The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1913-05-25

by the shots, the conductor, two brakemen
and several passengers came hurrying to
the rescue.
AS they entered the car Perry jumped
out OF the door by which he had entered
and ran down the track There was no
time to take anything from the open safe
where $4,000 worth of cash and jewelry
lay in full view
With two shots from his revolver
Perry drove the engineer and fireman
from an engine which stood on a nearby
siding. Climbing up into the cab he
pulled the throttle wide open and the loco
motive leaped ahead at 60-mile an hour
clip.
Luckily the steam in the engine Perry
had seized. was low and after running
three miles its power gave out complete
ly 1t came to dead stop just in time
to avoid a collision with an oncoming ex-
press train
Perry leaped to the ground and started
OF across field. reloadng his revolver as
he ran.
His Attempts to Escape
But his pursuers. who had followed him
on another engine. were close behind him.
Before he could gain the shelter of the
wooded country toward which he was
aeading. they had surrounded him and
succeeded in making him a prisoner-not,
however, until Perry had used his last
cartridge and had desperately wounded
several Of the railroad men.
Crime seldom has a speedier or more
appalling sequel than it did In Perry's
case. Popular indignation against him
ran so high that his trial was hurried and
he received the extreme penalty of forty
nine years and six months in State prison,
which. although Perry was then only a
young man. amounted practically to life
sentence.
But Perry's crimes did not end when
the doors OF Auburn prison closed behind
him. He ragged like mailman and seized
every opportunity to make murderous at
tacks upon his keepers and fellow prison.
ers.
Before he had served six months OF his
sentence he contrived to escape by saw
Ing the lock off his cell door. half killing
keeper and risking his life by leap
of thirty-fve feet from the top OF the
prison wall to heap Of rocks below.
He was recaptured in less than twenty
four hours. Becoming convinced that he
was really insane. the prison authorities
had him removed to the asylum at Mattea-
wan
Although kept constantly under the
closest guard he soon succeeded in escap-
Ing from Matteawan even more easily
than he had from Auburn.
This time he was at large four weeks.
When hnally arrested in the railroad yards
at Weehawken. New Jersey, he was about
to put into execution a plan for an ex-
press car robbery as daring as those in
which he had already figured
Failing in these attempts at liberty he
devised fiendish way of putting out his
eyes in the hope that blindness might win
the Governors sympathy and secure his
pardon.
The apparatus he constructed for this
purpose was weird masterpiece of me-
chanical skill.
In two holes in piece Of board Perry
inserted two long sharp nails. These were
so placed that when the board lay across
his forehead they were directly above the
pupils OF his eyes.
Above these nails was suspended a
heavy dumbbell which, when let fall.
would drive their steel points deep into
the eyes. The release of the dumbbell
was ingeniously arranged by attaching to
1t a. spring on which lighted candle was
placed When the candle burned beyond
certain point its weight decreased suf
fciently to release the spring and let the
dumbbell fall
Perry put the apparatus in place one
night after his keeper had left him. The