OCR Text |
Show Houdini "Up Against It" . Houdini, the king of handcuff, ss he is described by his press agent, tried to escape from a locked cell in the York-ville York-ville Police court prison recently and encountered a sharp-eyed keeper, .who disarranged his plans. The expert lock-picker lock-picker went to the office of Commissioner Commission-er of-Corrections Lantry a -week ago and told him that the locks on the district dis-trict prisoners were no good, and that an expert burglar could easily escape. - "None has ever escaped in my time, and I hope none will," responded the commissioner. "Why, I can get out of any. cell in your prison j" went on Houdini. "I don't believe it. Who- are you, anyway!" snapped the c&mmissioner. "I am an expert lockpicker, and III show yon that I can open any locked cell in your prison," the visitor aaid. The commissioner gave his permission to try the locks in the prison of the Yorkville court. The expert went to the prison one day last week, examined the locks of the cell doors and announced an-nounced that he would return yesterday and allow himself to be-locked in a cell. When be got there in the afternoon he found a number of headquarters men, precinct detectives. lawyers, court clerks and others waiting for him. . "I have been locked in the prisons of Germany, France, England and in some in this country, and in every instance I have managed to get out," said he. "I haven't made a failure yet, and the prison officials were unable to explain how I did it." He'll have a different story to tll after af-ter his experience in the Yorkville prison. Things were arranged for Ms attempted at-tempted escape from a cell. The cell was selected and be went into another one and disrobed, his -purpose being to go undressed into the cell room from which he was to escape to show be bad no key concealed about him. - As a preliminary stunt be swallowed a dozen needles and a piece of thread, and then pulled out a piece of thread from hia mouth with a dozen needles threaded. " "Wonderful!" was the comment of some of; the crowd. Hugh Cooney, a prisonkeeper, was standing in the cell door to see that nothing was smuggled in. He had been watching the performance and stepped up to the expert. "Let me examine your mouth with my finger, ".said the keeper. - "Cooney went to the faucet at the end of the room, and while he was doing so the expert walked over to a cell and ejected something from bis mouth. When the keeper came back he didn't see any necessity of examining further for needles. The expert then announced that be was ready to enter the cell from which he was to escape, and was willing to be searched. Cooney stepped up and ran his fingers through the expert ' bushy hair, but found nothing. Then he examined ex-amined the hands, fingers, and looked under the finger nails for a concealed key. There was none there, so the keeper went to the feet. Nothing under I t.hA left foot. "Lift your right foot," said the keeper. "Hold on. Leave me alone," responded re-sponded the expert. "Up with that foot," ordered the keeper. "I've swallowed it. Don't touch me." said the expert as he doubled up as though in pain. "There's something under the toes of that foot, and if j'ou won't let me look vou can't go into the cell," said the keeper. The expert did some thinking and finally walked over to tbe cell where his clothes were lying. He then consulted con-sulted with his manager. The keeper called Warden John Lynch and told him that the expert refused to be searched. The Warden said that in that case tbe jail-wrecking would be off. Just then Deputv Commissioner of Corrections George V. Meyer entered. . He said that all prisoners were searched, and the expert would have to be or else acknowledge that he had something under his toes. The expert made the acknowledgment and was-then allowed to enter the cell. A sheet was drawn over the door. Tbe expert's bands were confine4 in handcuffs attached at-tached to a waist belt. The audience was ordered out into the next room while the "prisoner" was escaping. One of the audience found a peephole and saw the expert's hand come out between be-tween the bars of tbe door and insert something into the Yale lock. He unlocked un-locked the door and showed that he had removed the belt and handcuffs while in |