officer's heart, but the gun refused to work. With
the gun still pointed at the officer he backed away into an alley,
disappeared in the darkness and was never seen in Kansas City afterward.
But from information furnished by his pal, the officers got a very
good description of him and circulars were mailed broadcast. The
Omaha detective recognized him from one of these circulars and
was ready to arrest him when the negro shot him. We afterwards
learned that his home was in Cincinnati where his mother lives.
He left home when a mere boy, drifted through the western states,
made a trip into Mexico and Central America, and visited the Island
of Hayti. Never did he earn a dollar by honest work, always was
he committing crimes, always was there murder within his heart.
For a while he made a very good prisoner at Lancaster, and soon
became the head barber. In this capacity he goes from shop to shop
and shaves the men. While he ingratiated him
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self with the officers, he at the same time became
hated by most of the men. He charged a fee per month for giving good
shaves, and woe unto the poor fellow who had no money to tip him.
He literally tore the whiskers from his face, and also used towels
upon their faces which he had previously used upon the face of a
negro. The head barber is a privileged character at Lancaster, is
not locked up at the same time as the other prisoners, but spends
his evenings in the cell house corridors. During the fall of 1911,
Prince entered into a plot to liberate Thomas Johnson, a negro murderer
under sentence to be hung. His intention was to kill the night cell
keeper or any prison official that crossed his path, to open Johnson's
cell, scale the wall and depart. His plans miscarried, a confederate
went to Warden Smith and told of the plot, a search was made, and
a long double edged knife and a piece of gas pipe were found concealed
beneath the barber chair. Prince
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