A PRISONER’S WANDERINGS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3774, 13 July 1926, Page 27

A PRISONER’S WANDERINGS.

ESCAPE FROM BORSTAL INSTITUTE. STORY OF HIS EXPERIENCES. INVERCARGILL, July 9. Some idea of how a person who escapes from lawful custody manages to eaist, and the amount of country that he is compelled to cover in the hope of eluding his pursuers, were given at the Invercargill Magistrate’s Court this morning when a young man named William Howell, who escaped from the Borstal Institute last week, appeared and pleaded guilty to the charge laid against him. When accosted by the police on the previous afternoon, he was picking up potatoes on a farm at Bush Siding, some 20 miles from Invercargill, Howell showed no surprise, and quietly ‘ surrendered to his captors, who subsequently obtained tne following signed statement from him, which was produced in court when the charge was being heard:— “I am an inmate of the Borstal Institute, and was working on the farm cutting wood. Last Wednesday (June 30). just after dinner, I was carrying some wood out of the bush, and as no inmates were near I decided to make a break .or liberty. I then hid in the bush until night, when I creased over the Tweed street bitdra to the Bluff line, wh.ch I followed until morning. I arrived at Greenhills ® a “Y in the morning, and waited and went up to a house, and there saw a man who said he was manager of a quarry. I asked him if there werejtny work about, and he asked me if the mfti who had escaped from the Borstal Institute. I admitted that I was and he then advised me to give myself up. He gave me seme biscuits and a cup of tea, and told me J 1 * 18 * . would telephone the Bluff P°''°® and tell I hem. I then made back along tho railway line as far as Awarua, and branched off into the swamp. I walked through the swamp all dav and ?ot bade to tho line at nightfall. I then foUowed the line to Clyde street, and from there to Tisbury. I went to some stumps ini » paddock at Tisbury, and found “ clothes under one of them and camped there for the rest of the night. The clothe, consisted of two old coots, a pair of alls, a pair of trousers, and a hat, which looked as tholfgh they had been thrown away. I put these clothes on and carried my ‘trousers and coat in a sugar bag. I kept the trousers and threw the coat away, in the bush at Mokotua. I threw my hat away while I was on the way to Bluff. I camped at Tisbury all night and oarlv in the morning I went to some bush and 'camped there all day. The next night I followed the line to Bush Siding, arriving there about 9 o’clock a the next morning. I was resting on the siding when a man came along with two bags of skins, and I asked him if there were any work about. He replied that I might possibly be able to get work at the flaxmill. On my telling him that I had had no breakfast he told me to come to his place and have some. I went along with him and had i some breakfast, and he told me that £ could stop on a little and work for my food and tobacco. I did not tell the man who I was, and he did not ask me. £ remained there until arrested by the police. Between the time I left the Borstal Farm f and the time I reached Bush Siding I obtained food at several different houeea. The food was generally given to me by women, who did not seem to recognise me. Howell was formally committed for tens tence. •