The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-09-29
FRENCH PRISON BREAKERS.
Interesting Tales of Marvellous Skill
and Patience.


The prisoner determined on flight sell
dom let's slip an opportunity. The
quick-Witted Chocot remembered THAT
salutes were fired In the harbors on the
kings birthday. Very good" thought
Cochot. IF in the midst of those salvos
I should have the luck to gain the field
beyond, they might blaze away with
their alarm guns until all was blue, for
as both can play the same tune, who
would know one from the other? All
right I'll have a birthday with his
majesty" Surely enough, when the
day arrived the guns Of the bagne We're
banging unuoticed for Cochot, who was
quietly trotting through the fields. One
of the escapes of Victor Desbois from
Brest attested at once his audacity and
his address. An inspector came to make
his official tour of the bagne, and it did
not seem to strike the sentry on duty at
the gate that he had been very quick
about 1t, for he was out again almost
before he had been passed in. But the
inspector" who walked out with his
nose in the air, was Victor Desbois.
Having filed through his anklet, he had
donned In an instant the full uniform
of his inspector which he had con-
fected out of paper, and with a wig and
moustaches, also of his own manufac-
ture, his disguise was perfect. Eff
frontery such as this seldom fails to
reward
Opportunity Of change of costume
presented itself on another occasion to
the nimble Hautdebont, engaged in the
convict tailor's shop. On nail above
his head hung a newly finished ward
ers suit, which, as the warder was in
hospital, was not to be delivered for a
week to come. Measuring it with his
eye, Hautdebont reckoned it a fair fit
for himself. Missing, only a warders
cap. This. in the course of night or
two, the prisoner put together out of a
hundred little bits of cloth, abstracted
at odd moments from the tailor's shop
With the cap in his pocket on the fol-
lowing day, when the foreman tailor's
back was turned, Hautdebont whips
the warder's suit from the nail, slips it
on, and glides from the scene. I'm
luckily the foreman minute later
misses the suit from the nail, the alarm
Is given, and Hautdebont's brief term
of office as garde- chiourme is ended.
He lost his privileged place among the
tailors, and was sent to the chain gang.
Percy, condemned perpetuite for
murder, saw some scaffolding erected
for repairs, which seemed to offer a
means Of escape ideal in its simplicity.
1t stood conveniently against the wall.
THAT ought to bear me-" thought
Percy and in a twinkling he found
himself on the right'side of the wall in
Bourbon street, Toulon. But there was
warder who could climb almost as
well as Piercy, and who laid hands on
him at the corner Of the street An
other prisoner equally adroit, was
equally unfortunate in his affair. A
rope served him for scaling the wall,
but loosing his hold on the other side
with the expectation of dropping into
a quiet lane, he fell plump into hand
cart in which warder was taking his
midday siesta. "You never know your
luck" as the poet sang. 1t came to the
warder en- dormant, bringing him the
legal bonus of fifty francs for an arrest
effected within the limits of the town.
An old forcat, Comet by name, and
sixty-eight years of age, became so
famous by reason of his failures that
'qI9AoId g oluG psssed 9ssaIpsIBu sIu
and a botched escape was known in
the bagne of Toulon as gonette Pa
tience and toll, long sustained and re-
newed after discovery had made them
fruitless, did not always triumph at
the end. Andre Fanfan, who had found
or fought his way out of every prison
in France and who, whenever he was
in durance, had the honor of guard
specially appointed to watch him, was
brought back to the Rochefort after one
of his most brilliant trfumphs over JUS
tice. In his conmunings with himself
one day Andre said: Now suppose, my