Albuquerque Morning Journal

HAIR RAISING EXPERIENCES OF PITTMAN AMERICAN ADVENTURER BACK FROM NICARAGUA

Tells of Being Locked in Prison With Tons of Gun Powder Ready to Be Touched Off When Warden Gave Word.

[By Morning Journal Special Leased Wire]

New York, Dec. 10 - How it feels to live in a prison which also is used as a storehouse for several tons of powder, and to be told that the powder may be touched off almost any day, was told tonight by William B. Pittman, an American soldier of fortune, when he arrived here from Cristobal. Pittman's prison adventure was only one of a good many exciting experiences he had in Nicaragua whither he went to fight with the revolutionists. He was captured by the government forces at Bluefields, and there was debate whether he should be shot on the spot, but the nay had it and he was marched off to General Luinm's headquarters. Then he was sent to Managua, where he was thrown into prison. The commander of the prison he said, decided that if the town was captured the powder would be blown up and the prisoners with it. On August 22 the revolutionists took the town, but the commander did not carry out his threat. Pittman's home is in Cambridge, Mass. He left it when he was 16 years old, acted as a water boy in the British army during the Boer war, and later served in the revolution in Venezuela. Then he went to Australia and thence to Panama, where he met several Nicaraguan Liberals who were planning the revolution. He cast his lot with them and helped to organize the revolutionist forces and had a command when the war broke out.