Knoxville Daily Chronicle

HUT AMARINE
Leaps from a Train of Cars
Moving 35 Miles an Hour and
Again Escapes the Clutches
of the Law.
[Chattanooga Times.]

Hut Amarine, the notorious Blount county moonshiner who killed United States Collector Cooper about two years ago, and who was arrested in Texas last week, made a daring escape near this city Saturday night. Amarine was arrested at Indianola, Texas, by Deputy United States Marshal W. T. Clayton. He was arrested while at work on his farm, and made no resistance. Clayton left Texas for Knoxville, with the prisoner in charge on Wednesday. He kept him hand-cuffed, and frequently had him chained to the seat. Saturday night they reached Stevenson, Ala., on the M. & C. R. R., forty minutes late, and the train left Stevenson for Chattanooga at a highly increased rate of speed, to make up the lost time, attaining a speed of at least 35 miles an hour. When the train passed Shellmound, 16 miles below here, Amarine's chains were loosened from the seat and his hand-cuffs were unlocked to permit him to go to the water-closet. He returned to his seat with the cuff on the right wrist locked and the other hanging open. The guard neglected to chain him on his return, the high rate of speed of the train disarming suspicion. Something in the car attracted Clayton's attention, and light as the wind, nimble as a cat, determined as a man who sees a hangman's rope dangling before him, Amarine stealthily rose from the seat, approached the door, in an instant was on the platform, like a flash was hanging between heaven and earth, moving at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour, and before any one knew it, resigned himself to fate, loosened his hold and the flying train soon left him far in the rear. Mr. Clayton discovered the escape soon afterward, but to search for him alone, at that hour of the night, he knew to be folly. He came to this city, procured the services of Detective Wilcox and they repaired to the scene of the escape. The ground was ploughed up for twenty feet, where his heels had plunged in when he was hanging to the railing of the flying car, and when he let loose he must have tumbled and rolled into a deep ditch, where marks were evident. No blood was visible. He was tracked for six miles, toward Bridgeport, and here all traces were lost. The country is being scoured, but with little hope of success. He had with him seven dollars in cash and a small pen knife. It is thought he will make for Florida, his former home.

Amarine escaped to Texas from the Knoxville jail. The evidence against him is enough to convict him of murder in the first degree.

The information of the above escape was in possession of the CHRONICLE, through the medium of a telegram to Collector J. M. Melton from Galveston, Texas, repeated from Stevenson, Ala., but by an aggravating oversight did not appear. No further information had been received last night.