nly kill himself but be
the cause of the death of others with him in the cage. To make his case
more plausible, when the convict learned that the officer had ordered
him to the top, he began pleading to remain in the mines and work,
stating that he enjoyed the work and would rather do service there than
on the top. But the officer persisted; he was sent up and reported to
the deputy warden, who set him to quarrying rock. This was no better job
than working in the coal mines. Providing himself for the occasion, by
putting a piece of soap in his mouth, assuming a frenzy and frothing at
the mouth, he would almost deceive a physician as to the nature of his
malady. Later, it was decided that he was unable to do duty on the
rock pile, and was placed in the "Crank House" with the cranks. Those
prisoners, who have either lost their mind or are suffering with
temporary insanity, not incurable insane, or wholly idiotic, are classed
as "cranks," and have an apartment by themselves. As a rule this class
of individuals are harmless and not guarded very closely. Their cells
are not locked up until nine o'clock at night; the others at six
o'clock. During the noon hour the officers leave them alone, in fact,
being of a supposed harmless disposition they are at no time closely
guarded. This fellow improved the opportunities afforded by the noon
hour. He would go into one of the towers and work as long as he dared
cutting the bars with a saw he had made out of a knife. He labored in
this manner until one of the bars was sawed so near off that a little
push would remove it. One afternoon he bade the other cranks good-bye,
telling them he was going to fly that night. They made sport of him,
thinking he was growing more insane. He went so far as to say good-bye
to the officer, stating that he had received a revelation from God
the previous night, and that an angel was coming to liberate him. The
officer, of course, thought he was getting more and more insane. When
night came he slipped out of his cell and secreted himself in a portion
of the cell house where it was dark, and when the officer came to lock
up, the crazy hog-thief was not missed. Along in the night he pushed
aside the bars and made his escape. This was the last the prison
authorities heard of him until they learned he was arrested at St.
Joseph, Missouri, and held there on a charge of grand larceny for the
same thing that he was in the Kansas penitentiary--stealing hogs.
An of