CONVICTS BREAK GAOL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 7, 6 December 1926, Page 10

CONVICTS BREAK GAOL.

MURDERER AND A COMRADE. HUNGER FORCES SURRENDER SYDNEY, Nov. 20. ' Up in tho thick bush of rugged Tasmanian hills two escaped convicts, almost starving, tamely submitted to arrest by two constables the other day, after terrorising a countryside since their escape three days previously. The men were Alfred John Dobson, a murderer, and Henry Price. They broke out of gaol with a third man. who, in jumping from a high wall, fell and broke a leg. Dobson and Price left their injured comrade and made for the bush, and peojJc, especially women, who knew the desperate nature of the men, took dVery piecaution to keep out of their way. Tho men several times tried to obtain food and firearms, but they found that a police cordon had been drawn round them, and they sought the thick scrub between Knocklofty and Mount Wellington.

Once the two men planned a raid on stores at West Hobart, but when they were approaching their goal the presence of policemen frightened them and again they, took refuge in the scrub. It was there that the police discovered and arrested them. Eotli men admitted that if they had had firearms they would have used them, but on the point of starvation as they were, their only choice lay between capture and death. The men disclosed their method of escape. For some time, it appears, they had been in possession of a key of the gates of the exercise yard. Seizing a favourable opportunity they unlocked tho gates and forced a door leading to the workshops. They climbed through a skylight on to a roof, scaled the outside wall, and dropped into the street. If they, had been able to obtain food and hold out against arrest, their ultimate; idea .was to stow away on a steamer loading zinc for tho Philippine Islands.