The Mirror Representative fastens the Cuff on Houdini’s Wrists
I have been intrigued by the London Hippodrome Match and the famous Mirror Handcuff ever since I saw the cuff along with the silver replica as a kid at the Houdini Magical Hall of Fame in June 1980. The original cuff and silver replica are now in David Copperfield’s private museum.
In the spring of 1904 Houdini was in England playing the London Hippodrome. Each day he issued his standard challenge to the audience to bring forth their handcuffs to challenge him. One day in March a representative [TBD] of the Daily Illustrated Mirror newspaper issued a special challenge to Houdini to escape from a special pair of handcuffs supposedly built by a blacksmith [Nathaniel Hart] in Birmingham over a five year period. Houdini accepted the challenge and it was scheduled for St. Patrick’s Day, March 17. [handcuffs.org]
The account of Houdini’s great victory appeared in the Daily Illustrated Mirror March 18, 1904.
In “Houdini – The Key”, Patrick Culliton mentions a couple times (page 146 and page 155) that no one knows the name of the representative from the Mirror.
So who was this representative and what was his story?
Click the link below to finally learn the name and read the press agents entertaining story:
Some observations about the story:
The Press Agents story comes out a little over 6 years after the famous match, while Houdini is appearing at the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney, Australia.
It would have been on March 11th, 1904 that the press agent 1) suggested the challenge “gag” for the paper, 2) bribed a policeman, 3) first discovered the locksmith in Birmingham who spent 5 years of his life perfecting a lock that no mortal can pick, and 4) borrowed the cuff to test Houdini.
There is no mention of anyone giving Houdini a glass of water during the match.
The locksmith is still referred to as Nathaniel Hart.
“It was only a peculiar physical defect that enabled Houdini to defeat his beautiful mechanism”.
H A P P Y N E W Y E A R!