TEMPTED BY MINCE PIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15551, 7 March 1914, Page 2 (Supplement)

TEMPTED BY MINCE PIES.

t?Ll biiity of . Mrs ' John C. Wilderman to make an enticing minee pie led to the escape her husband and two S.rpns oners from the Middlesex county gaol at NewJßnmswick N.J. and to the downfail of Fiigen, the gaol warden, recently. ingen was born in Norway, but since his arrival in America twenty vears ago he has been interested intensely in mince pies. He was a student on the subject an authority who could tell whether brandy or applejack had been used in the concoction and whether there was not enough shortening. 1 After the _ arrest of Wilderman and Joseph Mortimer on a charge of stealing several miles of trolley wire and thus leaving a street railway line stranded, Mrs. Wilderman cultivated the acquaintance of Fiigen, according to his own statement. Whenever she called on her husband in gaol she stopped to speak with the warden. She learned that he liked mince pie better than anything else. Mrs. Wildernftn began to study the art of mince pie cookery and for two weeks had been taking mince pies to her husband in gaol. She delivered these pies while they were hot, and when she passed the warden their aroma filled his nostrils. From his cell Wilderman later would send to the warden a small sliver of the pie just enough to make him anxious. The warden fell. Would Mrs. Wilderman make such a pie for him ? Of course she would. So, wnen she delivered a pie to her husband one evening she also bad one for Fiigen. She was careful to see that the warden got the pie with the brownest crust.

When Fiigen was aroused from his sleej. next morning he discovered the remnants of a mince pie in Wilderman's cell and two saws which had been used to cut two iron bars. Wilderman was gone and so were Mortimer, his cell mate, and J.gnatz Lesok, accused of burglary. Lesok's I cell mate was asleep and when awakened he said he knew that two saws had been smuggled in to Wilderman in a. mince pie and that the bars were being cut. He was angry because the prisoners who had escaped had not awikened him. When the police went to the Wilderman home they found that all the furniture had been moved and Mrs. Wilderman had gone.