BOY HOUDINI

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 452, 8 June 1937, Page 3

BOY HOUDINI

SEARCHERS ELUDED Exciting Roof Hunt Loudon, May 6. “There he is- Look! Peeping round the corner!” An Impish snub-noseidl £a<je. pale and grimly set, peered down from the roof of Claxton Hall, Westminster gave one swift plance at the murmuring, excited crowd in life street, and disappeared, A policeman'll helmet was seen bobbing above the parapet; voices called indistinctly above the roar of the traffic, and another of London's.' untaxed entertainments—The drama of the Caxton Hall Roof Hunt —■continued.

In the chief role was a boy of 16. who escaped on to the roof shortly before he was' due to appear at the Juvenile Court.

The whole of the Caxton Hlall staff, with reinforcements of police, spent a nerve-racking couple of hours clambering from one insecure perch 'to another, slithering over the grimy tiles, tiptoeing precariously along the rain-gutters, while the young fugitive, as sure-footed as. a monkey, eluded 'them at every turn. Twice Near Capture.

Twice, when he was almost within grasp, 'the boy tcrampled down a drain pipe. To follow him even a tew feet into the dizzy chasm of Palmer Street, 60ft. below, was more than even the most venturous of his pursuers would undertake.

Once officials in the main hall slaw his shadowy figure outlined against the glass roof. A ladder was put up near the Palmer Street exit, and 'two policemen climbed to the ‘top of the building, but while the search was being carried on elsewhere the fugitive descended the Padder, sprinted across the green, pushed open a gate, and reached' freedom.

The whole of the Metropolitan Police, armed with the boy’s description, searched London for him. He has fair hair and was hatless and wearing la navy blue suit with long trousers when last teen shaking “the dust of Caxton Hall roof from hjs feet.