![]() I succeeded in doing it, and the very manner in which I then picked the lock of the handcuff contained the basic principle which I employed in opening handcuffs all over the world. I tried to cut off the cuff, but the steel was too hard, and after breaking half-a-dozen saw-blades, the thought struck me to attempt to pick the lock. Being a loyal union man, and incidentally, perhaps, having a sharpened appetite, he called me to his side and said, "Harry, get a hack-saw and cut off this handcuff," and then went out with the police officer to dine. >While the master locksmith was trying to open the handcuff the whistle blew for the dinner hour. He was brought to the shop to have the cuff opened or cut off his wrist, and this incident, trivial as it may seem, in after years changed my entire career. He tried to open his handcuffs with some keys he had on his person, and in the attempt broke off one of the keys in the lock of the handcuff. One day whilst working as an apprentice in a locksmith's close by the police station, one of the young bloods of the town was arrested for some trivial offense. Later in life I worked at a number of trades, such as locksmith, electrical driller, photographer, cutter, etc., etc.: but I prefer to pass rapidly by those hard and cruel years when I rarely had the bare necessities of life and speak of the time when I first started to do handcuff tricks - the tricks which eventually brought me to the notice of the world. I appeared as a contortionist and trapeze performer, being advertised by the manager, Jack Hoeffler (now proprietor and manager of a circuit of theatres in the Middle West of the United States), as "Ehrich, The Prince of the Air." ![]() October 28, 1883, was the date of my first appearance before an audience. We thereon moved to Milwaukee, Wis., where such hardships and hunger became our lot that the less said on the subject the better. Some of the leading actors in the congregation, thinking he had grown too old to hold his position, supplanted him for a younger man, and one morning my father awoke to find himself thrown upon the world, his long locks of hair having silvered in service, with seven children to feed, without a position, and without any visible means of support. Mayer Samuel Weiss, at that time received an annual salary of $750 (£150). My birth occurred April 6th, 1874, in the small town of Appleton, in the State of Wisconsin, U.S.A. Houdini Museum Harry Houdini attractions Williamsport Scranton Tourism, Bus Groups, School Assembly Programs
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