Today’s Notorious Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Jack Sheppard, a notorious housebreaker who had perviously escaped from two London gaols, was eventually recaptured and confined in Newgate Prison. There he was fettered about the ankles, the iron rings being about one inch thick. Connecting the rings was an inch and a half thick bar, fifteen inches long, from the middle of which three large links extended upwards to fasten to a chain about his waist. Despite these restrictions, their weight of about twenty pounds, and the fact that the crossbar was padlocked to a staple in the floor, Sheppard managed to pick the lock with a nail and snap a link of his chains. Via chimneys and across roofs he made his escape and, hiding in a field near Tottenham Court Road, he persuaded a cobbler to chisel through his fetters. Alas, celebratory drinks and overconfidence led to his downfall in more ways than one, for he was hanged at Tyburn on November 16, 1724.
Culled from: Rack, Rope and Red-Hot Pincers
Well, who among us hasn’t suffered a downfall at the hands of celebratory drinks and overconfidence?
Jack Sheppard – wasn’t he a surgeon that was stranded on an island