CONVICTS ESCAPE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 23, 28 January 1911, Page 20

CONVICTS ESCAPE.

A FLIGHT IN CHAINS. For the first time m living memory t, convict has escaped from the island fortress of ScWusselburg, iv the Neva, says a St. Petersburg Reuter telegram. While working in the afternoon in the open air the convict scaled the wall with the aid of a rope and subsequently though chained, walked all night across the ice of Lake Ladoga towards tho Bugroysky Lighthouse. Early on the following morning the man was discovered by some peasants and was seized and taken back to the prison The Schlusselbtcrg fortress, rich it* memories of the battles between Russians and Swedes, is seen from the river, a place of old walls and low round watchtowers. Among the famous political prisoners who spent years thera was Biron , the Empress Anna's favourite. The Schlusselburg prisoners nowadays are treated with no little consideration. The cells ar© lighted by electricity and heated by hot-water radiators. Ihe prisoners are allowed to smoke, and there is a good library Eyery man sentenced to more than eight years penal servitude is, durine the first two years, chained on the feet The chains are not heavy and do not trail, beuig hfted up in the middle and Sd^wS hailßing a b6lt

der the bed and engage in a life-and-death struggle with that burglar." "When he crawled under the bed ho thought the burglar was in the basement."