BRIEF LIBERTY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3078, 24 December 1908, Page 5

BRIEF LIBERTY.

A PRISONER ESCAPES BUT IS SOON CAPTURED.

By Telegraph—Press Association

WELLINGTON, December 23

Milford Burgess, who is awaiting trial on twelve charges of breaking and entering, escaped from the Terrace Gaol at 1.45 this afternoon.

The escapee tied two hammock ropes together and threw an end, with a loop in, to the top of the wall, where it hitched in a spike. He then clambered up the wall and ran away. Temporary-Warder Sandercomb saw a man he believed to be Burgess running in Ingestri Street, and thence up a right-of-w?y in Willis Street. He informed the clerk of the prison (Mr Baxter), who lives opposite the right-of-way. Mr Baxter telephoned to the prison asking if Burgess had escaped. He was aware that a brother of Burgess occupied a house in the right-of-way, and, in communication with the police, asked that detectives with a search warrant might be sent down. Detectives Andrews and Lewis arrived promptly, but without a search warrant. The detectives watched the house. Shortly afterwards Mrs Burgess, a sister-in-law of the escapee's, arrived, and gave the police permission, without a search warrant, to investigate. Warder Leggett and Detective Andrews searched the top floor, Detective Lewis and Mr Baxter searching the bottom floor. The escapee was found lying under a mattrass in a bed on the top floor by Warder Leggett, who took him into custody, and back to the prison.