The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-09-03
KEPT HIS WORD.
Crook Makes Good Boast That No
 Prison Can Hold Hlm.
From La Crosse, Wis, Cor. Chicago Tribune.

From La Crosse, Wis, Cor. Chicago
 Tribune.
 Andrew Cunningham, the pal of Earl Trainor, escaped from the La Crosse Jail last night just as he declared he would when arrested seven weeks ago. Trainor sawed his way through the steel bars of his cell door and of the corridor two weeks ago. Cunningham's escape last night was even more sensational. Both men belong to gang of adroit safeblow- CTS, and they have boasted that no jail in the country is strong enough to hold them.
 Cunningham. Earl Trainor and James Crane were held in jail here to await trial on the charge of robbing the post office at Stoddard. Wis. Trainor sawed his way to liberty on the night of July T.
 After Trainor escaped the jail authori- ties adopted extraordinary precautions to prevent Cunningham and Crane from getting away. They were stripped and reclad in entirely new prison clothing. They were placed in new cells, which had been furnished with new mattresses and blankets. They were only permitted to leave their cells for exercise three times a day, and then separately and accom- panied by guards. They were permitted to see no one, not even their attorneys. At night the turnkey had his bed In the main corridor, near the doors of the cells occupied by the two men.
 And yet, in spite of all the precautions. Cunningham's cell its door tightly bolted and every bar intact was found empty this morning. Cunningham had gone dur ing the night leaving note which said:
 ''The mosquitoes are too thick about this place. 1 can't stand it any longer. Goodby"
 Cunningham had somehow or some- where secured heavy Iron chisel. With this chisel he had worked a hole through one of the four-inch blocks of stone which form the floor of the cell. Inserting his hand through the hole he had thus made, the prisoner tipped the block up on edge thus making an opening in the floor of his cell large enough to permit his body to slip through.
 Through this opening Cunningham slip ped into an air passage three feet high. which extends under the entire floor of the jail and the bottom of which forms the ceiling of the basement. The parti- tions between sections of this passage had been knocked out by plumbers who made repairs on the jail year ago and had never been replaced. The outlet was in the boiler room of the jail. only a short distance from beneath Cunning hams cell and undoubtedly he had little trouble in finding 1t.
 The boiler room is not part of the jail proper, and upon reaching 1t all that Cunningham had to do was to open a screen door hooked on the inside and walk into yard back of the jail, which was surrounded by three rail fence, used to keep horses within bounds.
 Postal inspector Fraser, and the local officers are completely baffed over the manner in which Cunningham secured the chisel or how he obtained knowledge of the air channel beneath the cell. None of the present jail officers held their posi- tions when the plumbers made the holes in the partitions of the air passage, and sheriff Haugen himself did not know of the existence of this space.