INGENIOUS ESCAPES
The case of Pickard Smith—Sent repeatedly to the Penitentiary—Escapes
again and again—Best methods of preventing escapes as seen in
modern Prisons—Remarkable case of Punch Howard—Escape ingeniously
effected—Cleverly recaptured—Jack Robinson at Dartmoor—George Hackett
at Pentonville.
THE most annoying of the many anxieties that weighed upon Governor
Nihil at this time was the deportment of a certain Pickard Smith, who
seemed more than a match for all the authority of the place. His case
is interesting as an example of the length to which a prisoner can go,
even in times when better influences were, it was hoped, at work with
all.
On the day he arrived at the Penitentiary under the name of Smith, it
was discovered that he had been there before as Pickard, when he was
known for notorious misconduct, though towards the end of his sentence
he had assumed an appearance of reformation. On his recommittal he
was at first quiet and amenable to discipline, but he seemed to
have conceived suddenly a desire to be sent abroad to the colonies.
From henceforth his conduct was detestable. At length he destroyed
everything in his cell: furniture, clothing, glass, books, including
“Bishop Green’s Discourses,” and then he endeavoured to brain the
officer who came to expostulate. “If I am to go to the dark, I may as
well go for something,” he said; and after he was removed it was found
that he had written the following lines on the back of his cell door:
“London is the place where I was bred and born,
Newgate has been too often my situation,
The Penitentiary has been too often my dwelling-place,
And New South Wales is my expectation.”
Not a very high poetical flight, to which the governor-chaplain
remained insensible, and had the poet forthwith flogged.
The magistrate came as before from the nearest police office, for the
express purpose of passing sentence. Seventy-five lashes out of three
hundred ordered were inflicted, greatly to the benefit, it is recorded,
of other unruly prisoners, all of whom were brought out to witness the
punishment. “They appeared much subdued in spirit,” says Mr. Nihil,
and for some days afterwards the prison exhibited quite an altered
character. But upon the culprit himself the sentence had no effect
whatever. He spent his time from that day forth in whistling, idleness,
and impertinence, sometimes in his own cell, oftener in the dark.
His insolence grew more and more insupportable; he told the governor
to hold his jaw, and his warder to go about his business. One fine
morning it was found that he had gone. His cell was empty, and he had
disappeared.
“The mode of escape,” said the governor in his journal, “was most
ingenious, daring, and masterly, though the prisoner is only eighteen
years of age. There was a combination of sagacity, courage, and ready
resource, indicating extraordinary powers, both mental and bodily.”
He had got, unknown to his officer, an iron pin used for turning
the handle of the ventilator of the stove. The stove not being in
use the handle was not missed. The prisoner was let out of his cell
by himself, being kept apart from other prisoners in consequence of
frequent insubordination and the mischievous tendency of his example.
With this pin he had made a hole in the brick arch which formed the
roof of his cell large enough to admit his body. The iron pin, stuck
into one of the slits for ventilation in the wall, served as a hook, to
which he had probably suspended a small ladder, ingeniously constructed
of shreds of cotton and coarse thread (it was found in the roof);
and with such assistance to his own activity and strength he had got
through the ceiling and into the roof, along the interior of which he
had proceeded some distance, till he was able at length to break a
hole in the slates. But the battens to which the slates were fastened
were too narrow to let him through, so he travelled on till he found
others wider apart, and here, making a second hole, he contrived to get
out on to the roof. The descent was his next difficulty, but he had
provided for this by carrying with him a number of suitable articles
to assist him in his purpose. It must be mentioned that he had chosen
his time well: not only were the officers later coming in on Sunday
mornings, but on Saturday evenings the prisoners receive their clean
clothes (their dirty ones were not returned till next morning), so that
Smith had in his cell two sets of clothes—two shirts, two pairs of
long stockings, and two handkerchiefs. He had washed his feet also on
Saturday night, and had been given a round towel to dry them. Having
torn his blankets and rugs into strips, he had sewn them together
by lengths, making each, like the round towel, a link in a chain to
which his neckerchiefs and pocket-handkerchiefs, similarly prepared,
added further lengths. With all of these, and attired in his clean
shirt, he had ascended as already described to the roof, where he must
have found his chain too short, for he had added his shirt to the
apparatus. This rope he fastened to one of the rafters of the roof,
and then slung himself down to where he judged the attic window was
to be found, and he judged accurately. The sill of the window formed
the first stage, and to its bars he fastened part of his chain, thus
economizing its length, instead of having one long rope from the roof
downwards. Descending in like manner to the second window, he repeated
the process, and again to the third (or first floor), after which he
reached the ground in safety. His next difficulty was to scale the
boundary wall. Much work happened to be going on in the rebuilding of
parts destroyed by fire, and a quantity of masons’ and carpenters’
materials were lying about. First he contrived to remove a long and
prodigiously heavy ladder (which two men ordinarily could not carry),
from against the scaffolding, and this he dragged to the iron fence of
the burial ground, against which he rested it, but he could not rear
it the whole height of the boundary wall. Next he got two planks, and
lashing them firmly together with a rope he picked up, he thus made an
inclined plane long enough to allow of his walking up it to the top
of the wall. Weighting one end with a heavy stone, he easily got the
planking on to the wall and thus got over.
As soon as the escape was discovered immediate search was made in
all adjoining lurking-places. Officers acquainted with Pickard’s
haunts were despatched to a far-off part of the town, information was
lodged at Bow Street, and a reward of £50 offered by authority of the
Secretary of State. He was eventually recaptured through the connivance
of his relatives. Soon anonymous letters reached the governor, offering
to give the fugitive up for the reward. A confidential officer was
despatched to a concerted place of meeting, and by the assistance
of the police, and his own friends, Pickard Smith was secured and
brought back to the Penitentiary. Mr. Nihil was much exercised in
spirit at his return. It appeared that he belonged to a family which
had all been transported. He came to the Penitentiary himself as a
boy, grew up in it to manhood, and five months after his release was
again convicted and returned under a new name. Mr. Nihil says: “Had
it been known that the benevolent system of the Penitentiary had been
previously tried in vain upon him, he would not probably have been
sent here a second time. It is plain that he was not a fit subject
for it, and his previous experience within our walls, and probable
acquaintance with their exterior localities, acquired during the
interval of his freedom, rendered him a dangerous inmate. After his
flogging continued misconduct rendered it necessary to keep him apart
from other prisoners—a circumstance which facilitated those operations
by which he lately accomplished his escape. It is now highly dangerous
to keep him in the same ward with other prisoners, our means of
preventing intercourse being extremely inadequate. On the other hand,
conversant as he is with the localities of the prison, aware of the
aid to be derived from the materials strewed about in consequence of
the extensive repairs after the late fire, and flushed with his former
success, it becomes no less objectionable to place him apart where he
may be less liable to any interruption in any attempt he may make. A
man of his capabilities ought not to be kept in a prison with so low
a boundary wall as ours. I do not fear his escape, watched as he now
will be, but I fear his attempts.”
Nevertheless, though repeated efforts were made to get this prisoner
removed to the hulks or to some other prison, the Secretary of
State would not give his consent. He said it would be considered
discreditable to the Penitentiary if prisoners were transferred on
account of its inability to secure them. “Why not chain him heavily?”
asks the Secretary of State. “Why not?” replies Mr. Nihil. “Because if
he is prosecuted and receives an additional sentence of three years, we
cannot keep him all his time in chains. The peculiarity of our system,”
goes on the governor, “hardly appears to be considered as an objection
to his continuance here.” The principle of the Penitentiary was that
it was not merely a place of safe custody and punishment, but a place
of reformation; and, therefore, if it failed of this latter object in
any instance, a power was reserved of sending away the prisoner as
incorrigible, for fear of his interfering with the progress of the
system among other prisoners. Next day he was told he would have to
remain three years extra in the Penitentiary, whereupon he promised, of
his own accord, to abstain from making any further attempts at escape,
provided he were allowed to go among the other prisoners. He was so
much more tractable and so much improved in temper that his request was
granted, and he was brought once more under ordinary discipline.
Having remained quiet for a month or more, just to lull suspicion, he
was again discovered—and just in the nick of time—to be on the verge
of a second evasion. The window of his cell was found to have the
screws taken out, with other suspicious symptoms. Smith declared that
the state of his window was the result of accident. He was removed to
another cell, and Mr. Nihil himself proceeded to examine the one he
had left. His hammock when unlashed revealed the state of his rug and
blankets. They had been torn up into convenient strips for scaling
purposes. When the prisoner was himself searched, between his stockings
and the soles of his feet were pieces of flannel, and in one of them
was a small piece of metal, ingeniously formed into a kind of picklock.
A piece of iron, for this purpose no doubt, was missed from one side
of the cell window. He was placed in the infirmary “strong room” for
safety; then apart in F gallery by day, sleeping at night in a small
cell below. But soon he destroyed everything in F gallery, and then he
was handcuffed. His next method of disturbance was to make a violent
noise by beating with his handcuffs against the door; upon which he
was ordered to be removed to a dark cell, not for punishment, but to
prevent disturbance. Presently a noise of loud hammering was heard in
this same dark cell. The officers on duty rushed to the spot, and found
that by some extraordinary contrivance Smith had possessed himself of
one of the staples by which the iron work was made fast on the back of
the door to the dark cell. By means of this instrument he had worked
away an iron grating fixed for ventilation, and had been engaged making
a hole in the wall by which he would have soon escaped. Smith was
handcuffed and taken to another cell.
The governor is almost bewildered, and begs the committee to get rid
of this prisoner. It would be inexpedient to place him among other
prisoners, and yet that can hardly be avoided, owing to the influx of
both military and other prisoners. “As to corporal punishment, he has
already experienced it very severely without any beneficial effect. His
knowledge of the localities, and the present unsafe condition of the
prison, owing to the extensive repairs, will breed perpetual attempts,
however unsuccessful, to escape,” writes the governor.
Soon afterwards Smith asked to be relieved from his handcuffs. “What’s
the good of keeping them on me?” he said, “I can always get ’em off
with an hour’s work.” He was told they would be fastened behind his
back. “I can slip them in front; you know that,” he replied.
“I threatened, then,” says Mr. Nihil, “to fetter his arms as well
as his hands, and that seemed to baffle him. To-day I held a long
conversation with him, and cannot but lament that the powerful
qualities he possesses should have been so greatly perverted. He spoke
with great candour of his former courses. He exhibited an affectation
of religious impressions, though he acknowledged much of the evil of
his character. By and by I asked him if he wished to have the handcuffs
taken off. He did, much, because they made him feel so cold.
“‘Will you promise if I take them off not to attempt to escape?’
“‘I’ll never make another promise as long as I am here. I have made one
too many, and I am ashamed of myself for having broken it.’
“‘What am I to do with you? Where am I to send you?’
“‘It’s no use sending me anywhere, sir. If you let me go among the
other prisoners I am satisfied; from what I know of the place, there
isn’t a part from which I couldn’t escape.’”
But Pickard Smith cannot remain forever in the dark. Exercise in the
open air becomes necessary, and the first time he is taken out is
in a dense fog. Almost at once he eludes his officer’s observation,
and, slipping off his shoes, clambers up a low projecting wall that
communicates with the boundary wall of the yard, mounts it, jumps over
on the other side, and runs for the infirmary staircase where he hopes
to hide. Fortunately the taskmaster, coming out of the tower, catches
sight of his legs disappearing through the door, and running after him
captures him on the stairs. The fellow was quite incorrigible. Again he
goes to the dark, again and again is he released and recommitted, till
at length his health breaks down. If in the end he was tamed, it was
of his own failure of strength, and not of the discipline of the place.
I believe he died in the Penitentiary a year or two later, but I have
been unable to find any authentic record of the fact.
I have lingered thus long over his story, which is at best but sad and
disheartening, because it is a good illustration of the methods of
coercion tried in those days in the Penitentiary, and moreover it opens
up the whole question of escapes from prison. Of course the convicted
criminal shares with all other captives an ever-present unsatisfied
longing to be free. Like a caged blackbird, or a rat in a trap, the
felon who has lost his liberty will certainly escape whenever the
opportunity is offered to him. To leave gates ajar, or to withdraw a
customary guard, would supply a temptation as irresistible as a bone
to a hungry dog; and a prisoner’s faculties are so sharp set by his
confinement, that he sees chances which are invisible to his gaolers.
A resolute and skilful man will brave all dangers, will exhibit untold
patience and ingenuity, will endure pain and lengthened hardship, if he
sees but a loophole for escape in the end. The fiction of Edmond Dantes
and his famous escape from the Chateau d’If, is but the embroidery
of a poetical imagination working upon a sober groundwork of fact.
The records of all ancient prisons contribute their quota of similar
legends, showing how the fugitive triumphed over difficulties seemingly
insurmountable. Baron Trenck’s escape from Spandau, and Casanova’s
from the Piombi, are as familiar to us as household words.
In this present time escapes are of rarer occurrence, and for many
reasons. It is not that prisons are really more secure _per se_:—so
far as construction can be depended upon, a gaol like Newgate seems
as safe as stone and iron can make it:—but the principles of security
are so much better realized and understood. Our forefathers trusted to
physical means, and thought enough was done. To-day our reliance is
placed on the moral aid of continuous supervision. An escapade like
that of Pickard Smith would be next to impossible now. He would have
been defeated with his own weapons. To compass his ends a prisoner
must have privacy; hours of quiet undisturbed by the intrusive visit
of a lynx-eyed official, and a cell all to himself. He has now the
cell to himself—at least he has with him no companion felon—but he
is for ever tended by an “old man of the mountain,” in the shape of
his warder, who is always with him—“turning him over,” as the prison
slang calls it; searching him, that is to say, several times a day,
both his person and the cell he occupies. To conceal implements, to
carry on works like the removal of bricks, of flooring, or of bars,
is next to impossible, or feasible only through a lack of vigilance
for which the official in fault would be called seriously to account.
The whole system as pursued in British Government prisons even where
prisoners work in the open air miles beyond prison gates or boundary
walls depends on the close observance of certain principles which have
come to be regarded as axioms almost with the officials. No prisoner is
allowed to be for one moment out of an officer’s sight; that officer
starts in the morning with a certain number of convicts in charge:
he must bring in the same number on his return to the prison. Beyond
the vigilant eye of these officers in charge of small parties ranges
a wide cordon of warder-sentries, who are raised on high platforms
and have an uninterrupted view around. A carefully prepared code of
signals serves to give immediate notice of escape. A shrill note on the
whistle, a single shot from a sentry’s breechloader sounds the alarm—“A
man gone!” Next second, the whistles re-echo, shot answers shot; the
parties are assembled in the twinkling of an eye, and a force of spare
officers hasten at once to the point from whence came the first note
of distress. It is next to impossible for the fugitive to get away: if
he runs for it he is chased; if he goes to ground they dig him out;
if he takes to the water he is soon overhauled. The cases are few
and far between of successful evasion. In every case the luck or the
stratagem has been exceptional—as when at Chatham a man was buried by
his comrades brick by brick beneath a heap, and interment was completed
before the man was missed; or when at Dartmoor, another broke into the
chaplain’s house, stole clothes, food, and a good horse, on which he
rode triumphantly away.
At Millbank from first to last the escapes, successful and
unsuccessful, have been many and varied. Pickard Smith’s was not the
first nor the last. The earliest on record occurred in April, 1831. One
night about 10 o’clock it was reported to the governor that the rooms
of three of the officers had been entered and a quantity of wearing
apparel abstracted therefrom. Almost at the same moment the sergeant
patrol came in from the garden to say that the patrol on duty in going
his rounds had discovered two men in the act of getting over the garden
wall by means of a white rope, made of a “cut of cross-over.”[4] Both
men were on the rope, and when it was shaken by the patrol they fell
off and back into the garden; but they attacked the officer, knocked
him down, and then ran off in an opposite direction. The patrol, as
soon as he could recover himself, gave the alarm, and presently the
governor, chaplain, surgeon, steward, and a number of other officers
arrived on the spot. They separated in parties to make search, while
the governor took possession of the cross-over cut, which was fastened
to the top of the wall by means of a large iron rake twisted into a
hook. This rake was used in the ward for bringing out large cinders
from the long stove. It was thought at first that, in the patrol’s
absence when giving the alarm, the fugitives must have got over the
wall; but the search was continued in the dark, in and out of the
tongues between the pentagons, and through all the gardens. Just by
the external tower of Pentagon four, the governor and chaplain, who
were together, came upon two men crouching in close under the wall.
These were two prisoners, named Alexander Wallie, the wardsman, and
Robert Thompson, the instructor of C Ward, Pentagon five. Thompson
said at once, “You are gentlemen; we will surrender to you. We will
make no resistance.” But the governor being immediately joined by the
other officers, it was as much as he could do to protect the prisoners
from attack and assault, as the former were greatly excited. One of
the prisoners was dressed in a fustian frock and trousers belonging
to Warder Hay; the other had no coat, but a waistcoat and trousers
belonging to some other officer.
At the top of the tower in C Ward, Pentagon five, out of one of the
loopholes near the water cistern, another cut of cross-over had been
found hanging, by which the prisoners had evidently descended. On going
up to the place there were found close by, a large hammer, a chisel,
and a screwdriver, articles used in repairing the looms, and the large
poker belonging to the airing stoves. Several bricks had been removed
from one side of the loophole, leaving a space wide enough for one
person to get through. To the iron bar in the centre of the loophole
one end of the cross-over was made fast; the other reached the ground.
The prisoners’ prison clothing was close by this cistern, and in
Wallie’s pocket was a skeleton key made of pewter, which opened many
of the officers’ bedroom doors. The prisoners confessed they had let
themselves out of their cells by means of false keys made of pewter,
and four of these were found near the place where the prisoners had
been caught crouching down. The keys were partially buried into the
ground. There were two check-gate keys, one cell key, and a skeleton
key made of pewter.
Attempts at escape were not unknown in the interval between this
and the time when Pickard Smith bewildered Mr. Nihil. But they were
abortive and hardly worth recounting. It was not till years after the
Reverend Governor had resigned his command that serious efforts at
evasion became really frequent and successful. This was when Millbank
had become changed in constitution, and from a Penitentiary had been
made a depot for all convicts awaiting transportation beyond the seas.
I shall have occasion to refer to this change in another volume, but
will so far anticipate as to include in the present chapter some of
the escapes that happened later. The prison was filled to overflowing
with desperate characters; every hole and corner was crammed; there had
been no commensurate increase of official staff, and therefore those
indispensable precautions by which only escapes could be prevented
were greatly neglected. Weak points are soon detected by the watchful
prisoner, and in these days every loophole of escape was quickly
explored and turned to account. That some of these convicts were
resolute in their determination to get free may be believed when it is
stated that one, _en route_ from Liverpool to Millbank, offered his
escort a bribe of £600 to allow him to escape. There was no doubt that
accomplices were close at hand ready to assist him, but happily the
virtuous officers resisted temptation.
One of the first attempts of those days was made by a man named
Cummings, who broke through the ceiling of his cell. He traversed the
roof of his pentagon, but could get no further. Then he commenced to
sing and to shout, and by this he was discovered. A ladder having been
placed for him to descend, he was secured. The prisoner himself stated
that he got through the arch by means of a hole he made with a nail he
had picked up in the ward. The man was evidently cowed when he found
himself on the top of the Penitentiary, and declared while they were
trying to secure him that he would throw himself down. He had made no
provision for his own descent; his rug, blanket, towels, etc., were
found in his cell untouched. He had, however, traversed the roof along
one side of the pentagon.
Soon afterward seven prisoners made their escape in a body from the
prison. They were lodged in a large room—afterward the officers’
mess—the windows of which were without bars; and they were able
therefore to climb through them on to the roof. They took their
blankets with them, and making a ladder, descended by it. The policeman
on duty outside roused the lodge-keeper, to say he had seen a man scale
the boundary wall between one and two in the morning, by a heavy ladder
reared against the wall. All the officers were roused and stationed
round the prison; while close search was made in the numerous gardens,
stone-yards, etc. At half-past four, two officers came back with four
prisoners in a cab. They had been tracked almost from the walls of the
prison and captured at Chiswick. The other three were caught at Watford
by a recruiting-sergeant and an inspector of the Hertfordshire police.
They were on their way to Two Waters.
Next day a conspiracy was detected among the prisoners, who brought in
coke from the garden, to escape while so employed. Almost immediately
afterwards four other prisoners were caught in the very act of escaping
through the top of the cell they occupied. They had broken away the
lath and plaster ceiling of the cell, removed the slate slab above it,
and had taken off the roof slate to a sufficient extent to allow of
easy egress; their sheets had been torn up and were knotted together,
and everything was ready for their descent.
The next attempt, within a week or two, was made by a prisoner who
found that the mouth of the foul air shaft, to which his cell was
adjacent, was not protected by bars; accordingly he broke through the
wall of his cell, and having thus gained access to the shaft, would
have gained the roof easily had his artifice not been discovered just
in time. Two others picked the lock leading to the garden, meaning to
escape in the evening; and just then by chance it fell out that the
prisoner bookbinders had been long maturing a plan of escape. They had
made a large aperture in the floor of their cell, which hole had been
concealed by pasteboard. The whole of the party (three in number) were
privy to the plot, and each descended in turn to the vault below the
cell, which was on the ground floor, to work at the external wall of
the prison. This, when their plot was discovered, they had cut three
parts through. They had also prepared three suits of clothing from
their towels, and had hidden these disguises beneath some rubbish in
the vault, where were also discovered a mason’s hammer, the blade of a
shears, and a cold chisel. A rope ladder had also been made for scaling
the boundary wall, but it had been subsequently cut up as useless.
The intending fugitives thought of making a better ladder from broom
handles, to be supplied by a brush-maker in an adjoining cell, who was
also in the plot. They had worked at night by candlelight. In this
case it is not too much to say that the officials in charge of these
prisoners were really much to blame. Had they exercised only ordinary
vigilance the scheme could not have remained so long undiscovered.
By the prisoners’ own confession the hole had been in existence for
more than three months, and therefore the cell could never have been
searched.
But the most marvellous escape from Millbank was effected in the winter
of 1847, by a prisoner named Howard, better known as Punch Howard. He
had been equally successful before both at Newgate and Horsemonger Lane
Gaol; but the ingenuity and determination he displayed in this last
affair was quite beyond everything previously accomplished.
He was sentenced to transportation, and had only been received a few
days when he was removed to a cell at the top of the infirmary, part
of the room called later on E Ward. The window in this cell was long
and narrow, running parallel to the floor but at some height above it.
The extreme length is about three feet, the width but six inches and
a half.[5] It was closed by a window that revolved on a central bar
forming an axle. This bar was riveted into the stone at each end of the
window. In those days the prisoners used ordinary steel knives, which
were given them at meal times, and then immediately removed. Howard
at dinner-time converted his knife into a rough saw, by hammering the
edge of the blade on the corner of his iron bedstead, and with this
sawed through one rivet, leaving the window _in statu quo_. The whole
thing was effected within the dinner hour: saw made, bar cut, and knife
returned. No examination of the knife could have been made, and so far
luck favoured the prisoner. As soon as the warders went off duty, and
the pentagon was left to one single officer as patrol, Howard set to
work. Hoisting himself again to the window, by hanging his blanket on a
hammock hook in the wall just beneath, he removed the window bodily—one
rivet having been sawn through, the other soon gave way. The way of
egress, such as it was, was now open—a narrow slit three feet by six
inches and a half. Howard was a stoutly built man, with by no means a
small head, yet he managed to get this head through the opening. Having
accomplished this, no doubt after tremendous pressure and much pain to
himself, he turned so as to lie on his back, and worked his shoulders
and arms out. He had previously put the window with its central iron
bar half in, half out of the orifice, meaning to use it as a platform
to stand on, the weight of his body pressing down one end while the
other caught against the roof of the opening, and so gave him a firm
foothold. He had also torn up his blankets and sheets in strips, and
tied them together, so as to form a long rope, one end of which was
fastened to his legs. He was now half way out of the window, lying in
a horizontal position, with his arms free, his body nipped about the
centre by the narrow opening, his legs still inside his cell. It was
not difficult for him now to draw out the rest of his body, and as soon
as he had length enough he threw himself up and caught the coping-stone
of the roof above. All this took place on the top story, at a height
of some thirty-five feet from the ground. He was now outside the wall,
and standing on the outer end of the window bar. To draw out the whole
lengths of blanket and sheeting rope, throw them on to the roof, and
clamber after, were his next exploits. He thereupon descended into
the garden below, which encircles all of the buildings, and is itself
surrounded by a low boundary wall. This garden was patrolled by six
sentries, who divided the whole distance between them. He could see
them very plainly as he stood on the roof between Pentagons three and
four. He took the descent by degrees, lowering himself from the roof
to a third floor window, and from third floor to second, from second
to first, and from first to the ground itself. The back of the nearest
patrol just then was turned, and Howard’s descent to _terra firma_ was
unobserved. Next moment he was seen standing in his white shirt, but
otherwise naked, in among the tombstones of the Penitentiary graveyard,
which is just at this point. Concluding he was a ghost, the sentry, as
he afterwards admitted, turned tail and ran, leaving the coast quite
clear. Howard was not slow to profit by the chance. Some planks lay
close by, one of which he raised against the boundary wall, and walked
up the incline thus formed. Next moment he dropped down on the far side
and was free. His friends lived close by the prison in Pye Street,
Westminster, and within a minute or two he was in his mother’s house,
got food and clothing, and again made off for the country.
Naturally the excitement in the prison on the following morning was
intense. Howard was gone, and he could be tracked by his means of exit
from his cell to the roof, down the outer wall, across the garden,
and over the boundary wall. Here the trail stopped; and though his
home in Pye Street was immediately searched, no one would confess to
having seen him. It was felt that recapture was almost hopeless. It
occurred, however, to Denis Power, the warder of Howard’s ward, that
this man had come to prison with a “pal,” a certain Jerry Simcox, who
had been convicted at the same time and for the same offence. Mr. Power
thereupon visited Simcox in his cell.
“So Punch has gone, sir?”
“How did you know that?”
“Why, sir, you couldn’t keep him. We was in Newgate together, him and
me, and in Horsemonger too; but we got out of both. There ain’t no jail
’ll hold Punch Howard.”
“Oh, you got out together, did you?” said the officer, growing
interested.
“Yes, and could again out of any ‘stir’ in the three kingdoms, and
they could not take us either. We got to too safe a crib for that.”
“Ah—?” Power spoke unconcernedly. If he had appeared too anxious Simcox
would have remained silent.
“Punch has got an uncle down Uxbridge way who works at some brick
fields at West Drayton. Six or eight hundred of them—Mr. Hearn’s lot,
they is. That’s where we went, and the police daren’t follow us there.
They don’t allow no ‘coppers’ on the premises thereabouts, Mr. Power.
That’s the place to hide.”
“No doubt,” thought Mr. Power; “and Howard’s gone there now.”
Within an hour he had obtained the governor’s permission to go in
pursuit, with a brace of pistols in his pocket, and unlimited credit.
At the inn of West Drayton he bought from the ostler a suit of navvy’s
clothes, and went thus disguised with a spade over his shoulder towards
the brickworks. The field was full and busy. There was an alehouse
close by, and it was early morning, no one about but a sort of serving
wench, a middle-aged woman, one-eyed, and bearing on her face the marks
of a life of dissipation and rough usage.
“Morrow, mistress. Any work going?” said Power.
“Ah! work enough,” replied the woman, fixing him with her one eye,
which was as good as four or five in any other head. “But you don’t
want no work.”
“No?”
“No; I know you. You’re not what you seem. That spade and them duds
ain’t no sort of good. You’re after work, but not that sort of work.”
Doubtful whether she meant to help or thwart him, Power could only
trust himself to order a pot of ale.
“Have a drain, missus.”
“And I’ll help you too—no, not with the ale, but to cop young Punch.”
“Punch?”
“Aye—Punch Howard. That’s the work you’re after; and you shall get
it too, or my name’s not Martha Jonas. This three-and-twenty years
I’ve lived with his uncle, Dan Cockett, man and wife, though no
parson blessed us. Three-and-twenty I slaved and bore with the mean
white-faced hound, and now he leaves me for a younger woman, and I am
brought to this. Help you!—by the great powers, I’d put a knife in Dan
Cockett too.”
“And how am I to take him?”
“Not by daylight. Bless you, if you went into that field they’d never
let you out alive. Why, no bobby durst go there, nor yet a dozen
together.”
“Is Punch Howard in the field with them?”
“There; look yonder. D’ye see that lad in the striped shirt and blue
belcher tie, blue and big white spots? Can’t you tell him a mile off?”
Sure enough it was Punch Howard, standing by a brick “table,” at which
a number of others were at work, smoothing and finishing the bricks, or
coming and going with the bearing-off barrows.
“Come to-night, master. They sleep mostly out there, on top of the
brick stacks—and heavy sleep, for the beer in this house isn’t water.
Come with a bobby or two, and look them all over. Punch’ll be among
them, and you’ll be able to steal him away before the rest awake.”
So Power went back to the village, interviewed the superintendent of
police, kept quiet during the rest of the day, and that night came in
force to draw his covert. Stealthily they searched it from end to end.
Among all the villainous faces into which they peered there was not one
that bore the least resemblance to Punch Howard. Had the woman played
him false? Power could hardly make up his mind to distrust her, so
earnest and embittered had been her language against Dan Cockett. No
doubt another night he would have more success. Meanwhile time pressed,
and he resolved to try a plan of his own.
“Have you a good horse and four-wheeled shay?” he asked of his landlord
next morning.
“The best in all England.”
“Every man’s goose is a swan,” thought Power. “Let’s see the nag.”
He was a good one, and no mistake; but an out-and-out good one was
wanted for the job in hand.
At one end of the brick field—a spacious place covering two or three
hundred acres—was an office for the time-keeper and foreman of the
works. He was an old police sergeant, long pensioned off, but he had
his wits about him still. The office was approached by a narrow lane,
with room for one set of wheels only, a quarter of a mile in length,
and branching off from the high road to Uxbridge. Up this lane, half
hidden by the hedge, Mr. Power drove to the foreman’s shed. The
ex-sergeant was alone, and readily fell in with the plan proposed.
“Here!” he cried to a young fellow who went his errands and assisted
in the office; “run up to the field and ask Dan Cockett if he wants a
job for that idle young nephew. I see he’s back in these parts. I need
a lad to screen coal dust, and I’ll give him twelve shillings a week.
Look sharp!”
The messenger went off immediately.
“A job for my nephew?” said old Dan. “Ay—heartily thank you too,
master. You’re a gentleman. Hi! Punch, you’re in luck. They say they’ll
take you on. Twelve shillings a week. Run along with the master: they
want to ‘book you’ at the office.”
So unsuspecting Punch accompanied the other back to where Power was
waiting for his prey. This warder was an extremely powerful man—tall,
with tremendous shoulders, and just then in the prime of life and
activity.
He stepped forward at once.
“What, Punch! What are you doing in these parts?”
“I’ll swear I never saw you in all—“ He never finished those words.
His captor was on him and had him fast. In less time than it takes to
describe, the handcuffs were locked upon his wrists, and, taking him
up in his arms, Power fairly lifted him off the ground and carried
him into the chaise. Without loosing his hold he took his seat too,
gave reins to the horse, and started off at a hand gallop down the
lane. He had the reins in one hand, the other arm tightly bound round
Howard’s neck, and the hand used as far as it was possible as a gag.
But though it was possible to hold this captive tight, it was not so
easy to keep him silent. Before they had gone a dozen yards Howard had
managed to send off more than one yell of distress, as a signal to
his friends in the field. The sight of the galloping horse, the burly
figure of the driver, and the lad crouching close by his side—all three
betrayed the plot. Almost simultaneously several hundred men dropped
work and gave chase—some down the lane, others trying to head the trap
at the junction with the high road. Power had his hands full: in one,
a struggling criminal, desperate, ready to fling himself out of the
chaise at any risk; in the other a bunch of reins and a whip. However,
he had the start and advantage of his pursuers. Once only was his
escape in doubt: on reaching the road, the horse tried to turn sharp
to the left, back to his stable at West Drayton, instead of to the
right to Uxbridge. With a jerk that almost upset the trap, Power turned
the horse in the right direction, and half an hour afterwards had left
his pursuers miles behind, and was safe at the police station. Within
forty-eight hours of his escape Punch Howard was back in a Millbank
cell, and Mr. Power was handsomely rewarded for the remarkable pluck
and energy he had displayed.
A similar feat to Punch Howard’s was accomplished by a man named Jack
Robinson, at Dartmoor. This man had long pretended to be weak-minded,
and had thus put his keepers off their guard. He was in the habit of
exercising himself shoeless and bare-headed, and wearing an old hat
without a brim. In his bosom he carried generally a few tame rats,
which issued forth now and then to walk over his arms and shoulders,
and to lick his hands and face. A frequent joke with Robinson was
to tell the chaplain that he had put his feet too far through his
trousers—which caused infinite amusement always to his convict
audience. Jack, however, was fond of foretelling that he meant to make
April fools of every one—and so in effect he did. One morning he had
flown, and with him two companions. He had cut through the bars of his
cell by some artful contrivance; which still remains a mystery to this
day. Some think he used a watchspring, others some chemical process. He
was not recaptured, but later was re-convicted for stealing a railway
rug.
[Illustration: _Prisoners Going to Work at Dartmoor_
When transportation beyond the seas was discontinued, the old war
prison at Dartmoor, long disused, was repaired by convict labor and
became one of the best examples of the modern penitentiary idea. The
convicts have reclaimed the vast tract of barren moorland, and in its
place to-day are broad acres of fertile farm and pasture land.]
No account of escapes from prison would be complete without some
reference to George Hackett, who escaped from Pentonville in a manner
nearly marvellous. Through some neglect he had been allowed to take his
sheets and bedrope into chapel with him. At that time the chapel was
divided into a number of small compartments, one for each prisoner.
Hackett worked unobserved in his, till he had forced up the flooring,
and so gained the gallery; whence, by breaking a zinc ventilator, he
climbed through a window on to the parapet leading to the governor’s
house. This he entered, and stealing some good clothes, changed, and so
got clean away. Soon afterwards he wrote the following letter to the
governor of Pentonville:
“George Hackett presents his compliments to the Governor of the Model
Prison, and begs to apprise him of his happy escape from the gaol. He
is in excellent spirits, and assures the governor it would be useless
to pursue him. He is quite safe, and intends in a few days to proceed
to the continent to recruit his health.”
Hackett was a very desperate man. He had already escaped from a police
cell at Marlborough Street, when confined on a charge of burglary.
The cell was secured by two bolts and a patent Chubb lock. After his
escape from Pentonville he remained at large till the following Derby
day. He was then recognized going “down the road,” by a police officer,
who proceeded to arrest him, but met with violent resistance. Hackett
knocked down the policeman with a life preserver and made off, but was
intercepted by a labouring man, who, though badly mauled, succeeded
in capturing him. Hackett on all the charges was sentenced to fifteen
years’ transportation.
A later escape from Millbank was that of three prisoners on one Sunday,
by working a hole in the floor. They were located on the ground floor,
and having removed the ventilating plate which communicated with a
shaft, thus got down into a cellar and so to a party wall with iron
gratings. These removed, they issued out into the garden, where, as
it was summer time, the thick vegetation concealed them. By and by a
gentleman passing gave the alarm at the gate that he had seen two men
climbing over the boundary wall. Some officers immediately gave chase,
but the fugitives took a hansom and drove off. Their pursuers followed
in another cab, and presently ran down their men somewhere near St.
Luke’s. The third prisoner was caught in among the bushes of the
garden, which he had never left.
In this case the officers of the ward were very seriously to blame.
They were indeed suspected of collusion, and without that it is
difficult to understand how the prisoners could have effected their
purpose. They must have been long engaged in preparing to make good
their exit, and in the cellar were found great quantities of weapons,
tools, cards, and other things.