Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1875 — A Maniac’s Wonderful Escape. [ARTICLE]

A Maniac’s Wonderful Escape.

About & quarter before ten this morning pedestrians on Sacramento and Montgomery streets and occupants of Donahue & Kelly’s bank and the offices °n Cr were horrified to see a man, nade all but a shirt, emerge from a window in the fourth story of the Alta boardinghouse and sustain himself at this dizZv height by clinging to the window-silf. His screams of murder and the cries of the gathering crowd who expected every moment to see him lying a mangled corpse on the pavement beneath attracted the attention* of the Pest editors in the adjoining building. On seeing the man’s danger the first thought was to throw the noose of a rope over him. He Succeeded, however, in making a spring from the window-sill over nearly three feet to the perpendicular water conduit of the Post building—a pipe of six inches diameter. From that he made another spring and caugnt hold ot the large signboard of the Post. How he accomplished the feat of holding to so large a pipe with one hand, even for a minute, is inexplicable. When he reached the signboard he passed himself along hand over hand until he reached the iron balcony of thejeomer window of the Post building, and raising himself with great strength until he came within reach of some of the editorial corps of the Post, when he was dragged into the room, to the great relief of the crowd below. The poor fellow, panting and trembling, told a terrible story, how he had been attacked by a dozen masked men who had murdered all his companions and had attempt. d to chloroform him, stab him, and in utherways.putan end tohislif e and how two, ten, and 1,000 men had been murdered by these assassins, until his chamber was drenched with blood. The poor fellow was evidently crazy from some cause, and officers were sent for. After procuring his clothes from the lodging-house he was removed to the City Hall. On examination by the Commissioners on Lunacy he was remanded to the Home of the Inebriates for a few days that his mental condition might be ascertained. He gave the name of Thomas Allen, aged twenty-four, and said he was a native of Ireland; also, that he had been working on the railroad in San Mateo County, and had come to town yesterday He repeatedly declared that he had only drank three glasses of ale, and had gone to bed sober; also, that after a short sleep the attacks on him began, and had been continued all night. Few of those who saw the poor fellow in his peril will easily forget the blood-curdling sensation this maniac’s performance gave them.— San Francisco Post , Jan. 21.