The Right Way to Do Wrong (3 page)

Arriving at Essen, a few miles distant from Dortmund, and a town where I had many good friends, I first visited a barber and had him glue a false moustache on
my lip, and so fix my hair that I looked like an old man. Then with my small grip filled with “handcuff-king-defeaters,” I was off to Dortmund and the circus, where I found the attendance very light. Kleppini appeared, making his speech in which he claimed to have defeated me. Instantly I was on my feet, crying “
Nicht wahr
,” meaning “Not true.” He asked how I knew this, and I said I was in the know, whereupon he finally offered to wager that he was right. With that I took a flying leap of twenty-two feet downwards to the centre of the ring or
menage
, as it is called in Germany, and cried, “You say I am not telling the truth. Well, look! I am Houdini!”

During the controversy that followed I told Kleppini and his manager what honest folk thought of performers and managers who employed misleading and untruthful advertising matter; and I offered 5000 marks if Kleppini would let me handcuff him. Also I offered to escape from his Chinese pillory. He tried to evade the issue, saying he would look me up later, but I insisted that he deposit the money before he started, as I had mine with me.

Herr Director Sidoli refused to make good his advertisements and to back Kleppini for the sum mentioned, so I returned to my seat, and the audience left the circus building in droves, disgusted by the misrepresentations.

The next morning, June 18, Herr Reutter, business manager of the circus, came to my hotel with a proposition that I should engage myself one night for a duel with Kleppini, which I refused. Herr Reutter then asked me whether I would handcuff Kleppini if the latter challenged me, and I replied that this I would certainly do. So he begged me to remain one day longer, not allowing anyone to know of my presence in town, however. As I
had been working steadily since leaving New York, I was in sad need of rest, so I waited all day in my room, having all meals sent to me. On the morning of June 19 I arose with the lark—to face huge bills announcing: “Houdini challenged and will appear at the Circus Ceasur Sidoli this evening. Kleppini will allow himself to be handcuffed and will immediately free himself.”

I was more amused than angry. I simply polished my various handcuffs, oiled the mechanism and waited.

Kleppini sent for me. I refused to go to him. He called at the hotel. I would not receive him. Manager Reutter then came to me and asked me what cuffs I intended to lock on his star. I said he was at liberty to choose the cuff to be used, and pointed to the twelve cuffs laid out for his inspection.

There was one pair of French letter cuffs that caught his fancy, and I permitted him to examine them closely. Reutter then inquired in a peculiar tone, as if feigning indifference: “What letters or word opens this cuff?”

I perceived his trick at once, and securing his promise that he would not tell Kleppini, I replied, “Clefs,” which means keys. At the same time I showed him just how to work them. He fell into the trap, and asked me whether he might take these cuffs for Herr Director Sidoli to examine them before the performance, and I told him he was quite at liberty to do so, provided they were not shown to Kleppini. This promise also was given, and he departed, keeping the cuffs in his possession four hours. Of course I knew that during this time Kleppini was familiarizing himself with the cuffs, but I still had a trick up my own sleeve.

That night at the circus I occupied a box seat, and
when Kleppini threw out his daring challenge, I entered the ring with my bag of cuffs. I said that I had no objection to his advertising his willingness to let me handcuff him, but I did object to his stating he could get out until he had made good. The audience was with me, and I told him to take his choice of the twelve cuffs.

As I anticipated, he sprang like a tiger on the French letter cuff. He had taken them closed, and ran with feverish haste into his cabinet.

He remained within about three minutes, whereupon I cried: “Ladies and gentlemen, do not let him tell you that the cuffs have been locked. They are open. He will return and say he opened them.”

This brought him out of his cabinet waving the cuffs like a crazy man, and crying, “I will open these cuffs. I challenge Houdini to lock them on me. I'll show him that it is us Germans who lead the world.”

As he had tried the cuffs in the cabinet, he was positive that he could beat them. And I was just as positive that the opposite conditions would prevail.

He now started to goad me into locking them on quickly, pressing me all over the circus. So violent were my efforts, that my heart beat like a trip hammer, and my face turned pale from exertion. From this Kleppini gathered that I thought myself even then defeated. So he walked to the center of the ring, with the handcuffs locked upon him, and cried: “After I open these handcuffs, I will allow Madame Kleppini to open them. She is very clever in this branch of work, and she will open them in five seconds.”

I smiled grimly and took the floor. “Ladies and gentlemen, you can all go home. I do not lock a cuff on a
man merely to let him escape. If he tries this cuff until doomsday, he cannot open it. To prove this, though the regular closing time of the circus is 10.30, I will allow him to remain here until 2.30.”

He went into his cabinet at nine o'clock. When the big ballet feature came on at 9.30, he was not ready. At 11, almost the entire audience had gone, and Kleppini was still in his cabinet. Herr Director Sidoli became enraged, and instructed his servants to “out with Kleppini,” and they lifted the cabinet up bodily and threw it over. Kleppini ran like a hunted animal into the manager's dressing room. The rest of the show might have gone on, but the audience rose as a man and went out.

At midnight, by which time I had left my place in the box, and was standing guard over the dressing-room door, I permitted Madame Kleppini to join her husband, at his request. About one o'clock the manager asked Kleppini if he would give up, and Kleppini begged me to enter the room and release him, which I refused to do without witnesses. We then sent for the Herr Director Sidoli, Herr Reutter, and a reporter. At last Kleppini said he had the word, “Clefs,” and I laughed.

“You are wrong. If you want to know the word which opens the lock, it is just what you are—‘fraud.' ”

And with this I grabbed his hands, quickly turned the letters till they spelled “fraud,” and as they fell into their respective places he was freed.

The locks, you see, were changeable, and it required only a short moment for me to change the word. When he went into the cabinet, he tried the cuff, and it responded to the word “Clefs.” While locking them on him, I changed the word to “fraud,” and he, even
with his eagle eye, failed to recognize that he had been trapped.

The next day, however, being a boastful man, and unwilling to acknowledge defeat, he actually circulated bills stating that he had defeated Houdini and won 5,000 marks; but the newspapers guyed him unmercifully, and published the true facts.

I AM INDUCED TO TAKE THIS STEP FOR THE manifest reason that the public of both hemispheres may, through ignorance of the real truth, give credence to the mendacious boasts and braggadocio of the horde of imitators who have sprung into existence with mushroom rapidity of growth, and equal flimsiness of vital fiber, and who, with amazing effrontery and pernicious falsity, seek to claim and hold the credit and honor, such as they may be, that belong to me. It is in the same spirit and for the same cogent reason, that I execute my present duty of duly setting forth my right to the title which I hold and the absolute pilfering of my name, fame, and the other emoluments of success by those others who advertise and rate themselves as “Handcuff Kings,” “Jail Breakers,” etc.,
ad libitum, ad nauseam
.

That I have a horde of imitators may not be as well known as it will be to those who have the patience and the sense of fairness sufficiently developed to lead them to read this article through to its conclusion.

Therefore, it will not be considered unbecoming of me to set forth here the details of my conception, execution, and performance of the Challenge Handcuff
and Escape Act as presented by me at this time in the principal vaudeville and music hall theatres of Europe and America. And I trust also that I will not be deemed guilty of undue egoism, or of having an attack of “exaggerated ego,” to borrow a popular term growing out of the Thaw trial, if I assert that this act has proved to be the greatest drawing card and longest lived sensation that has ever been offered in the annals of the stage. This has been demonstrated by the record-breaking attendance in every theatre in which I have given the act, either in part or whole, and also by the duration of my term of engagement in the principal theatres among those in which I have been booked.

“Art is long and life is short,” says the ancient poet.

The stage and its people, in the light of history, make this a verity.

As examples, take the famous Davenport Brothers, also the “Georgia Magnet,” also the “Bullet Proof Man,” etc. For the benefit of those who have not heard of the latter sensational attraction—which was indeed a great novelty for a limited time—I will explain that the man was a German who claimed to possess a coat that was impervious to bullets. He would don this coat and allow any one to shoot a bullet of any caliber at him. Alas! One day a marksman shot him below the coat, in the groin, and he eventually died from the wounds inflicted. His last request was that his beloved invention be buried with him. This, however, was not granted, for it was thought due to the world that such an invention should be made known. The coat, on being ripped open, was found stuffed or padded with powdered glass.

Returning to the subject of my own career, I assert
here with all the positiveness I can command that I am the originator of the Challenge Handcuff Act, which consists in the artist's inviting any person into the audience to submit handcuffs of his own from which the performer must release himself. And it is proper that I should add at this point that I do not claim to have conceived and originated the simple handcuff trick. Every novice in this line knows that it has been done for many years, or so far back, as the lawyers say, “that memory runneth not to the contrary.”

French historians of the stage show that as far back as early 1700, La Tude performed it. Pinetti did chain releases in 1780, and other modern magicians have had it in their programs ever since 1825. The Sr. Bologna, instructor of John Henry Anderson, made a small trick out of it. Anderson placed it among his repertoire the second time he came to America in 1861 and when exposing the Davenport Brothers, he made quite a feature of it. In fact, I have an old monthly of 1870 in which a handcuff trick is explained in an article exposing spirit mediums.

Dr. Redmond, who, I hear, is still very much alive in England, made quite a reputation as a rope expert and handcuff manipulator in 1872–3, and I have several interesting bills of his performances.

Few give me credit, but had I been able to copyright my new tricks, they would all have to pay me a royalty.

But, as such cannot be done, the only thing I ask of the numerous imitators is to give credit where credit is due.

No one, to my knowledge, performs my tests according to my method except my brother Theo Hardeen, as they ALL resort to fakery and collusion in presenting to
the public that which they wish to have thought is exactly as Houdini performs his challenges.

The following challenges have been performed by myself, some of which are very interesting: Release in full view of the audience from straitjackets used on murderous insane; the nailed up in packing case escape; the packing case built on the stage; the paper bag; the willow hamper; the hamper swung in the air; the steel unprepared cage or basket; riveted into a steel water boiler; hung to a ladder in mid-air; nailed to a door; escape from unprepared glass box; out of a large football; release from a large mail pouch; escape from a roll top desk; escape from a zinc-lined piano box, etc., etc. In fact during long engagements, I have accepted a different challenge for every performance.

In order to stop all controversy concerning this jail-breaking affair, I shall publish the methods that have been used by some of those who will stop at nothing in order to willfully deceive the public.

First of all, there is a young man who calls himself Brindemour who, according to all I can learn, claims to be the originator of jail breaking and has accused me of stealing the material from him. He has even gone so far as to say that I assisted him. Why, in 1896 I visited Woonsocket, R.I. with a show and made quite a hit with the handcuff act. There I met a photographer whose name was George W. Brown. He made himself known to me and informed me that he was an amateur magician, and that at certain periods of the year he gave performances for friends and lodges. His great hit was to impersonate a ballet girl.

He showed me pictures of himself in ballet costume
and seemed to be proud that he could impersonate the female sex so perfectly. That was in 1896. About a year later, after purchasing a bunch of handcuff keys, this Brown called himself Brindemour. He gave a trial show at Keith's Providence house for Manager Lovenberg and failed to make good. His great stunt then was to make the church bells ring, which is accomplished with a confederate and was Sig. Blitz's standby. At any rate, the Great Brindemour, failing to make good, followed me into Philadelphia and started in to expose his handcuff act. He did this in Providence, also Philadelphia, and made a dismal failure. The effect of his work showed him that he was on the wrong track, and eventually he did not expose the few false tricks that he had and went into it without the exposures.

He pursued the same old groove until I returned to America, when he deliberately copied all of my challenges as best he could. I wondered how he did his jail breaking stunts, as I knew that he could no more pick a lock than the Czar of Russia will give the Russian newspapers the right of free press. Recently I have ascertained the facts as to several of his escapes, or rather their “mysterious means,” and I will give the reader the benefit of my investigations. At the same time I invite the closest investigation of anything that I have ever done. While filling an engagement at Albaugh's Theatre, Baltimore, Brindemour escaped from the cells at police headquarters under the following circumstances: A reporter on the
Baltimore News
, by name of “Clint” MacCabe, called on Harry Schanberger, who is engaged in an official position at police headquarters (this incident was told me personally by Harry Schanberger and in the presence of
witnesses). MacCabe, after a chat with Harry Schahnberger, borrowed the set of keys from Schanberger, telling him that he wanted to give them to Brindemour, so that he could give a press performance and make the people believe that Brindemour had escaped “on the square.”