Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1901 — GUARDS COW 12 CONVICTS [ARTICLE]

GUARDS COW 12 CONVICTS

Desperate Men Try to Get Freedom AT NEBRASKA PENITENTIARY. Crawl Throve h a Ventilator Flue at Lincoln and Make Their Way to the Prison Boot—Unable to Get Past Sentinels. Only the presence of the Nebraska militiamen on guard at the Nebraska state penitentiary, Lincoln, prevented the escape of twelve desperate convicts from there early this morning. Mounting from the floor of the cellhouse to the top of the roof through a ventilator flue, after first sawing through an iron grating and big iron bars at the lower end, the twelve prisere looked over the top edge of the front wall down to the road below only to see four vigilant guardsmen patrolling ceaselessly along the front of the building. Though the criminals had rope ample to lower them to the ground, they dared not risk a meeting with the Springfield rifles and steelcapped leaden pellets awaiting them, cowed from the accomplishment of their purpose, they huddled down together in the great drain trough along the edge of the roof just behind the abutting wall and lay there shivering some without shoes, others only in their underclothing, till they were discovered by Deputy Warden Bowers shortly after 6 o’clock a. m., and marched down to dark dungeons below. Cowering in the big rain gutter behind the parapet at the edge, the criminals nearly froze, and one of them weakened early this morning, wishing to be discovered and taken back to the warm cellhouse, but, fearing his companions he stealthily threw a bottle and then a stone at the nearest patrolman. The soldier surmised the missile must have come from the roof, but could see no one. He reported the matter, and orders were given the guard to shoot any the roof on sight or any convict showing himself outside the walls. A roll call was then taken In the cellhouse and twelve absentees discovered. The deputy warden and a guard mounted to the roof and found the men, half frozen. They were utterly cowed and came down without a murmur to the dark cells for punishment. Two were clothed only in the blankets from their beds. ; Another had citizens’ clothes, obtained from some source. Few had shoes. I All twelve were robbers, with sentences ranging from two to thirteen years.