New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1900-07-25
JAY DELIVERY THWARTED
DEPUTIES DRIVE BACK WHITE PLAINS
PRISONERS WITH REVOLVERS-
DARING PLOT FOILED.

A well planned attempt to effect general jail
delivery at White Plains was nipped in the bud
early yesterday morning. Five of the prisoners
had sawed and cut their way out of cells and
the cage which surrounds the exercising space
in the centre of the Jail, assembled to the roof
Knocked a hole through the Stats, let sixty
foot rope made Of strips of blankets braided
to the ground, and begun to lower themselves
when the successive reports of revolvers in the
hands of the deputies made them halt and
scramble back as fast as they could.
Deputy Sheriff Frank Jarvis got an inkling in
directly on Monday that the hundred prisoners
in the jail were going to break out soon The
guard was doubled the outside Of the prison
Deputies Jarvis John Breese, Charles Elan
dreau William Johnson and Thomas Casey
formed a Gordon around the jail in such a man
ner as not to be seen through the prison win
dows While ii was believed the attempt TO
escape would be made the deputies did not
know how it was to be accomplished
It was $50 a. m when the large arc lights
about the jail put out A heavy thunder
storm was in progress but the deputies, drenched
to the skin stuck to their posts. They had not
long to wait for in a few minutes they heard a
slight crash on the roof and then five men
came through an opening in the roof Juggling
on a heavy rope. They fastened end to
steel girder and threw the other over the edge
The rope was made Of the prison blankets,
which had been torn in strings and then care
fully braided together 1t was sixty-fve feet
long six inches in diameter, and weighed nearly
two hundred pounds. How it kept from
view in the Jail is mystery still to be explained
When the men reached the roof and had low
cred the rope the deputies stepped from their
hiding places, and lining up. discharged their
revolvers in the air. Jarvis cried out: The first
HE hoy,I hat RI OTI1a
down will be dead before he reaches the ground!"
The prisoners scurried back and disappeared.
The deputies hastened TO the inside of the Jail.
All was excitement there. Orders being
given right and left by Edgar Burnz. the muir
derer of Postmaster Fellows, of Scarsdale, and
the leader in the attempt to escape.
It was known that those on the roof must
have on wet clothes Five of the prisoners
clothes were very wet. They were Charles Wood
and Thomas Jackson, the Fort Slocum soldiers
who robbed and beat Thomas Smith, another
soldier the post, into insensibility on July II,
and who held for assault in the first degree;
John Connors. held for arson; Christopher
Schwartz, burglar, and Eugene Lawrence. burg
lar, recently brought from Auburn Prison.
Burnz the tenth man in the line and had not
reached the roof when his companions were
discovered
The prisoners are kept in cage inside the
jail There staircases both inside and out
side the jail, and clear view Of the interior is
to be had from any quarter of the prison. Light
steel grating doors separate the tiers inside the
cage and there are four tiers of cells. The roof
is six feet from the top of the cage. On the
floor of cell No. 4 first tier, two steel bars had
been sawed, and taken out, and they had been
kept in place with a soap plastering.
The prisoners had found a way to open the
doors inside the cage. and took only a moment
to descend to the inner staircase and run up
the outer one. Two padlocks were broken off a
steel door which leads to the top of the cage
Then the prisoners had only to pry a steel bar
and smash the slate roof. In twenty minutes
every prisoner could have been out of the jail,
if he had cared to 60 had not the plan mis-
carried A was discovered in Burnz's cell
hidden between the blankets. 1t is supposed to
have been made by Connors of telegraph wire
and the teeth were made with file. which was
alsQsfeund.