The Convict Gasparini.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 465, 23 April 1890, Page 6

The Convict Gasparini.

HOW HE ESCAPED. AN INTERESTING STORY. Recently we republished from the “Centennial Magazine” an account ofaninterviow which the writer, Edwin J. Hart, claimed to have had with the convict Gasparini, who was stated to have escaped on his voyage in the steamer Wakatipu from Wellington to Sydney, at which latter place he was to have been handed over to _ the French authorities. The writer promised to relate in the next article the story of Gasparini s escape, and it is given in the issue now to hand. We extract the following : Viscount de Jouffray d’Abbans decided on forwarding him to the French Consul in Sydney, by whom he was to be transshipped to Noumea, and for that purpose obtained from the New Zealand Government the services of Detective Walker, whom he formally constituted a French military warder pro tern. and under whoso charge Gasparini left Wellington in the steamer Wakatipu on the 11th of August, 1888. _ . “ On board the steamer,” says Gasparini, “ I seemed to interest many. The detective had his passage in the cabin, firstclass ; I was in the steerage, and he left me free to move about where I would, and do what I liked. I think I must have been pointed out to the passengers as an escaped recidiviste, for I heard them speak of me by that name, and some of them used to come to the steerage sometimes to talk with me, and with such of the crew as I could make understand me I used often to speak. It was miserable this recapture, after going through so much. I had four years of my original sentence yet to serve, forty-five for stealing the trousers and trying to escape, and I knew they would give me another forty years for this escape. “ Madre di Gesul Two lives would not work out all my sentences, I thought. Then it seemed to me that I might still get away if I could only manage to hide, for that was the only thing still possible to keep me out of the hands of the French. Amongst those who fired for the engines was a Genoese, who often used to come and talk with me because we could speak the samo language. I asked him if there was no place where he could hide me in the engine-room or the stoke-hole, but he said ho dared not, for it would get him into trouble. One day when the watch changed I slipped into the engine-room and down below to look about me, and noticing that the floor was formed of iron plates, I asked the Genoese what was under these, and he said 4 Nothing.’ I remained there some time unseen, and, when no one was watching, I walked away astern, and found I wa3 on the tunnel of the screw shaft. When I was half-way towards the screw I stopped and tried to lift one of the plates, and found that I could do so, and that there was room for me to sit in, though it was very dark and smelt badly, so I put back the plate, and still unseen came out on deck quietly. I felt satisSed, and began making my preparations for hiding there for a long time, though I thought I might never come out again. I could not get to where the provisions were kept without being seen, and so could only manage to secrete two oranges, two' apples, and two slices of bread, and then kept on waiting and watching all the day and a night for a chance to get down below, but none came, and there was always some one about. “Atlast, on the Wednesday, at four in the morning, when the watch changed, the engineer in charge came on deck for a moment, and I made my attempt. The engineer tried to light his pipe three times I counted —but the wind blew the matches out. There was a cow-pen on the deck, and a sail had been rigged in front of this as an awning to give shelter from the weather, so that it formed an angle like this,” and with his hands he forms a right angle. “Well, the engineer walked into this corner to be out of the wind, and I heard him strike another match. “My faith, I was past him in that moment, and made my passage down below without his observing ; I walked quickly out on the shaft tunnel, and in doing- so brushed against another man, who I cannot understand did not see mo. W hen I reached the place about where I had been before I lifted the plate, stepped down into the tunnel, and then replaced the plate on top of me. It was very horrible—so dark that I could not see my hands, even when it was broad day, and I found tho tunnel was not high enough to allow me to sit upright, so I was obliged to be like this” [illustrating the attitude known as squatting on one’s haunches, with the knees drawn up tightly to the chin.] “ Then, in the bottom there was several inches of filthy water, on which floated oil and grease, and other things thrown off from the engines, and it stank abominably. After being there for days as it seemed, really only hours, the pain of sitting thus became worse and worse, until it was dreadful agony, and I could bear it no longer, so I lay down full length in this vile bilge water, which (it was well) was nob high enough to wash over my face, even when the ship rolled, else I had been smothered.” He remained there in tho foul atmosphere, filth and gloom, with insufficient food for one meal, from Wednesday 4 a.m. till Friday midnight, and it was owing to this fact that when the Wakatipu moored alongside the wharf at Sydney, on the Thursdav, at 2 p.m., Detective Walker was unable to deliver the body of Girolomo Gasparini, alias Francois, into the safe ward and keeping of M. Le Comte de Siguier, repiesentotive of the French Republic. . . At midnight on the Friday Gasparini came out of his lair, to find, as he had hoped and more than half expected, his Genoese friend on tho lookout for him ; the latter told him that the_ ship was closely watched and escape was simply impossible, so he immediately returned to his hiding place, not before the Genoese, however, had given him some bread and meat and a bottle of tea to take back with him, with which mitigations of his miseries he again descended into the bowels of the ship. The Wakatipu was bound for Newcastle to coal before returning to New Zealand, and as the detective was going back by her he accompanied the vessel on her little trip north. Here was rather a unique situation 1 The baffled officer, while often doubtless racking his brains to account for the mysterious disappearance of his prisoner, was separated from the said Erisoner only by a few iron plates and bulkeads, and, as a matter of fact, was no further removed from him than he had been at any time since leaving Wellington. The steamer left Sydney at ten o’clock on Sunday morning, and arrived at Newcastle towards evening. . “At nearly midnight,” Gasparini continues, “I came again out of the tunnel—when in port—with the engines stopped, and hardly anyone on duty below, it was not difficult. Without making any noise, I reached the deck, and there found my Genoese fireman, who told me that the detective had been playing cards in the

saloon from nine to ten, bub now had j turned in, and all was quiet forward, i Then my friend brought me a razor, and IJ quickly shaved off my beard, and he gave some directions for the future—where to go and what to do —and then he brought me a change of clothes and four shillings and a sixpence, which was all ho had, hade me addio, and kept watch while I crept away from the ship.” “He was a good Samaritan, that fire-, man,” I said, a little moved in spite of myself by the simple recital, “ but how did you feel in the first moments of your freedom—were you not afraid of being again taken ?” , , , . “ Altro ! I was in great fear of that; bub in those first moments I was in tremendous excitement. I don’t know quite how I felt; it seemed as if I wanted to shout at the top of my voice, and as if I had never been free in my life before till then, and I felt strong. Madre di Dio ! I felt a3if I could walk for five days without stopping. I gob on to a railway lino, and as I had picked ud a few English words in New Zealand, I asked a man whom 1 met where it led to, and he, telling me it led to Sydney, I followed it, walking hard till daybreak, when I came to a river. I bathed in this river over and over again, and lay in it for a time to wash away the filth of the shaft tunnel, changed my clothes, and then slept all tho morning under a tree until three in the afternoon, when I again started to walk, following the railway track.” His journey lasted four days, during which he obtained food by begging at various homesteads, and at some places purchasing his frugal requirements. He arrived in Sydney on the fourth day, at two a.m., and walked about the streets until the ordinary avocations of life commenced, when he proceeded to the fishmarket, where he found some Italians, all according bo directions given to him by the Wakatipu fireman. By these he was recommended to the house of a countryman, who gave him three shillings, and directed him to an Italian eating-house, where he was fortun ate enough to meet and fraternise with another Genoese, who told him he could find work at the silver mines, whither he (the Genoese) was himself going by rail. Gasparini lelt Sydney the same day, and walked to the Cordillera mines in nine days. Here he found his friend, and through him obtained employment at sewing sacks for seven and sixpence a day, the greater part of which he managed to save, living in the meanwhile with an amount of economy and deprivation such as can be practised only by a foreigner. He remained there some three weeks, and might have stayed on indefinitely had he not chanced to meet the ex-cook of the Auckland Gaol, a former prisoner, whose sentence had expired, and who, unfortunately, remembered meeting Gasparini in the prison. The ex-cook told two of his friends, and the three of them charged Gasparini with being an escapee, an accusation which, of course, he strenuously denied, but in consequence of his de-v tection thought it advisable to leave the same day, and start to walk to Goulburn, with the idea of getting on the railway line to Melbourne. He reached his destination after three days’ hard tramp, and here fate seemed to smile on him once more, for while loafing about the town he noticed a man whose face seemed strangely familiar, and who after a prolonged stare apparently recognised him, and addressed him by name. This individual turned out to be one Pasquale, formerly assistant cook .on one of the boats belonging to the China and Marseilles line, on which Gasparini had also been employed. He had prospered, and was at the time proprietor of the local Caf6 Francaiae, and being delighted at the meeting with an old comrade, took him to his home and made much of him, and kept him there as his guest as long as possible. Gasparini, however, being haunted by the fear of reapprehension, left after twenty days’ sojourn, much against the will of his kindly host, who, as a last good office, procured him a passage by a freight train 136 miles on his road to Melbourne, and he walked the balance of the distance, arriving in Melbourne in the early part of December. When within three days’ journey of the city he came across a Frenchman with a piano-organ who, on learning that he was bound tor the metropolis, directed him to call on a French barber,, who might be able to afford him some assistance, and who in turn recommended him to the Maison Dor6e, where he got a billet as platewasher and general handyman, in consideration of receiving his board and lodging and 22s 6d a week. He remained at the Maison Dor6e for somo four weeks, but, disliking the work, was persuaded to join his fortunes with a Frenchman who was going to Tailarook, whither they both repaired by train ; and Gasparini, with a sailor’s aptitude for adapting himself to any work that came to hand, dug potatoes for three weeks, receiving 2s per bag, and earning from 7s to 10s a day. The weather becoming bad and unsettled, and work in consequence getting dull, he proceeded to Gamperdown, where he managed to procure employment on the railways for a period of three and a-half weeks, and which brought him in 5s a day. He described the work as very hard and laborious, being at it from early morning till late at night, and in proof of his statement he showed us his hands, which tough and hard as they were, showed signs of having been severely blistered. All this time he went under the name of Francesco, or Francois, and on returning to Melbourne he obtained a billet at the Palace Hotel, whence he graduated to the post of garcon de cuisine at the French Club, and where, 0, satire of fortune! he was performing his duties in the culinary department on tho occasion of the recent banquet tendered by the Club to M. Noel Pardon, the incoming Governor of New Caledonia. In answer to another question he admitted that at first he used to live in. a continual state of apprehension of being rearrested, but that the feeling was gradually wearing off, though he thought he ran considerable risk of detection, as so many people saw him in Wellington, and Auckland and on board the Wakatipu, and he was pointed out to them all as an escaped recidiviste. Apropos of this he says, “ A few days ago, in a Melbourne street, I met the Gapitano of the barque which rescued us at sea, and he seemed to be staring straight at me. Che paura ! I pulled out my handkerchief and pretended to be wiping away the sweat from my forehead, so that he might not see my face, and there was enough sweat to wipe away before he had passed me, and made no sign I can tell you.”