The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-02-11
TAKE DESPERATE CHANCES.
Some of the Risks That Prisoners Will
Dare for Freedom.

From Answers.
In the mind of every convict the idea
of freedom stands first This was proved
a little while ago at Dartmoor, when a
man named Searle, who had served tn
greater part OF his sentence, and would
in the ordinary course of things have
resigned his liberty in a comparatively
short time made a sudden dash through
the midst of Il rainy evening. He spent
many hours of cold and hunger in the
soaking downpour, though he must have
known his chance of getting clear away
were not one in ten thousand, and though
he was well aware that when he was
recaptured he would suffer severely and
lose the ordinary remission of sentence.
In May last the German steamer Willie
had brought back to Sydney story
which well illustrates the desperate risks
that man will run for the sake OF free
dom. The Willehad had just returned
from the Bismarck islands, and there
she discovered, in a remote part of New
Britain six French convicts in a deplor-
able state of starvation and want. These
were the survivors of II men who, near
ly twelve months before, had escaped
from the French penal settlement or
New Caledonia two RATS, chiefly
composed of the slaves of beer barrels.
On one of these craft rugged with mat
sails these six desperate Adventures had
succeeded in crossing nearly 1000 miles
of stormy sea, only to find themselves
cast away on a savage island. New Brit
ain is a very large island lying just north
of New Guinea, and for sixteen long
weeks those wretched men tramped along
the coast until at last they were picked
up and delivered back into bondage.
There are many true stories of es-
cape from the sea-girt prison of New
Caledonia There is an Arab there now
who, fourteen years ago, stole little
16-foot boat, and with branch of
tree for mast and an old shirt Tor
SAIL succeeded in reaching Australia,
more than a thousand miles away. He
walked $500 miles to Sydney, shipped as
a sailor. reached the Levant and for
nine years was at liberty. working as
a seaman. Then a French mouchard
SPY wormed his secret out Of him, and
for the sake of the reward gave him
up to Justice.
The Dutch government recently trans
ported about 200 convcts from the big
penal settlement in Sumatra to Merouke.
the new pearl fishing village in Dutch
New Guinea The men were kept in
stockade, and every one of them knew
that to remain there was their only
chance of safety. The surrounding coun-
try was infested with head-hunting saw
ages One night a large number of the
1900
for freedom, running straight inland.
Every one of them fell into the hands
of the savage Tugaris, and all that was
ever seen of them again by the expedition
sent in search was thirteen decapitated
heads stuck on poles, mute but grimly
eloquent recorders of the horrors they
had gone through.
The horrors OF Russian revolutionary
iails have driven men to strange risks,
On a bitter day in February, 1905, Swe-
dish fishing vessel sighted small boat
tossing on the gray waves of Hernosand
In the bottom was man, hatless and
coatless. and nearly dead from hunger
and exposure. When he recovered he
told his rescuers that for six days he
had been rowing drifting through
snowstorms and gales. He had been ar
rested at Vasa, in Finland. brought to
st. Petersburg, and thence had made his
escape. Death he had expected. but thai,
he added was preferable to Siberia.
A couple of years ago eight convicts
made an extraordinary escape from the
United States ship Grant. while she lay