SLIPPERY SCOTSMAN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 460, 29 December 1930, Page 8

SLIPPERY SCOTSMAN

NEW “HANDCUFF KING” STRENGTH AND DEXTERITY Known as “The Alan Who Baffled the Police,” Air Duncan Lindsay, a Scotsman who for the past ten years has entertained people waiting in theatre queues with feats of strength and dexterity, is shortly to be given his chance at a London theatre. Air Lindsay claims to be able to escape from handcuffs, strait-jackets, nailed boxes, or from any other means of detention. In 1926, when giving an exhibition of his prowess at a police sports meeting at Enfield, two detectives in the ■crowd challenged him to get out of the regulation police handcuffs. In less than a minute he was free, and since then has been called “The Man Who Baffled the Police.” “Picking locks for the entertainment of others is a queer sort of way to make a living,’ l Mr Lindsay said, in speaking of his eexperiences, “but it is a fascinating study. “On several occasions when I have been giving my turn in the streets I have been approached by ‘crooks’ who wanted me to open doors for them.” As he spoke he was quietly operating lock after lock with an ordinary twoin'eh nail. “Of course, audiences are very different. At West End theatres [ give a totally different show from that which I give at, say, Woolwich. “The stunt which probably goes best of all in every district is that in which I place a rope round my neck and invite a couple of men in the crowd to take either end and pull as hard as they like. There is no trick about that. I have studied the muscles c.f the head and neck, and I can stand the terriffie strain of the rope round mv neck solely through the operation of certain muscles.”