OPENS CELLS AND IS TAKEN FOR THE DEVIL.
HIS 61st ESCAPE.

Mr. Dunning has since been knighted and is now head of the Police Constabulary, being located in London, his official title being His Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary, London, England.

For him it is literally true that—

Were he a criminal—his clear, straightforward eyes negative the suggestion—he would be a nightmare to the police of Britain, for he would walk out of gaol as coolly and smilingly as he did twice out of Liverpool Bridewell yesterday.

It was an eventful day at the sinister-looking building that stands off busy Dale Street.

High police officials, clever detectives, leading city business men who hold office on the watch committee, all sustained a severe shock by their loss of faith in what they had regarded as an inviolable stronghold.

No one has been known previously to escape from the bolts and bars behind which Liverpool quarters its criminals.

SURRENDERS TO POLICE.

In the afternoon Houdini had a pleasant interview with Head Constable Dunning.

"Want to try our locks? Certainly. You're welcome; but, of course, we will take some precautions."

"I want you to do so," replied Houdini. "I will strip naked. You can then handcuff me and put me in your strongest cell, and after you have searched me and the cell you leave me, locking the door. I will join you in a minute or two."

Houdini was as good as his word. Not only did he escape, but he had torn from his hands and arms three pairs of handcuffs, which had been put on him by officers with absolute belief in their restraining power.

Even these feats were not enough for this man, who does things that would have made Jack Sheppard die of envy. He felt sure there was nothing in Bridewell to baffle him.

Running along the corridor, he opened the doors of other cells, which he had thought were all empty. When he reached No. 14 and flung open the door, he confronted a prisoner.

"I don't know which of us was the more surprised," said Houdini to an Express representative.

STARTLED PRISONER

Here was I, standing absolutely nude before a terrified, miserable object.

Poor fellow! what a shock it was for him. He was an Irishman just recovering from a drunken bout.

"'Arrah!' he said, when he had recovered; 'I thought it was the divil.'"

The shivering prison-breaker hurried the wretched prisoner out of cell No. 14 into No. 15 and locked him in. Then he ran along the passage to greet the head constable and the other officials.

Only 6 minutes had elapsed since he had been locked in the cell naked and handcuffed. The cell door was inspected and found uninjured.

Then one of the gaolers, walking along the corridor, espied door No. 14 open and a prisoner gone.

"That's all right," said the irrepressible Houdini. "I've had him out and locked him up in No. 15." Hearty laughter followed the narration of this achievement, and the officials went to No. 15.

So securely had the Irishman been locked up that it was necessary to call upon Houdini to unfasten the door. The Irishman was found in a somewhat bewildered state, but he probably "sobered" quicker than he would have done in less eventful circumstances.

Houdini left the bridewell the proud possessor of the certificate which is reproduced at the head of this article.

ANOTHER EXPERIMENT

In the evening Houdini, accompanied by an Express representative, again walked into the bridewell to settle a point which had been raised since his feat in the afternoon.

Was the door which had been fastened against him single, double, or triple locked?

The matter could easily be settled. Houdini would just do the trick again. Only this time he would do it with his clothes on, as time was pressing.

Liverpool's bridewell is as an unsightly a place as a bridewell can be. No one would mistake it for a spa hotel or a convalescent home.

Beneath a dark arch you pass, and in the great door which you find opposite is a little window which is unlocked when you knock, and through which you are viewed before you are permitted even to stand upon the threshold.

Houdini and his companion were admitted.

"More lock-breaking?

"Yes; I am ready for more—as many as you like."

Accompanied by a gaoler, Houdini and the Express representative ascended a flight of stone steps and passed along dimly lighted corridors, whose atmosphere seemed to reek with crime and mystery.

Passing through a gate, a row of cells was reached, upon any one of which Houdini might operate.

Here was one marked with a strange device. Houdini would try this one.

It was a felon's cell—stronger than some of the others, though it could not have been darker or more forbidding.

Houdini entered. He was backed in by the Express representative. He was inside, safe and sound.

SECOND ESCAPE

There could be no doubt about that. At the first turn of the key the lock went forward twice; at the second, once. Houdini was behind a triple lock in the dark, dreary cell.

The Express representative and the gaoler left him there, and retired beyond an iron gate which bars the passage.

"The gate is a greater test than the cell," said the gaoler.

"It's locked before it's locked, if you understand. Shut it, and it's locked, and then you can lock it again."

The gaoler hand only secured it when Houdini presented himself.

"That's as quick as I've ever done it," said he. And then he tackled the gate.

A moment's hesitation. The gaoler shook his head, and a smile was just overspreading his features, when lo! Houdini flung open wide the gate.

He agreed that the gate was "tougher," as he expressed it, than the cell.

Houdini is an American. Only his strong arms and his supple, yet powerful hands give the slightest clue of his prison-breaking capacity.

He does not look a gaolbird, but the escape he made for the benefit of Express readers was his 61st.

Bright-eyed, smart, active, and a good talker, he has traveled far and wide, and has broken out of the prisons of many countries.

"I have never failed," said Houdini, "but I don't say there is no cell I cannot break out of. As to handcuffs, the hardest job I ever had was with a pair made at Krupp's. It took me 40 minutes to get out of them, but I did it."