by Barrie Jones
Chapter IV (continued) At Dartmoor, Henry recounts an attempted prison break by William Carter, John Martin, and Ralph Goodwin.
The Dark Side of Convict Life (Being the Account of the Career of Harry Williams, a Merthyr Man). Merthyr Express, 19th February 1910, page 9.
Chapter IV (continued)
Well, time went on, and it was Christmas Eve, 1896, that an event happened at Dartmoor which, doubtless, still lingers in the memory of many, especially London people, for it was to the Seven Dials the poor victim belonged. His name was Carter, and he was undergoing the long term of twelve years. On the day mentioned, we were all out on the bogs, digging, when a thick fog came on – so thick that we could only see the outline of each other a very short distance away. The guards began to close in, when suddenly the whistles began blowing, for three convicts belonging to another gang had made a dash for liberty. No sooner had they done so than the sergeant of the guards gave the order to fire upon them. One was shot in the thigh and fell; then poor Carter was seen to throw up his arms, and he fell dead, having had five slugs poured into his lungs. Ah! I shall never forget the sight when we covered up the poor chap with our smocks and bore him back to the prison upon an old door we had taken off its hinges. In the meanwhile, guards were sent in search of the other missing man, and shots were fired at random, but he was swift of foot, and he managed to get clear away.
Three days after he was recaptured and brought back to Dartmoor, where he was tried by the prison director, and sentenced to undergo fifteen days’ bread and water, six months separate confinement, made to wear the parti-coloured distinctive dress, and to be restrained in cross-irons for a period of six months. As for the other convict, who was wounded, he received the same on discharge from the hospital; but poor Carter was borne in an old farm cart, followed only by his brother and sister, who came down from London to see the last of their poor brother laid to rest in the convicts’ cemetery at Princetown.
My term of three years was slowly coming to an end, and after being persecuted by officers, who, one by one, kept on reporting me, I managed to cheat them of 116 days’ ticket-of-leave, having been robbed of five months of my ticket. Thus, my day of liberation came round, and I was escorted to Tavistock, and from thence to Pentonville Prison, London, to await my release.
To be continued……