AN ESCAPE FROM CUSTODY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2713, 19 January 1910, Page 2

AN ESCAPE FROM CUSTODY.

ADROIT SHARPER. A young man, who was to be tried at Guildford Assizes -on Tuesday for swindling his landlady, got the warder to leave him alone a minute, and quietly escaped into the street (writes the London correspondent of the Melbourne “Argus”). 'Penniless, and certain to be captured speedily in the little Surrey town, ihe hired a taxi-cab to drive him to the county- asylum, eight miles away, saying he was an attendant there. Thence he induced the chauffeur to take him to London, where he invited him to lunch at a restaurant. Then he stooped out “to telephone,” leaving the chauffeur to pay the bill. Late at night he got another taxi-cabman to drive him and two girls to Salisbury, where he slipped away while the others breakfasted. Since then ihe has been training and taxi-cabbing about Hampshire, Essex, and'Hertfordshire, incidentally robbing a miblic-house till. But his career ended' in the small hours of this (Friday) morning. Having returned to London, he began driving about' at midnight, and had run up nearly a twentyshilling fare before the driver suspected who ihe was, and handed him over to the police.