CLIMBER OF WALLS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20127, 21 April 1928, Page 14 (Supplement)

CLIMBER OF WALLS

BERLIN YOUTH’S AIANIA The exploits of a youth whose mania takes the form of climbing sheer walls has astounded the city, says the Berlin correspondent of the Times. He escaladed a house-front in 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 locked tiie uoor. Then he washed, donned an overcoat and gloves, ate half a cake of soap and threw a picture at the gaping crowd below. The fire brigade and a flying squad of police were speedily on the scene, the policemen ambushing the roof is the event of the adventurer going up, and the firemen 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 7 sill, where he sat reciting nursery rhymes to passers-by outside. He was taken back to the mental hospital from which he had escaped, when he knocked out his attendant, swarmed up a lofty wall and escaped. He was recaptured next morning. His identify papers gave his name as ITince Joachim of Prussia, but actually ]. name is Richter.