The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-05 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

A Comprehensive History of India—Civil, Military,
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and
Focht& Nos. 27 io 30. Blackie and Son.
We have on previous occasions drawn attention
to this useful history. No. 27 contains a well-exe-
cuted map of the Punjab and Cashmere, and No.
29 one of the Valley of the Ganges, with the course
of the Jumna from Calpee to Delhi ; also an en-
graving of the " Seizure of the Killedar of the For-
tress of Wandiwash, by Lieutenant Flint, A.D.
1781." The period comprised in these four num-
bers is from 1772 to 1781.

DARIN G ESCAPE FROM THE HULL GA OL.—A most
daring escape was made from the Hull borough gaol on San-
day morning by a notorious offender named Thomas Foster,
who was just completing a term of three months' imprison-
ment at the gaol for a violent assault upon Detective Chap-
man, when taking him into custody for breaking into the
slaughterhouse of Mr. Samuel Robinson, butcher, near
Hull, and stealing thereflom two legs of pork. He was
committed by the stipendiary magistrate to the sessions on
the charge of felony and assault ; for the latter, as we have
said, being sentenced to three months' imprisonment, and,
having been four times previously convicted of felonies,
he was sentenced to seven years' penal servitude for
breaking into the slaughter-house and stealing the pork.
The way he managed to escape exhibits considerable
cunning and premeditation. He was located in a room on
the thir story of the Model Prison, the base of his room
being about 25 feet from the ground, the windows being
protected by iron bars about 11 inches thick ; and he was
employed in making cocoa fibre mats. It would seem that
he had succeeded in plaiting a rope of the fibre of which
the mats are made, about 51 feet long, and between two
and three inches thick. With two old nails and a piece
of iron he had by some ingenuity made a kind of drag,
similar to a butcher's hook, and this he fastened in the
centre of the rope, which was sufficiently long when
doubled for him to reach the ground from his cell. In
order to get out of his cell he had, however, to remove one
of the iron bars, which by some means or other he managed
to do, by cutting one of the bars at the bottom clean
through with a knife, the manner in which he had pos-
sessed himself of which cannot be surmised. The bar
being cut through at the bottom, and fitting into the stone-
woi k at the top of the window, by working it about he un-
lodged it, and egress from his cell was then easy. Placing
the rope round one of the bars outside the -window, he slid
down it, and then withdrew the rope from the bar, leaving
his clogs behind him. He then noiselessly wended his way
to the west side of the building, which he seems to have
fancied the most Killable for his purpose, as the street at
the side into which he would alight is only a short one, and
he would be less likely to be seen than by getting over the
wall into Kingston-street, which is a long street, where he
might have been seen by parties a great way off. Having
got to the west side of the yard, an obstructi, n to his easy
progres., in the shape of a boundary wall about 25 feet high,
presented itself. Getting on to a coal heap about four feet
from the ground, he doubled his rope, the hook before-
mentioned being in the centre, and threw it over the top of
the wall, working it about until the drag had got fast under-
neath the stone the top of the wall, which projects over
two or three inches from the bricks. He then drew himself
up to the top, made the drop secure in the inside of the wall,
and then slid down outside the boundary wall, pulling the
rope after him. Divesting himself of his prison dress, he
then got over another wall, about 10 feet hth old alighted
in Manor. street, being once more at liberty, having nothing
whatever on, however, but his shirt, drawers, and stockings.