CLIMBER OF WALLS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19916, 9 April 1928, Page 9

CLIMBER OF WALLS.

BERLIN YOUTH'S MANIA. , CHASED ACROSS ROOFS, > * LONDON. March 37. The exploits youth whose mania takes the-form of climbing sheer walls, has astounded the city, gays the Berlin correspondent of tho Times. He escaladed a house-front ia a busy city square and entered the window of a fourth-storey flat, assuring the lady occupant that she was perfectly safe. She fled, and he lecked the door. Then he washed, donned an overcoat and gloves, ate half a cake of soap, and thrftw a picture at the gaping crowd below. The.fire brigade and a flying squad of police were speedily on th® scene; the policemen ambushing the roof in the event of the adventurer going up, and the fire- * men spreading a tarpaulin in the event of his going down. The youth, resumed his climb and led the police a chase across the roofs until he was cornered in a loft. He was taken to a police station, where he staggered the staff by swarming up a bare wall to the ceiling. When he was placed in a cell the youth climbed the smooth wall for 12ft. to the window sill, where he sat reciting nursery rhymes to passers by outside. He was being taken back to the mental hospital from which ho had escaped, when he knocked out his attendant, swarmed up a lofty wall, and escaped. He was recaptured next morning. His identity papers gave his name as Prince Joachim of Prussia, but actually his name it Richter.