The sun., 1919-05-28
DUQUESNE ESCAPES
FROM BELLEVUE
Former Boer Officer, Accused
Slayer, Files Bars In
Prison Ward.
HAD FEIGNED PARALYSIS
Held Here for Alleged Insur-
ance Frauds and Faced Ex-
tradition to Britain.

Capt. Fritz Joubert Duouesne, once an
officer OF the Boer Army, a nephew Of
the Boer leader Gen. Piet Joubert. SOL
dier OF fortune. traveller. explorer ana
alleged spy, added another chapter yes
terday to a record already trimming
with adventure and romance. by effect
ing a sensational escape from a prison
cell in Bellevue Hospital. He was being
heid under $4,000 bail on an indict-
ment alleging fraud in connection with
certain insurance claims.
Duquesne Is also wanted by the Brit
ish authorities in connection with charges
Of murder upon the high seas growing
out of an explosion on the steamship
Tennyson from Bahia, Brazil, on Feb
ruory IA. 1916. and only last week was
held for extradition by United States
Commissioner Hitchcock at the request
of Give Bayley. British Consul-General
sketch OF Duquesne's career reads
like the plot Of Richard Harding
Davis romance and the circumstan noes
of his latest achievement remind one of
the accomplishments Of Leeoque or a
Sherlock Holmes.
cember last In q house In West
Seventy-fifth street by the Neutrality
Squad as result OF an investigation by
Fire Marshal Brophy of IRE in a
Brooklyn storage warehouse in which he
claimed to have lost ss3,0o0 worth Of
Aims made in Central South America.
Two days before Christmas he con-
WINGED the authorities at the Tombs that
he was i'll and had himself removed to
tbf. sarfanp "A of nolln shat
time on It appears Duquesne began to
plan his dash for freedom.
Filed Bars ~ He Sat.
He feigned paralysis so convincingiy
that he was never moved except in a
wheel chair. The sturdy limbs that had
carried him across the African veldt and
through Brazilian forests had ceased to
function and DuQuesne was a helpless
pnralytic. That is. so the authorities
apparently believed until this morning
Then. too. he complained OF peculiar
pains In the head-pains so acute that
he found 1t necessary to sleep with his
head covered by the bed clothes. As the
weeks passed there was no improvement
shown and 1t was the prisoners custom
to sit for hours at a time in his chair at
the narrow. barred window of his cell
overlooking First avenue. But as he sat
apparently absorbed in the view he got
of the outside world through the
eighteen inch opening he manipulated a
fine steel file with monotonous persist
ence.
At $50 yesterday morning when the
hospital attendants visited his cell, one
steel bar had been removed, a second
wrenched from one end to accommo-
date passage of his body. roll of bed
ding lay covered by sheet on the cot
that DuQuesne slept on and the paraiytic
had dropped six feet and scaled a six
foot wall and seven-foot fence to
freedom. At just what time during the
night Duquesne made his getaway Is
mystery. The bundle Of bedding on
the cot was arranged in the form of
man to deceive the attendants on duty
and thorough search of the hospital
yard developed the fact that Duquesne
had made good his expressed intention
to escape.
The theory was put forward yester-
day that friends Of whom he IL known
TO have had many, waited outside prob
ably with an automobile and a change
OF clothing for the prisoner. A blanket
that dangled from one OF the bars of
the prisoners window to within six feet
of the roof of a one story ice shed IN
dicated how the first stage of the de-
livery was effected.
Capt. DuQuesne doubtless feared the
results of extradition to England, and
British officials made no secret of the
fact that they would like to have him
within their Jurisdiction again. The
Captain was born In a Boer encamp-
ment in Pondoland nearly forty years
ago. He was of mixed French Hugue-
not-Dutch stock. his father being a d.
rect descendent of the French admiral
Abraham duQuesne, and his mother a
sister Of Gen. Joubert. His life of ad-
venture began while he was still in his
teens and he saw service in the Kaffif
and Matabele wars He was sent
later to the Belgian Ecole Militaire,
where he specialized In military engi-
neerlng and won distinction as a duellist
with the sabres and the foils.
When the South African war started
young Duquesne, because Of his techni-
cal knowledge became a valuable off,
Ger on the Boer general staff, and later
was selected TO consummate plot to
burn Cape Town. The British shudder
yet when they consider how nearly the
plot came to being successful. Du-
quesne was arrested while a guest at
the dinner table of the Governor Gene
raj OF South Africa. He was tried ana
sentenced TO be shot as a spy. He was
kept in irons for many weeks while the
British sought vainly to learn the
names OF his confederates.
Later. because he was known to be
in possession of the Boer code, which
he promised TO translate for the British.
his sentence was committed and he was
deported to Bermuda. The translation
Duquesne gave the British proved to be
a clever Justification, but before this
was discovered he had escaped from
Bermuda to Baltimore aboard the prt.
waite yacht OF Capt Isaac f. Emerson
of Baltimore, after overpowering a
member OF the yachts crew. donning his
clothes and posing as the seaman until
the yacht got well off the Bermuda coast
on her homeward trip. From Baltimore
Duquesne made his way afoot to New
York. and for a time worked as a news
paper reporter and free lance writer.
WEEDS Girl Who Aided Him.
When he became established In New
York Duquesne sent for the young
woman who had assisted him In hts