HOUDINI AT DIFFERENT AGES OF HIS CAREER
Since then he has been a top-of-the-bill star everywhere. He has made enormous salaries on the continent, where he is tremendously popular. He has broken records for paid admissions all over Continental Europe. In the week he performed before the Grand Duke of Russia he earned in public and private performances over £400, an enormous salary in those days.
In 1905, he returned to America for a brief tour, and he became at once the sensation in every city. Jails have fallen before his power like cities in the olden time before the armies of Caesar. The police of America join the gendarmerie of Europe in declaring, "Nothing on earth can hold him a prisoner." All the strongest cells and prisons in the United States have succumbed to the mysteriously potent force he exerts. Perhaps his most historic feat was his escape in January, 1906, from Cell 2, Condemned Murderers' Row, in the United States Jail at Washington, D. C., the very cell in which Guiteau, the assassin of President Garfield was confined until he was led forth to be hanged. Another great work was his escape from double confinements in the Boston Tombs at Boston, Mass. March 20, 1906.
Since 1908 Houdini has dropped handcuffs, and has made his performance replete with new mysteries, introducing his original invention—escaping out of an air-tight galvanized iron can filled with water, after it has been locked into an iron
bound chest, and the intricate inexplicable escape from the Water Torture Cell, and releasing himself from a regulation strait jacket in full view of the audience, and during the week accepting various challenges.
Any reader of this who wishes to challenge Houdini, or has any novel method of securing Houdini, must write to publicly advertise address and name of Challenger or Challengers. No Challenge can be accepted for same date on which it is sent.