BREAKING GAOL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 212, 7 March 1914, Page 4

BREAKING GAOL.

,; JUST TO SHOW THEM." Asked how he would plead to a charge of having broken gaol at New Plymouth in the Magistrate's Court yesterday, Arnold Victor Smith, a young man who was recently arrested and who had been in gaol awaiting trial on a charge of theft, gave, an unusual reply. "I did go out," lie said, "I got over the wall, but I did not break anything and did not wish to escape, but merely to show that I could get away if I liked. I stood outside the wall for a while, and then I asked the man at t'-f----gate to 'please let me in.' I did not think it was very serious. In my own country, Russia, they would think it merely a joke. There was nothing proved against me, and I was not a criminal. Therefore I wished to show fhat I could escape if I liked, but would not do so. 1 did not regard myself as in prison. It is not so in my country." This evtrnordiiinrv storv was confirmed by the gaol officials, who-,said that the .mini was in the yard at 3.50 p.m.. and :\'. ' i i-- I'ouml standing at the gate,;'..' ';r. i, he 'et in._ The Magistrate merely convicted him and ordered him to come .up for sentence when called upon. The hearing of other charges against him was then commenced.