Today I continue my series on The Daily Illustrated Mirror reports leading up to the Mirror Handcuff Challenge event of March 17th 1904, the event itself, and post-event reporting.
Previously I shared:
- March 11 1904 – Birmingham Man Invents a Handcuff With a Lock Which Cannot Be Picked
- March 14 1904 –The Handcuff King Accepts Our Challenge
- March 15 1904 – Houdini’s Torture Tests
- March 16 1904 – Spoken as a Sportsman
- March 17 1904 – £200 Pounds Offered Houdini for Forecast of this Afternoon’s Test
- March 18 1904 – How He Picked the “Mirror” Handcuffs in One Hour and Ten Minutes
Today, I share the March 19, 1904 issue of The Daily Illustrated Mirror:
I think the £100 handcuffs (i.e., the Tatlers) he freed himself from, are priceless now.
The above is nice recap of the challenge.
While the above story is mainly fiction, what about the bullet in the back of Houdini’s left hand? Compare photo above (no bullet) with photo below (bullet) that appeared in the August 1904 issue of the British monthly Wide World magazine that included “A One-Night Engagement” by H. Houdini (The “Handcuff King”). These photos appear to be of a right hand”
But Patrick Culliton’s, The Tao of Houdini, on page 78 has an image of the left hand:
Thoughts?
Related:
The bullet story is not in Silverman’s book. He carefully avoided the Paul Bunyan stories Houdini crafted during his lifetime. You won’t find the stolen pies from the pantry, the hole cut out of the iced river in Detroit, and this bullet in the hand story. Follow Silverman and you don’t fall into that rabbit hole.
Silverman mentions that Houdini kept the real secrets of his lock picking to himself. Randi noted that the Handcuff Escapes book Houdini published is pretty much useless to an escape artist.
Also–I believe that the speed of the bullet would have caused it to go through his hand. It went through the door first, so there’s no way his hand could have stopped the bullet. People familiar with ballistics can tell you that. Shielding your face with your hand from a gunshot is futile.
Great points! But you gotta love Houdini’s “Paul Bunyan” stories!
Houdini’s 1897-1899 diary covers his time in Coffeevillle and there’s noting in there about being shot. It’s a tall tale. The X-ray appears to have been flopped, hence the right-left confusion.
It’s definitely a tall tale. Note that Houdini never provided a date, nor his age when this supposedly happened. Getting shot in the hand is traumatic and nobody forgets the time frame. You can write a book on Houdini’s mythmaking.