Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-02-04
A GENIUS IN STRIPES.
The Strange Career and Remarkable
Inventions of a Convict
OF A SCIENTIFIC TURN OF MIND,
Whose Ingenuity Enabled Him to Escape
Many Times From Jail,
BUT DEPRAvITY DROVE HIM BACK

State prisons passes or fails, Warden Dur
ston, of Auburn need not fear that he will
be left without means of executing con
demned criminals in accordance with the
law which took effect on January 1. He
has in his custody an inventor whose re-
sources and talents will surely relieve him
from any anxiety on that score.
Clarence F. Tear, who ~rejoices in the
occasional possession of several other names,
and a physique so diminutive as to permit
of his crawling through a very small hole,
has been for a quarter of a century astonish-
ing prison officials with practical inventions
and ingenious escapes. His last claim to
celebrity comes under the former head, and
is founded upon an electrical medical and
surgical cabinet which has just been placed
in the prison hospital. DR.. Sawyer, the
physician of the institution, pronounces 1T
a valuable apparatus, and says it is COM
plete in every respect. The entire outfit is
of the finest workmanship, and is contained
in a polished walnut cabinet. One of the
appurtenances is a gastroscope, with an
electric light for internal examinations.
There is also a ~laryngoscope and a cautery
handle, besides numerous other devices
useful in the multiplicity of medical opera
tons now carried on by the aid ofelectricity.
Batteries for galYanic and faradic currents,
or both s~ombined, are provided, and the
black walnut case is really an example of
multum in parvo. 1t would not be sur
prising to hear that Tear had designs for an
electrical chair which would meet approval.
AN INTERESTING CHARACTER.
The reason for the free sway that is given
to the little convict's invention by the
prison authorities is found in his propensity
for escaping when he has nothing else to do.
He has been known to resign q steady job
in the machine shops of the departed con-
tract system for a precarious existence out
side, but as a general rule it has been en-
forced idleness which has driven him out to
seek employment. Such is the desire for
his company, however, that he has an apart
ment near the headquarters of the guard,
and receives. every attention from his
guardians. His mind is diverted in various
ways from the thought that a small hole
drilled out of an iron door, a few keys, a
ladder, and a rope might be the means of
carrying him to other friends.
Mr.. TEARS character is not devoid of
humor. It is related of him that on one &C.
SooAOA ~ uoN q bOAA bAAOhS
portions of Wayne and Oswego counties
with a load of recently acquired furniture,
which he distributed piecemeal at stated in
tervals. The horses and wagon, also fresh
acquisitions, were disposed OF to confding
purchasers.
1t was in 1862 that Tear, as a boy of II
years, entered the Western House of Refuge
at Rochester. He is not much bigger now
than he was when he attained distinction
among the bad boys of Clyde. The Refuge
life was not to his liking, and, observing
that the dinners of the workmen employed
in the erection of a new buildings were
brought in, he one day picked up a dinner
pail and walked out with the free children
after the dinner hour. His father brought
him back a week afterward. TIL youthful
Jack Shepard "hid out" several times, but
did not get away until regularly discharged
on July &c, 1864. He returned within a
year under sentence for larceny, and be-
haved so well that his father, upon remov-
ing to Iowa two years later, secured his re-
lease. A few months later he forsook the
Western farm, and shortly appeared at
Monroe County Pehitentiary under SEN
tence of three years for robbing freight cars.
Being occasionally sent on errands to q eel
lar communicating with an outer court yard,
he improved the opportunity given to file
off the lock. Downing a workman's over
alls and throwing an iron pulley on his
shoulder, he represented himself as q work
man from a city machine shop.
A cHECKERED CAREER.
He walked to Rochester with a prison
foreman who happened to be going the same
way. When they separated he threw the
pulley away. Six months later, in Novem-
Der, 1868, Oswego county sent him to the
Refuge under the name of Charles Keith.
He had risen to the dignity of a store bur-
glar. Recognition by a fellow prisoner led
to his serving out his unfinished term in the |
penitentiary. Then he returned to the
village of Mexico, robbed the same store,
was arrested, and again entered Oswego
jail. He escaped, was recaptured, and
would have escaped the second time but for
timely discovery. Then he set the jail on
fire, and tried to run out during the confu-
sion. The %jailor's wife, for whom he was
only a good-sized handful, made this at
tempt a failure. A fourth trial proved sue
~cessful, and slippery Charley" returned to
business outside.
Tiear was always as successful in getting
into Jail as in getting out, and was next ar
rested in Lockport for stealing a horse in
Buffalo. On account of his youth and ap-
parent innocence he got off with a light SEN
tence to the Erie County Penitentlary.
There he broke out of his cell and assaulted
a Waterman. He was sentenced to five
years in Auburn for this, but parted COM
pany with the Sheriff at Canandaigua, leav-
ing that officer without ceremony. Trans
ferring his attentions to Cayuga county
hcrsefesh, he was lodged in the Auburn
Jail, from which he made two Intellectual at
tempts to escape. In March, 1880, Judge
Day sentenced him to ten years in Auburn
which he is engaged in serving.
In November, 1882, Tear drilled a square
plate out of his cell door in the north wing.
and was found at midnight picking the
lock of the messroom door in the south
wing. The lock was mixed" and it was
to cut it off before breakfast was
Principal Keeper Boyle, who has
great confidence in Tiear's abilitygave him
the lock, and the convict finished the pick
ing operation in a twinkling.
On February 16. 1884, Tear achieved his
feat in escaping, although three
days elapsed before he lett the prison. He
got a year of liberty by it. Committing some
Offense which would insure his confinement
in the "jail," he was searched for tools and
then left in solitary confinement. The Jail
is visited only at long intervals by the
guards and by walters with bread and
water. Although stripped and put into a
frush suit of clothes, Tiear managed to
secrete saws upon his person. BY the second
night he had a hole in his door big enough
10 let him out into the corridor.
BACK TO THE BAsTILE.
When the guards came in to look at him
ne hid in a corner and stole out behind
L. d. r. &in,a {ho- Id -zz-I.1 L.: