On 27 February 1880, a man who had served his prison sentence in Bocholt was escorted by a gendarme to the Dutch border near Aalten. Thanks to the excellent cooperation between the Dutch and Prussian border police, he was duly received at the border crossing by rijksveldwachter (national constable) Schaars Prins from Aalten, to be handed over to the Dutch justice system, which also had a bone to pick with him.
The transport to Aalten took place by carriage. Upon arrival there, the man was taken to the house of detention. Everything proceeded quietly and orderly, until an individual who – as it later turned out – had followed the carriage at a trot, entered the prison.
When asked what he was doing there, a life-and-death struggle suddenly ensued between the prisoner and his friend on one side, and Schaars Prins, municipal constable Heersink, and the coincidentally present municipal messenger Gerhard Rots on the other.
After a few truncheons had been shattered across the bodies of the attacking rogues, Rots dealt out several blows with a type of frying pan, which was bent completely out of shape as a result. In this fight, the constables sustained only a few scratches and bruises, but the stout-hearted Rots was actually bitten on his nose, his hand, and in a certain hind part of his body.
Schaars Prins, who a few years earlier had been decorated by the German Emperor following an encounter with criminals in Aalten – who, having escaped from the prison in Bocholt, were nabbed by that moustachioed officer – held his ground firmly once again, yet would have been cut down with his own sabre had it not been for Rots.
In the end, all turned out well – the audacious rescue attempt failed, and the friends were put under lock and key. They were transported to Zutphen to have their case heard there and, undoubtedly, to receive their just deserts.
