ESCAPE AND RE-CAPTURE OF A PRISONER.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XX, Issue 4477, 25 April 1898, Page 2

ESCAPE AND RE-CAPTURE OF A PRISONER.

The Press reports that at Lyttelton, shortly before eight o'clock on Saturday morning, a prisoner, named William John Simmons, escaped from the hard labor gang afc Sticking Point, He was missed immediately by Warder Manning, and was shortly afcerwards seen by the driver of a baker's cart and some boys as he was cr ssing the Sumner road. He had di vested himself of his pr'son clothes to some extent and was wearing a pair of trousers, which it seems he had made from a prison blanket, and the fit of which is said to have dono credit to his abilities as a tailor. The slarm having b&en given, the police and gaol authorities were at once m hot pursuit, and coon caught sight of him making his way up the hills through a guliy. Before he couli get over the ridge several shots from revolvers were fired at him by Warders 0 Grady and Joyce, and Simmons deemed ifc prudent to give up his attempt to evade capture, and surrendered. He was then brought into gaol, and on his way expressed his desire to '• shout" for the crowd of boys who had gathered to sea him. Simmons is an old offender, havir g spent m gaol something like sixteen ouc of seventeen years that he has been m the colony. Ha was sentenced at the last sessions m Christohurch to five years' imprisonment for forgery, ab the same sessions receiving another sentence for larceny, the two terms of imprisonment being, however, concurrent. The news of hla esoape was telephoned to Ohrjstohurcb^ where all the constables available were at once turned out to aid In bis recapture.