Two prisoners, Ralph 3S. Boyd and Dave Lightner, alias Hibman, escaped irom the American Consular Gaol on Wednesday morning, probably about 3 a.m. They went into the toilet room, pulled down some of the plastering from the roof, crawled along the attic space, removed the tiling from the roof and crawled out.
Boyd has already been taken, due largely to the quick wits of Detective Inspector R. Conduit, of the Shanghai Municipal Police, in conjunction with Inspector Mellows, of the River Police. Inspecior Conduit happened to ear a& man say that he had once met Boyd on hoard the launch Elka, a private pleasure craft owned by Mr. H. Hansen, who was employed by Boyd. Finding that the Elka was here on the river, Inspector Conduit had a suspicion that Boyd might be found there. Acting on this clue he secured an armed police boat, went over to the Elka and got his man about 10 o'clock in the morning, Boyd being fast asleep when apprehend-Boyd has been in Shanghai and China for three or four years, and is at present awaiting trial.
Dave Lightner, who was still at large at the time of writing, arrived in Shanghai on April 16 from Portland, Oregon, aboard the Norwegian ship Luise Nielsen. He was being held for the U.S. authorities, being under indictment in Portland for violation of the Harrison Narcotics Act. His description is given by the prison authorities as: Hebrew, aged 25, 5 feet 6 inches tall, weight 210 Ib., brown hair, clipped closely on sides and back and long on top, grey eyes, heavy chin, round fat face, short fat chin, head small at the top and unusually large about the jaws.. He was dressed in a dark brown suit, rough shoes, light-brown shirt without necktie. His hands are large and rough and are red half-way to his fingers, due to his work as a coal passer on the voyage to China.
There were three other men in the cell with these two, but one of these goes out in a day, the other has only 10 or 12 days to serve and the third evidently felt the chances of being recaptured were so strong that he decided not to make his escape.
It is thought that Lightner may have succeeded in stowing away 62 an outgoing steamer, possibly even the Luise Nielsen, the Danis boat on which he was arrested last Sunday. The vessel was despatched from one of the lower buoys at noon on Wednesday, about eight hours after he gained his freedom. The police, however, hava not relaxed their efforts to trace the man in the Settlements, A watch is also being
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