The Massachusetts Spy, And Worcester County Advertiser

Worcester:

Wednesday, January 18, 1826.

JAIL BREAKING.

On the night of the 12th inst. three prisoners, named Priest, Johnson, and Bonner, (the two latter charged with breaking open a Store in New-Haven,) escaped from the Jail in this town, and stole a horse about a mile from the village. The horse was found the next morning at Shrewsbury, and Bonner was taken the day after in the same place. Priest and Johnson have since been apprehended in Boston, by our townsman, Capt. Lovell, and they are again "in durance vile" at their old quarters.

In noticing the commitment to prison in this town, which was mentioned in the last Spy, the Editor of the Salem Observer exclaims, in apparent consternation, "What are we to think of the morals of Worcester County?" In order to assist him in coming to a conclusion what to think, we will state one fact: During more than thirty years past, in Worcester County, comprehending, at present, fifty-four towns and eighty thousand inhabitants, there has been but one solitary conviction for a capital offence.

We doubt whether, even in Essex, the number has been much less. When the improved state of our morals shall tolerate establishments among us, of the character of those which caused the late riots in Salem, we shall probably be as exempt from the crime charged upon the person now in prison here, as are our good neighbors in that County.