FRENCH HOUDINIS.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20247, 16 July 1937, Page 10

FRENCH HOUDINIS.

SOME REMARKABLE ESCAPES. There is said to be disgust and dismay in every gaol in France over the reprieve from the death sentence of ; the notorious gaol-breaker and mur- j derer Armand Spliers, says 1 lie .Man- ' Chester (luardian. lie has broken ! out of prison four times and out of j Devil’s Island twice; and when he was last tried lie had to be chained hand j and foot and looked after by armed guards, while the cell where lie await- t ed trial was changed 70 times in as many days, to make escape more difll- . cult. Now that the President lias re- j prieved him lie is confidently expected I to add another sensational escape to ■ his long record. France seems to specialise in these criminal Houdinis, who scorn the slow, patient methods of Edmond Dantes and his friend the Abbe. It was only a few years ago that a young woman incendiary, Marie Cnudde, made a sensational and mysterious “getaway” from Versailles Prison. She was missed from the prison laundry and when the gaol was searched she was not in it. It was alleged by the officials that she must have had inside assistance to have got out; but this was hard to prove, since to make her escape she hail to pass through live locked steel doors the keys of which were in the hands of ! five different warders. After that she had a wall 30 feet h'gh to scale. Also, she had no money; so the Iloudini explanation seems more likely. Visiting comm'ss’oners to a French gaol were once obligingly informed by a prisoner that he could always get out, if lie wanted, by manufacturing a key to his cell from a sardine tin. A few weeks later this man actually { did this, releasing himself and a friend from their cells. They were recaptured almost immediately, but that J was just bad luck.