The warders, through Chief Constable Jackson, of Sheffield, have stated that when the train had passed Worksop, and was going at full speed, the prisoner asked for another bag.
The chief warder gave him one, and he stood up with his face to the window to use it, the under-warder being close behind him.
The window was dropped for him to throw it out, and, quick almost as lightning, Peace took a flying leap through the window. The under-warder sprang forward and caught him by the left foot. There he held him suspended head downwards, Peace kicking the warder with his right foot, and struggling with all his might to get free.
The chief warder, unable to render his colleague any assistance in holding Peace, inasmuch as he occupied the whole space of the window, hastened to the other side of the carriage and pulled at the communication cord to alarm the driver and secure the stoppage of the train.
The cord would not act, and some gentlemen who were in the next compartment, seeing the position of affairs, assisted in the efforts of the warder to stop the train.
All this time the struggle was going on between Peace and his warder, and eventually the prisoner succeeded in kicking off his shoe, and he fell, his head striking the footboard of the carriage, and he dropped on the line.
Supposing that the burglar had been able, as he came very near being, to jump clean through the window and alight on the soft embankment, fortune would also have favoured him in the matter of a fair start for Sherwood Forest.
The struggle lasted during about two miles, and even after Peace got out the train ran on for about a mile before the speed slackened sufficiently to allow the warders to follow him.
A three-mile start would have given the desperado such a chance of availing himself of the features of a very peculiar country as he of all men would have delighted in. When it had slackened speed sufficiently to allow the warders to alight the express train went on, and the warders hurried back along the line.
Mr. William Barlow, fruiterer, of Retford, who was a passenger by the train in which Peace was travelling, accompanied the warders, and in a plain, unvarnished manner he states that between Shireoaks and Kineton Park he heard a noise, and looking out of the window saw one of the warders with a shoe in his hand.