Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-07-08
TWO PRISONERS ESCAPE.
A Successful Delivery at the County
Jail Last Night. oil
BY Cutting Bar in an Upper Window
and Making Use or Rope Made
of Bed-Tfck Two of the In
mates Escape.

SUCCESSFUL attempt al Jsll delivery
was effected at the county Jail just before
locking up time last night.
The flight of the prisoners was discov.
cred by Arthur Burial and an employee
who were out in Mr.. BurIall's yard. and
were surprised upon looking toward the
Jail at seeing q man coming down by
means of rope from one of the west
windows of the main building. They at
once ran to the building and succeeded
in frightening back one of the prisoners,
who was just coming out of the window.
An investigation was made at once, and
it was found that two had already
escaped. A search of the Jail proved
that both had also got out of the inclos-
ure and were gone. The police were
notified at once and efforts made to re-
capture the fugitives, but without suc>
cess. Turnkey Wright and his assistants
at once locked up the remaining prison
ers to prevent any further escapes, and
made an effort to find from the others
who had planned and carried out the
delivery.
The window from which the escape
was made, was the extreme north one on
the west side of the Jail. 1t is about IS
or 20 feet from the ground floor, but d.
rectly opposite is an iron balcony along
an upper tier of cells. and from which it
c cnnnnoQn hn oil b
ing rope from a bed tick torn into
strips. tied broom stick to the end of
1t, and threw it across from the end of
the balcony cstching it in the bars, after
which it would be an easy matter to
| climb up to the broad window sill. The
| lower half of the inside of
the corridors is covered with thick boiler
iron, but the upper part which was sup>
| posed TO be out of the reach of prisoners,
| is unprotected, so that after the sill was
reached. they began to dig into the wall
at the right side of the window where the
bars enter the rock, Oae bar was
cut about six inches from the end, which
made nice lever to start the stone in the
wall which at this point is composed of
very small pieces and which fully subs
stantistes the statements made before
that the Jail is unsafe
1t probably required only little while
| to take out enough of the stones to admit
the passage of mans body through the
| opening, the glass in the window outside
the bars then being broken and the same
| rope of ticking being used to descend on
| the other side. If the work of cutting
through the wall had been done before
supper the turnkey would probably not
have noticed it because they were clean-
ing and whitewashing inside and the
| floor was covered with mortar and white
wash and no litter then would have been
noticed.
The two who escaped were Charles f.
Brown, who had served four months of
six months sentence for vagrancy, and
William Stephens, who was bound over
for carrying concealed weapons, he being
the fellow who attempted to shoot Officer
Hermann some time ago. Both were
dressed in Jeans pants and blue flannel
shirts, and have probably shaken Illinois
dust from their feet by this time
All the. prisoners are now locked in
their cells and will be kept there until tie
jail is again made safe. They will prob
ably miss the freedom of the corridors.