Evening star., 1928-11-18
BY STEPHEN G. Glow.
A TLANTA'S famous escapes will,
" I feel sure, live hereafter only

A 1LANIAS famous escapes VIII,
" I feel sure, live hereafter only
IA in reminiscence, their chro-
1 4 biography end with the tales told
under my title. And one of the
reasons will be that the exploits Of
DeSchelles, of Dutch (Georgel Ander-
son, Ludwig Schmitt, Hiram Lepper-
of Frank Gray and Gerald Chapman
can have no temptations for future
enligres. For in recent years so un-
blinking Is the vigilance. so perfect the
redoubled precautions against summary
exit, that only a Houdini reincarnate
could hope to defeat those grim i'm
pedimenta of steel and concrete, of
sentry and rifle-ball.
Once used and exposed, the now his
toric ruses for filing, tunneling and
scaling devised by Chapman and the
others can obviously have no utility
again.
Only an imbecile, one would think,
would try that desperate throw of the
dice which an escape represents. For
the perils and penalties involved are
sufficiently terrifying. First, the risk
Of getting shot while in the act, or
later in the relentless process of pur-
suit. And If brought back-think Of
what faces the fugitivel Suppose, for
example, that a prisoner has been i'm
INJURED for q 20-year stretch. With good
behavior he has a chance to make parole
in years; failing that. to earn a
routine discharge in IA years. Well,
should he "lam," as the convictS call it,
in the pre-parole period and be re-
turned to prison he forfeits his right
to apply for parole; not only so, but all
his good time is automatically extin-
guished He stands, except in isolated
instances, to serve his full 20-year term
That one foolhardy venture may indeed
mean a lifetime behind walls. Not only
so, but after retrieval he becomes per-
petually watched and marked man. ac-
corded the meaneSt working assign
mentS. He is doomed to eat his heart
out in remorSe.
Yet, despite this lugubrious prospect,
despite the fact that the cards are
stacked forty ways from the jack against
a successful lanai even so wonderful
and humane an institution as Atlanta
there have been imbeciles to challenge
walls and bars. Some of them, in the
long 80 years of the prisons history.
have gone over, some under; others by
less forbidden routes. This story will
tell for the first time from intimate and
authentic data of the most sensational
sorties for liberty from that brooding
abode of erring,
WITH that picturesque and double
w dyed felon Dutch Anderson will
forever be associated the epochal un-
derwallS burrow to freedom which
turmoiled the prison and electrified the
public in the last days of December,
1923. Curiously enough, Anderson was
only the inventor of the audacious
scheme. In the actual tunneling he
had no part whatsoever. He was the
Paul who planted: Inmates Haynie and
Lepper represent the Apollus who wat
ered--or rather dug. Those two outlaws
had been admitted to Atlanta about the
same time as Anderson; their close
friendship he had gained in the bastile.
No doubt his astounding powers of
persuasion had enlisted Haynie and
Lepper in the perilous job they were
soon to essay For their terms were
considerably shorter than his own,
which was Is years.
Dutch. had been sent South from
New York with a sentence for robbery,
entering the fortress in November,
1922. Behind him lay a life apparent
ly dedicated to evil. He had been by
turns a bandit, confidence man and
fence, with many jail sentences for re-
ward, including stretch in Auburn
where he first met Gerald Chapman.
On admission to Atlanta we find him
s42 years old, feet inches in height,
q husky, vital figure: of ITO pounds
weight. In, his entering declaration he
described himself as student of liter
ature and music and . linguist In six
different tongues. His hair was already
shot with gray. His disposition ap-
peared suave and obliging and he kept
out of ali alterations. Immediately
upon arrival he was detailed to the
tailor shop, wherein he worked steadily
and dutifully until the lurid day of
his leave-taking.
X * X X
MOT long after Anderson's debut at
Atlanta the tubercular colony had
been shifted from the lower stadium to
a new site just back of the prison hos
pital. Here usually 40 to SO lung cases
passed the long. idle days basking in
the Georgia sunshine, sleeping at night
in little canvas-covered tents that sat
on stakes about feet above the