Transcribed without making changes to spelling and grammar. Transcribed by Joyce Robinson The Portsmouth Times Dated: March 6, 1880 Attempt to Break Jail. A bold strike for liberty was made by the prisoners in the county jail last Sunday night, which came near being successful. The prisoners had borrowed a flat iron for the ostensible purpose of ironing their clothes. This looks like a formidable weapon to place in the hands of prisoners, but we hear it had been given them before under directions of the Sheriff. Having retained possession of it they used it in prying off a heavy iron door. With this they succeeded Sunday morning about nine o'clock, in making a hole through the floor large enough for them to escape, and only awaited an opportune moment to make their exit. That afternoon, while services were being held in the jail, one of the prisoners on short sentence, told a lady, one of our school teachers, who was present, to notify Sheriff Pursell that the prisoners were preparing to escape that night. At that time the door of the cell was off, and its absence was concealed by a blanket which was hung on a wire, while another blanket covered the hole in the floor. With this notice it looks like the Sheriff should have instituted a thorough examination, and especially if he "smelled a rat" Sunday morning, as the Tribune says he did. By locking them in their cells at that time he might have saved the county no little expense as the door and the iron frame is a total wreck. After six o'clock in the evening the three men Wilson, Robinson and Thomas, sentenced the previous day to the penitentiary, went below, and were on their way to liberty. Mr. Pursell went to church, while Scott Foster held the fort. The latter going to the door of the jail, an accident in striking a wire, thus turning on the water, showed that the men were on the outside with only a few blocks between them and liberty. Foster gave the alarm and sent for the Sheriff, who on his return headed a brigade, armed with clubs, hatchets and other deadly weapons, but by this time, the wily prisoners, seeing they were headed off, had returned through the aperture to the hall of the jail. We do not want to be looked upon as criticising (sic), but, if the Sheriff believed, as the Tribune informs us, that mischief was brewing, he should certainly have inspected every portion of the jail. If he had, he would have easily discovered the broken door and the hole in the floor. And especially should he have done this after the warning he received through one of the prisoners. Attending church is a Christian duty but a faithful officer should remember that it is his duty to "watch" as well as to "pray".