1826. Trinity Term ends.
Cheap Travelling.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Newark, May 17, 1826.
Sir,—The following singular circumstance may be relied on as a fact. The individual it relates to was well known upon the turf. I recollect him myself, and once saw the present venerable Earl of Fitzwilliam, on Stamford race-course, humorously inquire of him how he got his conveyance, in allusion to the undermentioned circumstance, and present him with a guinea.—I am, &c.
Benj. Johnson.
John Kilburn, a person well known on the turf as a list seller, &c., was at a town in Bedfordshire, and, as the turf phrase is, “quite broke down.” It was during harvest, and the week before Richmond races (Yorkshire), whither he was travelling, and near which place he was born: to arrive there in time he hit on the following expedient.—He applied to an acquaintance of his, a blacksmith, to stamp on a padlock the words ‘Richmond Gaol,’ with which, and a chain fixed to one of his legs, he composedly went into a corn-field to sleep. As he expected, he was soon apprehended and taken before a magistrate, who, after some deliberation, ordered two constables to guard him in a carriage to Richmond. No time was to be lost, for Kilburn said he had not been tried, and hoped they would not let him lay till another assize. The constables, on their arrival at the gaol, accosted the keeper with “Sir, do you know this man?” “Yes, very well, it is Kilburn; I have known him many years.” “We suppose he has broken out of your gaol, as he has a chain and padlock on with your mark. Is not he a prisoner?” “I never heard any harm of him in my life.” “Nor,” says Kilburn, “have these gentlemen: Sir, they have been so good as to bring me out of Bedfordshire, and I will not put them to further inconvenience. I have got the key of the padlock, and I will not trouble them to unlock it. I am obliged to them for their kind behaviour.” He travelled in this way about one hundred and seventy miles.
This anecdote has been seen before, perhaps, but it is now given on authority.