ESCAPE BY TIGHT ROPE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14972, 20 April 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

ESCAPE BY TIGHT ROPE.

A militant Socialist named Thomas, who had been condemned to five years' imprisonment for highway robbery, has made a daring escape from Chartores Prison. Pending an appeal, he was spending his days in tho prison offioo. He slipped unnoticed into the carpenter's shed. There he seized a large bundle of string and a folding ladder. When ho reached the outer prison yard he had two walls, 18ft and 29ft liigh, and only 12ft apart, still between him and liberty. Outside, however, an accomplice was waiting. Tying a weight to one end of tho string, Thomas threw a line over the two walls. To the string his friend attached a stout rope, of which the prisoner Boon had possession. With his rope ladder he climbed to a stoutly grilled window opening on one of the < prison corridors. He tied, the rope to the bars, and when it had been pulled taut by his accomplice he swung himself on to it. Suspended by his hands, ho slowly worked his Way along the rope, scrambling over the two walls and then slipping down the end of the fop© into, the street. A moment later he was in a motor-car speeding away from Chartres. The police have found go trace of him*