Ten Inmates Crawl Through City Jail Roof

There were twelve prisoners in the city jail when jailer Boxall left the place. During the night, several prisoners were added to the number. Yesterday morning, the jail had ten inmates, all of whom were drunk. The door was unlocked as it had been all night, except when it was opened several times for the addition of prisoners. The jail is the old temporary structure built by Bill Cochrane when he was sheriff, for the purpose of housing the prisoners awaiting trial. It is nothing more than a large double box with outer walls of two-inch planks and a lining of one-inch boards covered with a shingle roof. It was built to hold the ordinary drunks and petty larceny thieves. The escape was easily effected. As soon as jailer Boxall went home Sunday night, a board was ripped from the roofing, allowing a prisoner to crawl into the space and punch the shingles off the roof. Two sections where the shingles had been removed were then cut out, a hole about two feet by three feet long. Through this hole, twelve prisoners made their way, lumbering over the roofs of the city offices which are attached to the jail, and dropping down ten feet to the sidewalk. During the night, several other characters, among them women suspected of highway robbery, were seen going in through the door by the police. By daylight, 'Jumbo,' one of the prisoners, crawled out through the hole and visited a neighboring saloon, where he bought a bottle of whiskey for his fellow prisoners. He returned to the jail, where he remained until nearly 9 o'clock when he started forth on a similar errand. He was caught in the hole and was forced to return to his cell.