into a nairow cell, damp and insufficiently lighted, and kept him chained to the wall. Often he tried to regain his liberty, but in vain. At length he was set free and made his way to France, where, it is said, he perished by the guillotine at the Kevolu- j tion. ~ Veiy clever escapes- are detailed in I j ' Underground Russia,' especially that in ' which the prisoner, a man enfeebled by con- i finoment, darted irom the prison yard under the nose of the sentry at the gate, while j some heavy hay carts were entering. But perhnps the most remarkable of all recorded escapes from custody was that of Giovanni i Casanova di Seingault from the ' Piombi '' ot Venice. Above the hall where the dreaded Council of Three held their sittings, right under the leads and exposed to the ftifling heat of an almost tropical sun, wore the cells known as the ' Piombi.' In one of these, in 1755, Casanova, a gay and unscrupulous adventurer, was confined. He was lucky enough to find in his cell an i iron bolt twenty inches long and strong enough to do useful work; and wifh this he dug a larsre hole under his bed, hoping to break through the hall beneath. His improvisod lamp was furnished with the oil supplied from his salad, and ! ' he managed to strike a light by the help of a flint and the steel buckle of his? belt. But suddenly his cell was changed and the hole was discovered. Casanova met the crisis with admirable coolness. He de- i niandeel to be taken before the secretary

of the inquisition — a request with which the gaoler for obvious reasons, dared not comply. To his great joy he found that his armchair, in the bottom of which he had concealed his piece ot iron, was carried to his new cell. Somehow he managed to find out that a monk was confined in the cell directly above his own, and he contrived to communicate with his fellow-prisoner by means of notes concealed in the hollow under the backs of books. Eventually this piece of iron was transferred from the lower cell to the upper under a large pie dish, and with this the monk, after many dangers and delays, broke a hole into Casanova's cell. The latter prisoner was drawn up by ropes, made of clothes, into the upper apartment, and from it the two prisonbreakers forced their way through the roof and found thems-elves at last upon the leads. Here their real peiils began. The roof was wet and slippery and the night was pitch dark. Casanova missed his footing and &lid down to the eaves. To his horror he found that he could not stop himself — his legs and part of his body went over the edge and he only saved himself by catching his elbows in the gutter which ran around the eaves. In this horrible position he hung till by slow degrees he pulled himself up once more upon the i*ooi. At length he noticed a garret window far below. It was almost inaccessible, but he and his companion reached it and succeeded in entering it. From the garrtst they made their way down to the lower parts of the building, and when the morning broke they boldly walked out into the street. As soon as he was in safety Casanova burst into tear?. Several other escapes from the ' Piombi ' are recorded ; but from the ' I*ox2l,' the terrible underground dungeons by the walls, of the canal, no prisoner ever succeeded in forcing his way to liberty. — 'London Standard.'