The Twin Hells: A Thrilling Narrative of Life in the Kansas and Missouri PenitentiariesReynolds, John N. (John Newton)
History
The Twin Hells: A Thrilling Narrative of Life in the Kansas and Missouri Penitentiaries
Reynolds, John N. (John Newton)
Prisons -- Kansas; Prisons -- Missouri
An officer went up there to get and bring him back to the Kansas
penitentiary, but the St. Joseph authorities refused to give him up. He
was tried there and sent to the Missouri penitentiary. After his term
expires in that place he will have to serve out his original term in the
Kansas penitentiary. "The way of the transgressor is hard," even if he
does pretend to have fits.
One of the most interesting and perilous attempts at escaping from the
penitentiary was the following: In the evening, after the day's work
is over in the mines, the convicts are all lifted to the top, as before
stated, and remain in their cells over night. One Saturday night a
convict, with a twenty years' sentence, resolved that he would remain in
the mines, and try to effect his escape. He had supplied himself with
an extra lot of bread and meat, and hid himself in the darkness of the
mines when the men were marched out in the evening at six o'clock. When
the count of the prisoners was made at the evening lock up, this man was
found missing. As he had not been seen since the prisoners were taken
from the mines, it was believed, correctly, that he had remained below.
There was nothing done about the matter that night, the officers
knowing there would be no opportunity of effecting his escape during the
night-time, as they had carefully closed the shafts at the top. They did
not set any watch until the next day. During that Saturday night this
convict climbed eight hundred feet to the top of one of the shafts.
The wooden beams running across the shaft are about five feet apart.
Standing erect on one of these beams he threw his arms over the one
above his head, and would swing up to it. In this manner he worked his
way to the top of the shaft. When he reached the surface how great
was his disappointment, for instead of finding the shaft open, as he
supposed it would be, he found that the cover was down and that he was
unable to get out of the shaft, and thus out of the coalfields into the
woods adjoining. When he discovered this there was nothing to do but
descend, This was a perilous undertaking. The cross-beams were covered
with oil which, dripping down from the machinery above, made them very
slippery. A number of times he came near falling, and if he had done so,
he would have reached the bottom a mangled mass. It required nearly the
entire night for the ascent and descent. When he reached the bottom he
took a lunch of bread and meat, went to the base of the other shaft,
which is about one hundred yards distant, and began his ascent of it,
with the hope he would find it open. It was daylight when he reached the
top. Two officers had been stationed there to watch him. Arriving at the
surface and just ready to get out, they took charge of, and marched him
into the presence of the deputy warden. When the convict related the
narrow escapes from death in his efforts for liberty, the deputy warden
was so affected he refused to punish him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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