DASH FOR LIBERTY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11843, 21 December 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

DASH FOR LIBERTY.

SEVEN CONVICTS BREAK AWAY.

SIX SHOT AND'RECAPTURED.

The epidemic of gaol-breaking, on which the Prison Commissioners commented so pathetically recentlv. is still rife. A desperate dash for liberty was made shortly after four o'clock on November 1 by seven convicts, employed on the farm near Dartmoor prison. Six of them were shot and recaptured by the guards, but none were seriously hurt, and were able to walk back to the prison. The seventh, however, whose registered number is V. A. 315, ;jkl who is named Arthur Yaxley;, succeeded in getting out of reach of the warders' weapons, and escaped, remaining for some days at liberty. He is, at the present time, serving his" second term of penal servitude, and during his present sentence made an _ attempt to escape from Borstal prison. The incidents of the escapes are described as follows: — About four o'clock, when the whistle was blown by the principal warder, in charge of five gangs, numbering one hundred and sixteen convicts, at work on the far bogs, seven of them made a rush to escape. The signal was at once given, and as many or the guards and other officers as could be spared immediately went in pursuit. As the men would not stop the officers fired on them, and three or four immediately dropped, one of them being struck in the side of the head. Two others were also captured within a quarter of an hour of. their bolting." CAPTURED BY A DOG. The sweets of freedom were not long enjoyed by the convict Yaxley. As was surmised from the discovery of his waistcoat oh the road, he made almost straight across the moor in the direction of Tavistock, after once shaking off the warders. It was a dog that brought about his recapture. Between seven and eight o'clock in the evening a son of Mr. Yeo, of Baggator Farm, near Dartmoor, had occasion to visit a field on the farm, and was accompanied by a dog. Passing a small piece of plantation the animal barked. This aroused Ye.o' suspicions, as he was, aware of the escape of a convict. He encouraged the dog to enter the plantation, and the animal soon succeeded in discovering a man partially hidden with leaves. The stranger at once made off at top spaed. Yeo blew a whistle, which brought his father and two brothers to the scene. All four men, with the dog, took up the . chase. The runaway, becoming hard pressed, stopped and gave himself up. He proved to be Yaxley, still wearing prison clothes. " Better give me a coat, governor, and let me go," he said to the farmer. "No," replied Mr. Yeo, "that won't do. I'll give you what you like to eat and drink. You will stay here the night, and I shall take you back to Princetown in the morning." So the convict, carefully watched, spent the night in the farm kitchen with the eos, ate a substantial meal, and in the morning was taken back in a cart over the eight miles to the prison. It appeared that one of the shots fired by the warders on the escapees hit him". Of the six others who bolted at the same time, and were retaken after ;a short pursuit, only one," Canning, Was wounded. A bullet was extracted from "his cheek soon after he was taken back to the settlement. Two years ago he was a ringleader in a convict rising at Dartmoor, when the desperate fight for liberty took place outside the prison walls. There has been only one successful escape from Dartmoor. The number was nearly doubled, however, by the convict who escaped and reached Capetown, where he was identified long afterwards by an ex-warder and sent back to complete his term.