A Leap for Life

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 290, 11 May 1914, Page 5

A Leap for Life

prisoner jumps riio.u a tuain. BUT IS QUICKLY RECAPTURED. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. When being brought from Wellington to Auckland on Saturday, to answer charges of theft and falsi! pretences. Harold Spencer Caulkeu leaped from the train near Frank ton Junction, when it was going at top speed, and escaped temporarily from custody. Just before evading -his escort, lie had thrown a kit-hag, containing a necessary change of clothing, into the bushes beside the line. Though dozed, he made off into the scrub, but when the train had passed, lie came hack for his bag. When searching for it he saw his escort, Constable Parkinson, coming on horseback, and bolted into (he scrub again. Constable Parkinson, after seeing his man leap from the train and tumble out of sight into the bushes, had lost littlo time in acquainting the guard of the train with his dilemma, and +he train wag stopped some distance down the track to let the escort off. Almost immediately, the constable came across a settler jogging along the road on a grey horse, of which he took possession in the name of the Government, and he set off at a gallop back to the scene of the escape. He arrived there in at>out a quarter of an hour, and caught a glimpse of his man searching in the scrub at about the same time that Caulken saw him. The constable left his horse, and a foot chase started. It was a cross-country race, with the constable overhauling his man, and in ten minutes the prisoner's condition gave out, and he took to a ditch, where he was found and taken into custody again, and brought to Auckland.