REMARKABLE ESCAPES.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXVI, Issue 49, 30 November 1909, Page 6

REMARKABLE ESCAPES.

SOME SmNEi'-biDE STORIES.^ io may oo cuntenuea taut Lovelace, wneii ne wrote w a lis uo not a prison make, i>or iron tiara a cage, lumaoii to a quaint conceit, out tnat ms statement has a linn lounuation 111 fact can oe proved by a seareii oi wio crniimaii annais or Victoria vsays a writer m tile Melbourne 'Jaeraia;. xnere is reason to ueneve, nowever, mat for some of tne most remarkable 01 escapes turough prison bars one must look to .New, South Wales. A DESI/ERATE FLAN.

Wiiac couKl be more tnriiling, for intance, tnaii tlie uasn tor liberty made uy a prisoner nameu AremiuaiU i'reeuian, winie unuergoing a sentence ot .jcveii years' imprisonment m Parraumtta uaoi for breaking into a priest's uouse and setting lire to it. tie had not ocen long ivithm the wails of the big prison—less tnan a year in fact—when no began to lay ins plans to secure his freedom, finding tnat he could loosen the iron bars of ins cell window he conceived the idea of substituting wooden ones for tliem. This audacious scheme was rendered of execution by tii© fact that Freeman was employed in the carpenter's shop. Unobserved, ho contrived to carry out tho initial stage of his scheme, which involved facing the possibilities of an awful fate. For the prisoner's cell was situated m the upper storey, and death lay waiting for him on the stones of the prison yard nearly <0 feet below. But - some eight feet below his cell window there stretched an electric lighting cable across a terrifying gull from the building to the prison wall, 75 feet away. The desperate prisoner, who must have had nerves of jsteel, determined 'to utilise this cable to enable him to escape. A LEAI' FOR LIBERTY. About midnight one Saturday night in March, 11100, he removed the wooden bars from his cell window, drew himself up on to tho sill, hesitated for one moment, and then threw himself into space. He had calculated the distance for weeks and made no mistake. For one breathless moment he hung to the swaying cable, and then summoning all iiis strength to his assistance, made his way hand over hand to the wall, lie dropped safely over that, but had still to negotiate the outer wall. _ This he did by means of a piece of timber 28 in length which he obtained from a stack, and in a little while he was once more free. Stealing a ponv he galloped to Sydney and disappeared. He came to Melbourne and for a time worked honestly. Finally lie was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment in l'entridge for horse stealing, and it waswhile ho was serving this sentence un,der another name that it was discovered, ono year and ten months after his escape, that ho was the escapee for whom tho police had been looking high and low. "THUNDERBOLT." Among the daring criminals who mado their escape many years ago from imprisonment on Cockatoo Island, in Sydney Harbor, by swimming across the shark-infested waters to the mainland, was tho notorious bushranger, "Thunderbolt," whose real name was Frederick Ward. For seven years after that he terrorised a whole countryside until shot dead by a constable, after a long pursuit and desperate hand-to-hand light near Uralla. Another bushranger who made his escape while serving a well-deserved sentence was Frederick Lowry. who in 1863 was incarcerated in Bat-hurst (iaol. He and some comrades came into possession of a pick-axe, which was believed to have been passed through to them from some friends outside. Protected from view by their 6omrades two of the prisoners actually succeeded in making a hole through the thick brick wall sufficiently large to enable them tt> poss through, and by this means Lowry and four others secured their liborty.

The. alerm was raised almost immediately, and three of them were arrested the same day. Lnwry and the other got el ear awav, and the bushranger at once took up his old profession of highway robbery. A few months later he and another man "stuck up" the Mudgee coach and robbed a bank official of no less than £o7oo. A month later lie was mortally wounded in an encounter with the police. another bushranger, pained Larry ' Cummins, being captured at the same time.

DOWN A SEWER PIPE. This man .Cummins was himself tho "hero" of a remarkable csscape from Perrimii Gaol. He and a follow prisoner conceived the daring idea of making their way to freedom through a large pipe, some hundreds of feet in length, through which all tho prison sewerage was carried down into tho river. By this awful exit the two desperadoes passed to liberty. The visitor to Darlingliurst Gaol may have pointed out to him a spot in one of the walls lvhero several criminals who had been concerned in a mutiny on Cockatoo Island managed to make an opening, through which they escaped. The tactics adoptd were similar to those of Loavi'v and his comrades employed in Batlmrst. Gaol, the men at work on the wall boing screened from view by the others. One man became stuck in tho ripening until be was dragged through forcibly. The alarm was given, but several succeeded in getting away. ESCAPE PROVIDED.

Another remarkable nsnm from Darlingliurst is on record. While engaged with others in building a wing of the. goal many years ago a prisoner named Swan so laid one of tho stones that it could bo removed with but littlo difficulty, bis plan being to utilise this avenue of escape at some future time. X nfoitunately for Swan the Fates were against and no opportunity to carry out his plan presented itself. I'm ally ho oonfidnd bis secret to a fellow prisoner, who a little later removed the stone while unobserved and regained his freedom. Swan remaiml tn realise that in some cases stone walls tlo make a prison.

TWO MURDERS. YJ' 1 . P er <l to criminals over on the watch for a chance to escape it is only to be expected that some should not stop short of murder to attain their ends. A number of such cases are reenrded in the history of New South Wales nrisons, Perhaps the most coldblooded crime of this character was that committed by two prisoners named Angel and Whito in Gwnamble Gaol in 18H5. The two ruffians were in a cell togother and had ever" opportunity of arranging their plan of escape. One pretemH to be iU sad seat for the

acting gaoler, who apparently enter, tainwl no suspicion ot foul play. Entering the cell he bent over the 'isick" man. That sealed his fate. The other prisoner stole behind him and' felled him to the ground. Before ho 1 had time almost to realise what was happening his assailant snatched his revolver from his (the gaoler's) belt and shot him dead. Seizing the keys of thegaol from the body of the official the murderers were soon outside its walls. They did not enjoy their liberty for long, but before they fell into tire hands of tho police they added another murder to their record. Hearing that they intended to "stick up" a' store near Mudgee the police prepared an ambush, into which tho two escapees walked unsuspectingly. When surprised, however, they shot the unfortunate storekeeper dead and then engaged tho police, who fired in return, with tho result that one of tho men was killed, while the other was captured' alive. SAW HIS MOTHER.

Although tragedy is usually associated with escapes from prison comedy is not always an absent element. There is, for instance, the caso of the boy who escaped from a cell at a Sydney suburban police station and after some hours' absence returned tho way he had escaped. When asked what he had been doing he replied that lie had gone out to see his mother.