The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-02-19
DARING ESCAPE
FROM ISLAND
Pickpocket Changes Clothes
Behind SnOwbank Oh
Blackwell's
SERIES OF MYSTERIES
Many Paid Substitutions
Among Prisoners Worry
Officials.
FINGER PRINTS IGNORED
No Other Way, Says Lewis. In
FINGER PRINTS IGNORED
No Other Way, Says Lewis. IN
Identify Man Serving With
Man Sentenced.

Keepers of the workhouse on Black
wells Island and the police are looking
for LOUIS Davis, UP to Tuesday a pris-
oner serving six months in the work
house, who OH that afternoon changed
his clothes behind pile OF snow within
twenty feet of a keeper and got away
All that was found TO show what had
become OF Davis was a neat heap Of HE
prison clothes In the snow. How ne got
other garments and how he left the island
ing to solve.
The workhouse officials were not oven
sure that Davis had left the island unit,
they learned that agents OF the Keh!llah
a Jewish association doing uplift work
on the East Side. had seen Davis in the
city on Tuesday night and wondered how
he had got out.
They wondered s,il more when they
learned that the man who escaped was
known to the police and workhouse keep
crs as Davis. for the kehliah agents
knew him as Louis Lester and supposed
he was on the island under that name
Tho difference in names suggested to the
police that perhaps another substitution
OF prisoners a scheme by which a shor:
term man takes a long term mans name
for consideration, bad been worked
and that the man who escaped was not
the one who had been sentenced to serve
six months under the name OF Davis
Many Recent Escapes.
Deputy Commissioner Lewis of the De-
partment of Correction said yesterday
that the escape was one Of the most pug.
cling OF a number which have bothered
the department officials lately. So FIRE.
quent have been the escapes and substi.
tutions in the last few months that Mr..
Lewis and his superior. Miss Katherine
Sement Davis, are trying to devise n plan
that will plug up the holes in the present
system Of transferring prisoners from
courts 10 prison.
One of the recent cases OF substitution
which became public was that OF Ike Far
Der. pickpocket known as Pussy who
paid a man to serve his four months.
Going over the boat to BlacSwell'a
Island man named Harry Smith, who
was fined SO and could not pay. was told
/ that II he would serve, Farber's sentence
he would get 500. Smith agreed and
was on the island two weeks before the
substitution was discovered. Farber paid
So fine In the name of Smith and went
free
Davis was arrested on December 4 with
two other men, both pickpockets with
| long records. The trio were jostling
through a crowd, and when arraigned be-
fore Magistrate Cornell In the jefferson
Market court were sentenced to serve si1
rnonths each. They were transferred 10
the workhouse and so far as the keepers
know the men received were the ones SEN
fenced.
Davis worked with the other prisoners
| and received no visitors until February
IS. when u woman who said she was Mira
Davis of II Cannon street, visited him.
1t Is not believed possible that she could
have given 10 him the suit in which h.
escaped. because II would have made "A
bundle that she could not have concealed
Detailed TO shovel snow.
On Tuesday Davis was one OF eighteen
men who were shovelling paths through
the snow SO that coal of which the work
house was badly in need, could be cartea.
! The gang was large one for single
keeper. but the number OF keepers Is too
small at the workhouse, Mr.. Lewis says.
and they had To take chance in order
to get the paths cleared,
While they were shovelling a group Of
alinshousc men who also OH the
Island, moved down near the prisoners
and mingled with them for a time The
keeper may have been negligent, as MI
Lewis said, for in some way Davis got
behind n large snow pile and changed
his clothes. Then. Mr.. Lewis thinks, he
went down to the boat and either got
aboard unnoticed, by minglng with the
crowd of departing visitors. or else got
away on n pass that some one brought
over TO him.
lie was missed when the shovel gang
was rounded up TO be marched back to
the workhouse. search began that
covered the entire island 1t lasted late
into the night at which time agents of
the Kehillah saw Davis, or Lester as they
knew him, ON the East Side.
Yesterday the police were notified by
Deputy Lewis, and In the afternoon
Charles Barnett, keeper of the island
went to Headquarters to see II the police
had a picture OF Davis. They had not.
No attempt was made to compare the
finger prints of the man received at the
island AS Davis with the prints taken by
the police in court to SEE II he was the
same man.
Finger Print system Ignored.
It was hoped that the substitution OF
! prisoners which has been worked ever
since there were prisons. would be pre-
vented by the finger print system, but as
} Deputy Lewis said yesterday there Is no
cooperation between the Police Depart
ment and the Department Of Correction
SO that substitutions can be detected.
The New York Prison Association and
the department of Police and Correc-
ton are working now toward the estab-
lishment Of a central bureau OF criminal
Identification 90 that finger prints and
4 other means Of Identification may be e.