CONVICTS' TELEGRAPH SET.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18025, 25 February 1922, Page 8 (Supplement)

CONVICTS' TELEGRAPH SET.

INSTALLED BETWEEN CELLS.

Warden Lewis E.'Lawes, of Sing' Sing prison, near New York, recently reprimanded two prisoners for surreptitiously laying, equipping and operating a telegraph line inside the prison. Tho mystery about the recent seizure of batteries and Morse keys is now solved, and the details can be made public. Shortly after the announcement that Roy Hiu, the prison's detective had obtained the telegraph outfit and was investigating, two inmates were ordered to appear in Court. > The defendants have adjoining cells in Sing Sing. One is an electrician and the other is employed as a photographer. They got hold of some batteries, Morse keys, electric light bulbs, a few strands of wire and other material in some unknown manner. They were telegraphing to one another from one stone-encased cell ti> the other. They had small electric lampa, as well as tickers, rigged to tho wire and were able to signal with these lights if the tickers could not he used because of the approach of keepers. How they managed to have and operate the telegraph line, with keepers constantly pacing the tier galleries outside their oell doors and inspecting the cells each day for 'contraband is a mystery. Ever Bince Joseph Sorace, an electrician, used a coil of wire to slide off the cellblock roof and make a daring escape, Detective Hill has been on the constant lookout for wire in the possession of prisoners. The two convicts said that they had the telegraph to toy with as a pastime and had no intention of using, it- for any illioit purpose. Each received a stern reDuke. | A prison official announced that Detec-1 tive Hill had caught another prisoner with a wire. However, the offender was exonerated as he proved to the satisfaction of Warden Lawes that the wjre was to be used to- give a tightrope balancing act at a show the inmates were to give to outsiders in the prison.