d that in consequence
of his injuries the case would be adjourned for eight days.

What had happened was this. Peace had left King's Cross by the 5.15
train that morning, due to arrive at Sheffield at 8.45. From the very
commencement of the journey he had been wilful and troublesome. He kept
making excuses for leaving the carriage whenever the train stopped.
To obviate this nuisance the two warders, in whose charge he was, had
provided themselves with little bags which Peace could use when he
wished and then throw out of the window. Just after the train passed
Worksop, Peace asked for one of the bags. When the window was lowered
to allow the bag to be thrown away, Peace with lightning agility took a
flying leap through it. One of the warders caught him by the left foot.
Peace, hanging from the carriage, grasped the footboard with his hands
and kept kicking the warder as hard as he could with his right foot.
The other warder, unable to get to the window to help his colleague, was
making vain efforts to stop the train by pulling the communication cord.
For two miles the train ran on, Peace struggling desperately to escape.
At last he succeeded in kicking off his left shoe, and dropped on to the
line. The train ran on another mile until, with the assistance of some
gentlemen in other carriages, the warders were able to get it pulled up.
They immediately hurried back along the line, and there, near a place
called Kineton Park, they found their prisoner lying in the footway,
apparently unconscious and bleeding from a severe wound in the scalp. A
slow train from Sheffield stopped to pick up the injured man. As he was
lifted into the guard's van, he asked them to cover him up as he was
cold. On arriving at Sheffield, Peace was taken to the Police Station
and there made as comfortable as possible in one of the cells. Even then
he had energy enough to be troublesome over taking the brandy ordered
for him by the surgeon, until one of the officers told "Charley" they
would have none of his hanky-panky, and he had got to take it. "All
right," said Peace, "give me a minute," after which he swallowed
contentedly a couple of gills of the genial spirit.

Peace's daring feat was not, according to his own account, a mere
attempt to escape from the clutches of the law; it was noble and Roman
in its purpose. This is what he told his stepson, Willie Ward: "I saw
from the way I was guarded all the way down from London and all the way
back,