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By Root 352 0

Watching Vatanen tenderly stroking the hare’s fur in his dismal cell, as if he were its mother, I was aware of what human solidarity may entail. I remember certain moments when, as the moist-eyed prisoner looked at his stone wall, a vague intuition disturbed me: that nothing on earth could prevent this afflicted man from once more demonstrating the full force of his whole being.

The present volume was already going to press when an express telegram, expedited by messenger, arrived on my desk from the prison: Vatanen and the hare had escaped from jail!

I rushed to the prison and ascertained how the break-out had occurred. It is one of the more remarkable events in our criminal history. Vatanen’s longing for freedom was such that, one agonizing day, with the hare in his arms, he stepped through his cell wall into the exercise yard, crossed the open space to the exterior wall, and walked through that, too, into the freedom beyond; and neither he nor the hare have been seen since. During these moments of flight, the prison warders were as if paralyzed behind their machine guns and harpoons—incapable of impeding his flight in any way.

Moreover, Vatanen’s lawyer, L. Heikkinen, was not available the day after the escape, and there is still no information as to her whereabouts.

This last news alone shows that Vatanen is a man to be reckoned with.