Topic: centracare
Centra care
hi, Dave Goss wrote a history of the building. It is at the library.
The story about Houdini is completely false. The story states that he invented the straight jacket and he performed his escape first at the Provincial Lunatic Asylum. The straight jacket was invented by a French doctor 100 years before Houdini was in Saint John.
He was in Saint John as part of the stage hands for Marcos show. Houdini's wife was a star of the show, Houdini was a stage hand. While in Saint John Houdini did go to the police station where he put on a pair of leather gloves chained together. These mitts were for crazy prisoners. Houdini did get out of these mitts.
The first story to appear about the Asylum and the straight jacket was written by Houdini about 5 years after his visit (I have this article)> Houdini was his own publiscist and he fabricated many stories about how good and famous he was. Eventually the public believed it. Mind you, he had also gone on a tour of Europe where he was hightly successful, and on his return to America he was able to bragg and market himself as the highly successful magician fresh from a European tour.
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