Houdini on Magic

Harry Houdini's fame is secure as the greatest magician of modern times. Many of his fabulous escapes, indeed, now sound more like legend than history, yet they really happened. He permitted himself to be thrown, manacled, into the Hudson River; to be nailed into packing cases and lowered into the ocean; to be suspended by the ankles, strait-jacketed, hundreds of feet above the ground -- and in every case escaped easily.