The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-02
ANOTHER JOKE ON
 BESSEMER JAIL Five More Prisoners Take Sud-
 den Leave BURNED HOLE IN FLOOR Ladies of Bessemer Are Opposed To Use of City Park as Site For New
 School Building as
 Proposed.
BURNED HOLE IN FLOOR

Bessemer, March 1.-(Special.)- 1.-The chorus to the good old song, Well, what dc you think of that ?' has come to pass again, and five more prisoners have left the Bessemer jail, and by the way they went without getting a leave of absence. Their names are, Aiza Jack son, colored, charged with being a coun- terfeiter; John Jackson, charged with be- Ing a horse thief; Will Butts, charged with being d breaker of the prohibition laws; Mics Calhoun, charged with being a plain --ery day thief, and William Spencer, charged with being brass thief
 If the limit in jail breaking is ever tC be reached it most certainly has been reached in thls lttlet hamlet. The pris- orers that got away went through the same hole that all of the others have gone through. After the last delivery 1t was decided that It would be a good thing to put In new floor MT. William Fearsome Nolan was given the contract of laying the new floor. Be it said to the credit of the genial Billy thath did his work well and he has been heard to make the remark after the work was done that he guessed that would hold them for a while.
 An inspection of the jail this evening showed that the prisoners had heated q pick and they had taken good care to see that none of the sparks fell down in the hay loft. The pick was heated to red hot and then stuck In the floor. After 1t had burned out small amount of wood, it was taken out and the operation was repeated until the opening was large enough to permit of the passage of d mans body The hole burned out was not very large, but 1t is not supposed that If a prisoner is trying to make get away that he will stop to see just how much space he needs to get through.
 When the fact that the prisoners had left was discovered about 6 o'clock this evening, 1t was painfully evident that they had been working on the Job all day. When some of the prisoners got away some time ago, it was stated that the city had a day warden employed but no. one has ever been able to tell just where he was at the time. Every ono knows that he Is not supposed to stay In the cells and watch the prisoners, but it is the general opinion that he might go in occasionally and look them over.
 It took several hours to make that hole in the floor but 1t is supposed that in the meantime, the warden was either hay ing his afternoon nap or else he was reading some of the funny pages In the newspapers.
 The Bessemer jail at the present time has ceased to be q joke. It will have to be named over. negro by the name of John Brantly, who is d trusty, stated this evening that he simply stayed around the jail because he always had a place to sleep. He did not stay there because he had to, but simply because he did not believe that the cold weather was over yet and as long as he had a place to stay at night the grip had no terrors for him. Anoth CT trusty who was on hand when the prisoners got away, stated that he was invited to go, but he could not see it that way.
 The number of escapes has now been run up to 21, and all of this in one sh ort month. There were five at one time. seven at another, then came four more, at last another five There are now seven prisoners in the jail, and of course they have been locked up in cages.
 The Bessemer jail has been consid- cred by the sheriff's office as being resting place only for prisoners Sheriff Higdon thought so little of it hat he even went so far as to have d steel cage shipped down to Bessemer and placed in the city court room. He instructed Deputy Jones to place his prisoners in this cage whenever he had one as he thought by this means they could be kept long enough to be talk en to the jail in Birmin gham.