"SING-SING," AMERICA'S FAMOUS PRISON.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 116, 17 May 1902, Page 5 (Supplement)

"SING-SING," AMERICA'S FAMOUS PRISON.

SOME REMARKABLE ESCAPES,

Some good stories of escapes from America's most famous prison are told in an American exchange.

But once in all these years (says the ■writer) was there only humour in the prison in time of an escape. George Lavery was sentenced to life imprisonment for murfier in June, 1872. It was said that there were extenuati&g circumstances connected with the commission of the grave crime, and after having associated with Lavery for many years it seemed to me that the provocation for his act must have indeed been very great, for a mer-rier-hearted, more generous, kindly-dis-posed lad never lived. He had many friends, who sent him things to eat, and when his boxes arrived their contents belonged to everybody. Lavery was exceedingly fond of playing practical jokes, and he could not even attempt the most serious matter of escape without giving play to this most prominent propensity of his character. George was locked on "Gallery No. 3," or "Politicians' Row," as it has been called since the year the prison was built, and his cell was next to my own. The rawest Irishman that ever wore a shamrock had been appointed as a prison guard in the early part of 18S2, and, of course, he '$vas the butt of ,-Lavery's pranks every day that he was on duty. The guard was a good-natured fellow, and while he sometimes suffered keenly from George's jokes, yet he took most of them in good part and sometimes retaliated in kind.

In the middle of December, 1882, there was a very heavy fall of snow; the#tormlasted for two days and two nights. The Irish guard (O'Flaherty was his name) saw in the snow an opportunity to get even with Lavery's latest joke on him. He went to George's cell a few minutes after breakfast and said, "Gargie, me bhoy, it's the principal keeper that tells me yez is to dig a path t'roo the snow of th' arch under the prison; git yer shovel." The locality was new to George, it being outside the prison wall, but he shouldered his shovel and went with the officer. He was industriously shovelling a pathway when—ugh! He felT into a ■well of snow and water that came up to his eyes. Lavery floundered and cursed and called for help, while O'Flaherty capered round in an ecstacy of £lee, calling outj."Keep cool, Gargie, me darlin'; keep cool." Not a hand would any one lend to the luckless Lavery, and he was frozen almost solid by the time he got back to his cell. It is the duty of the guards to first count,-the men after they are locked in the cells at night, and then patrol the galleries until the •whistle blows for the dismissal of the day officers. & Flaherty locked the cells on our gallery, and on the evening of the day when George got his ducking the Irishman chaffed him unmercifully. Lavery submitted gracefully to the ridicule, but said, "You wait till my turn conies, Irish," and I believe the boy never thought of escaping until that moment, DUMMY AT CELL DOOR. The 19th of December was bitterly cold, and the night was stormy. We were all glad to get even the shelter of our dreary, cheerless cells. The great iron doors were shut upon us; O'Flaherty gave the signal for us to stand up to the bars so that he might count us. His shuffling, awkward step came along the oak platform of the gallery as he passed from one cell to another without any hesitation and counted aloud In his brogue each cell's occupant successively:—"Twantywan, twanty-two, twanty-t'ree, twantyfure," and so on. He found the requisite number of prisoners, and so reported, according to custom, to Mr Connaughtbn, the principal keener. Then he came back to patrol his tier.

When he reached Lavery's cell I heard him say:—"Shure, Gargie, man, there's no manner o' use at all,in yez sthandin' there at th' dure; th' count's all over wid." No answer. Again came O'Flaherty's voice: "Garge. darlin', on't be layin' up any har-rd feelin's agin me. Ain't it many's-th"time yez has played it worse on me than I iver bore down on yerself ?" Still silence. Then OTTlaherty ("huffy"). "All rig-ht, me bhoy. Yez don't have to talk to me If yez don't want to; there's no rule to make yez," and off he swung down the1 gallery. In a little while he ■walked slowly back again and stopped at Lavery's cell once more. Said he, "Gargie, lad, are yez sick that yez mean to sthand there all night?" Receiving no reply, he came to my door and said, "Is Gargie allin'?" "Not that I know of," was my reply. "Be Gob, I think he is," said O'Flahtrty, and tie thrust his stick between the bars and touchtd the figure that stood a couple of feet from the door. The body swayed, the head dropped, and the figure fell backward with the skull", striking the stone floor. "My God!" screamed O'Fla'herty at the top of his Voice, and, running down the gallery at full speed. "I've killed 'im. I've killed Gargie Lavery! Quick! The keys! The keys!" The excitement was tremendous, buj; finally the keys -were found. George's cell was opened, and lying there, outstretched upon the floor, was a clever dummy, made of wood, straw, and rags. The face was fashioned of slightly soiled linen, and the maker had provided hair, eyes and nose that passed very well for Lavery's when seen from the outside oT a somewhat darkened .cell. Good old O'Flaherty! He hugged the stuffed figure and jumped up and down with delight. "Shrue, Gargie," he cried, "yez said yez 'ud be evens wid me, an r evens yez are; an' I'm glad of it, I am, an' I tanks yez for it, I do; ferl fought I'd killed yez, Garge, me bhoy, I did." He laughed and cried, entirely oblivious of the crowd aro.und him. The bell rang the alarm of the escape, but every one seemed intent upon hearing the story, and everybody wanted to shake O'Flaherty's hand, for some reason or other, so that there was considerable delay in getting out the search parties. O'Flaherty was one of the man hunters, as in duty bound, but he swore to me afterwards that if he had seen "Gargie" he would have mistaken him for his own ghost amd would have run away put of sheer fright. "For," said he, "Gargle was a fine boy." Lavery was never' found, and (breathe it not in Gath) 'tis said that the lad earns a decent living for his buxom wife and their three children. BROKE HIS HEAVY SHACKLES. To those who were spectators, the escape of James O'Brien, in March, 1883, j enc month after his arrival at Sing Sing, , was a thrilling experience. What the

sensation was to O'Brien probably no one will ever know. O'Brien was a burglar, and had been sentenced to a five-year term. Sing- Sing was overcrowded when h$ reached there, and fifty of the prisoners were transferred to Auburn, o'&!i«n_-being one of the number. ' When there is a transfer to another prison, the prisoners are assorted into pairs, and each one of a pair is shackled, hand and ioot, to his mate. These shackles are riveted with half-inch bolts, and it requires heavy blows with a hammer upon a sharp cold chisel to cut the bolts, and thus separate the prisoners upon arrival at their destination. How in the name of Vulcan O'Brien ever did it let the tliunderboltrmaking god declare, but it certainly is a fact that after the fifty prisoners were shackled, placed in an ordinary passenger coach, and were speeding alonsr the rails at a frightful pace, O'Brien accomplished the"marvellous feat of breaking the shackles which bound him to hi^ fellow-prisoner. No sooner <?.id the man have the use of his arms rind legs than he threw ud the window and hurled himself out of it. Whether he was injured no one connected with the prison ever knew.- The train was stopped and the man searched for, but he was never found. CAME BACK AFTER ESCAPE. A peculiar chap was William Shepsey, a rifteen-year man, who made one of our unlfcppy number in 1873. He tarried with us for ten years, and then escaped in September, 18S3. Five years after he had gene, a visitor, whom no one recognised, called at the prison and expressed his desire to see Principal Keeper Connaughton. Mr Connaughton went to the visiting room aiid addressed his caller with his usual courtesy. Said the visitor, "You don't remember me? " And, annoyed at the non-recognition, he testiiy declared himself to V.c William Shepsey, who escaped in 1883, and who had come back to serve out his term. Mr Connaughton gTaciously accommodated him, and asked him, in apparent seriousness, If he did not consider himself en-; titled to the £10 reward for his own recapture. I shall only refer to the next escape, because the prisoner bore, or had assuni-. Ed an Illustrious name,, and, like him, who at one time owned the worid, possessed (iD *ome degree) the qualities which command 'success from , dangerous undertakings. Louis Napoleon, a Frenchman (twenty years for burglary), could speak little English when first imprisoned in IS7B, ait* he seemed indisposed to learn tthe language of the country wherein he Was held in durance vile. His requests and needs were made known in a mixture of good.'French and bad English, amplified by gestures. He and another Frenchman were such expert laundryrnen that they were employed in the warden's house. Louis Napoleon had served all his time but about a. year when <ie " sloped " in the evening: of April 2, •1889. The officer who guarded the prisoners in the. warden's house was named Pardridge, and was always grumSTing because ■he could never make out what Napoleon said. On the night In question the prisoners were seated at the suppertable, when Napoleon arose, placed his hand upon his breast, made a polite inclination of his head, and said to the officer, " M'sier, je vous fait mes adieux." " Hey! What's that, Frenchy? But there. Don't try to tell me; Just go on." And " Frenchy " went—first Into the laundry,, thence to the lawn, and on to the public highway, where darkness swallo-wea him. When, the other Frenchman gleefully translated Napoleon's farewell of Pardridge, that worthy ventured the suggestion that it xcacn't ospeotoa .oLnO-Ctiatd in no prison to learn no furrin langvldges, so far as he knew. TIED. GUARD AND FLED. Michael Feeney, , already "In prison for 20 years for manslaughter, tried to kill a fellow-prisoner at Clinton Prison in ISS9. He was given an additional term of ten years, and came to Sing Sing to serve it. Feeney had been with us but a year when he and one James Kelly (burglary — five years) attacked their keeper as he was taking them outside the walls to dig a ditch. Kelly hit the offker a terrible blow on the crown of the head with a heavy spade. Both men then tied the officer, hands and feet, forced a gag into his mouth, and left him' to his reflections on the strangeness of things. - The men were recaptured after- an absence of three hours, and both acknowledged that upon their mum they had made some new discoveries, and for a number days guve evidences of their knowledge by gently rubbing their nether parts with the softest spot in the i>alms of their hands. If a man insists upon having it he can get a pretty tough deal of it in prison, and that's the fact. THE " STUDENT'S " ESCAPE. Thomas Thompson, burglar, sentenced to seven and a-half years in September, IS9O, had the appearance of ai student rather than a crook, and his development M prison would indicate that nature intended him for the former rather than the latter walk in life, for Thompson knew how to think to some purpose, and to patiently mature the plans which he formulated. " Tom " was anything very shortly after you put him to it. He had never handled a trowel until gaoled, but he soon became a good mason. He was later put in the printing shop, where in a short time be could set type like a house afire. After becoming skilful at several other things, he decided to learn how to run an engine if he could get the chance. He got the chance, ancf^he learned how to run an engine, and a few months later was put in charge t>f one of the engme-rooms, which was situated, say, three hundred feet from the river front. Now came into play " Tom's " quality of patience. With most men. the idea of escape is followed by scanning the impediments which they must scale. Not so " Tom." Instead of looking1 up he looked down—at the ground—and then began "to figure, as becomes a student. And then he began to dig. The very thought of the man's patience is a weariness. Tie made an excavation under the boiler-house,, taking a. single shovelful of earth from under the boards at the moment when the guard's back was turned, and casting it into>--the ashes under the boilers to be carted off to the refuse heap at the close of the day. The excavation slowly grew larger day by day, the heavy oak flooring concealing It from the view of the night watchman, until it extended as far as the main sewer that emptied into the riven &' Tom " now only had to ■wait for a dark evening, when the tide was low enough to leave the mouth of the sewer above the surface of the river. ■Such an evening camo to the imperturbable " Tommy " in due course, 'and half an hour before the boys were locked up for the day the ingenious youth, after railing fast the floor that was now over his, fcead, took a promenade along his newly-constructed highway, admired for a. moment his handiwork, entered into the big sewer, dropped into the water, swam noiselessly as a rat within the shadow "of the wharf, reached a point beyond the prison grounds, emerged from the stream, and thence proceeded into limitless boundaries. It was stated that

some of the officers blackened each ether's eyea arguing over the ways and

means of Thompson's escape. Anyhow, he got away, and stayed away for almost five yeai a. Then Detective JackMQJC £oj him, somewhere or other; I forget^where; His air of thoughtfulness increased after his return, naturally, but he didn't try to escape a second time.