ESCAPE FROM GAOL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2013, 27 February 1890, Page 1

ESCAPE FROM GAOL.

, Fpb. 18. A Frenchman named Pierre Dour, who was serying a sentence of eight years in Pentridge for coining, made his escape some time between midnight and six o’clock last Friday morning in a very sensational manner. He occupied a cell in.C division, which is devoted to prisoners who have good conduct records, and whose terms of penal servitude arp aliqqst completed. Whep the warder went :to call him yesterday morning he found the cell empty, On the floor was lyjng a small auguar, a pair of pliers,; such as are used by Tinsmiths, and a knife, which had been roughly;serrated. Dour had torn off a portion of the iron lining of his coll door with the pliers, had bored v several holes through the timber ( of the door with the, augur, and then sawn out a piece of wood* making a hole large enough to allow him to get his hand through. With a skeleton key he opened the padlock of his cell, which he re-locked'af had left it. The hole in the door was skilfully covered with a parchment, painted to resemble the rest of the woodwork, and,;it was not known that he had escaped, till the cell door was opened. After leaving the cell he,,, had to descend a distance of I4ft., climb two walls, 20ft. and 12ft. in height respectively, and cross two yards. All this he successfully accomplished, and it is believed that he had some assistance from companions outside the prison. His prison clothes were found, in a ditch.outside the walls. He is forty-seven years of ago, and is known to have escaped from New Caledonia. He had Only ten months more to serve at Pentridge,, but it is supposed the fear lest he should be returned to the French prisons induced him to make a bold bid for freedom. Dour was arrested a couple of nights subsequently at the Melbourne Coffee Palace, in Bourke street, where he had taken a room with a friend, who is believed to have been his accomplice. The further'the method of the escape is probed the more unreserved is the acknowledgment that has to be paid to the ingenuity of Pierre Dour. The escape took place on TVjedneaday night; oh the’previous evening all the convicts of this division had,, by. order of the Governor,' been turned' out of their cells and searched for whatever contraband articles they might have about their persons. Dour seems, however, to have contrived a safe hiding place for the implements he used in penetrating the door of his cell. There is in each of the prisoners’ cells a commode, for the fixing of which four small triangular pieces of wood are used. Two of these are found to have been hollowed out, so as to leave quite sufficieat space for the concealment of the tools necessary,for Dour’s purpose. Successful escapes from Pentridge have been few in number. The most remarkable was one which occurred nearly thirty years ago, when an extraordinary device was resorted to. A gang of convicts were employed in erecting the wall which surrounds the main structure, when one of them, persuaded his fellowworkers to build him, into the solid: masonry. Blocks of stone were laid! in their places round the man, and filled in with mortar, completely concealing him from view, both on . the outside and on the inside. When night came on he cut his way through the wall, m which apertures for breathing had been left, and disapeared. About six years ago a longsentence convict managed! to get out of his cell, hut he was shot dead while climbing the wall by the sentry on duty,and since that happened attempts to escape have been rare.