A THRILLING ESCAPE

Evening Post, Volume 97, Issue 97, 21 October 1933, Page 17

A THRILLING ESCAPE

Majof Paul Stoffa, a Hungarian officer, must have established a record among wartime escapers, for lie almost circled the world in his efforts to regain" Ilia country and regirhent. Captured early in the war by the Russians, he was sent to a prisoners' damp at Shkotovo, forty kilometres from Vladivostok, There was sea on one side of it; a wide belt of swamps and impenetrable jungle on the other barred the road to Manchuria. Previous attempts at escape had all ended in failure, but Stoffa, with fo"Ur fellowprisonera, nianAged to elud6 the guards and reach Peking by Vay of Korea;. How this was accomplished is graphically told in his book '' Bound the World to Freedom." They had confederates to meet them beyond the barbed wire fence and to help them over the frontier, in adventurer named Ivan being of great assistance. This Ivan "fought In the EusSd-Japariese" War in on 6of the Cossack regiments and in a &t of ungovernable temper Shot his captain, who treated him rather brutally. He Was; condemned to seven years' forced labour in the mines, .but managed to escape, and became one of the cleverest and most redoubtable' smugglers on the Eusso-CMnese frontier.' He knew nd fear, and it was child's play for him. to dodge the Cossacks as well as the Chinese; frontier guards."

Dr. BelJ, the Bishop of Chichesf-er, is engaged on. a life of the late Archbishop' Davidson, to whom lie was chaplairt, private secretary, and later Dean at Canterbury,