ESCAPE BY TICHT ROPE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3509, 27 April 1912, Page 3

ESCAPE BY TICHT ROPE.

A militant Socialist named Thomas, who had been condemned to five years’ imprisonment for highway robbery, has mad© a daring escape from Chartres Prison. Pending an appeal, r.<was spending his days in the prison office. He slipped unnoticed into the carpenter’s.shed. There lie seized a large bundle of string and a- folding ladder. When he reached the outer prison yard he had two walls, 18ft and 29ft high, and only 12ft apart, still between him and liberty. Outside, however, an accomplice was waiting. Tying a weight to one end of the string, Thomas threw a line over the two walls. To the string his friend attached a stout rope, of which the prisoner soon had possession. With his rope ladder he climbed to a stoutly grilled window opening on one of the prisoner corridors. He tied the rope to the bars, and when it had been pulled taut by his accomplice lie swung himself on to it. Suspended by his hands, he slowly worked his way along the rope, scrambling over the two walls ami then slipping down the end of the rope into the street. A moment later he was in a motor-car speeding away from Chartres. Hie police have found no trace of him.