ARCHIE McNEIL.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 800, 10 February 1909, Page 4

ARCHIE McNEIL.

AS A HORSE-DEALER FROM FEILDING. THE PRISONER WHO ESCAPED. WHERE IS HE? Messrs Butler and Blair, two officers of Wellington prison, returned to Wellington yesterday from a fruitless search for the prisoner Archie McNeil, who escaped some days ago from the Terrace Gaol. They tried to intercept McNeil at the Turakina river, but were too late, as he had passed .along 48 hours earlier mounted on a big bay horse. He was then wearing riding breeches and gaiters of a conspicuous pattern. Next he was heard of as having stayed with Mr Simpson, of Heaton P,ark, on the coast, about six miles from Turakina. To Mr Simpson McNeil described himself as a surveyor, and he assumed the airs of a professional man. • Still going north, McNeil next visit? Ed Mr D. Mcintosh, whose place is seven miles this side of Wanganui. He arrived apparently very tired, and his mount was done up. "You appear to have come a long way?" Mr Mcintosh observed. "From Feilding," McNeil replied. "I'm a horse-dealer," he added later on, "and with that horse there I won f3ie high jump at the show. Yes, it s a long ride here from Feilding. What is it; fifty miles?" That night McNeil was the guest of Mr Mcintosh, after supper he was given a good bed. He rose early next morning at three o'clock, Mr Mcintosh believes; but before he went he skimmed all the cream off the dishes. He has been seen in the Hawera district, and it is believed that he has made for the bush between Taumarunui and' Taupo. The police in the King Country are on the look out, expecting to take him in thendistrict. A farmer at Feilding, not knowing anything about McNeil's antecedents, complained to the police that a man had borrowed a horse and a pair ot leggings. He said he was a surveyor, and would return them shortly. He had not been seen by the farmer up to the time the loss was reported.