Long TextExercise 38 of 81

Harry Houdini, who died in 1927, was the entertainment phenomenon of the ragtime era. He could escape from chains and padlocks, from ropes and canvas sacks. They put him in a strait-jacket and hung him upside down from a skyscraper and he somehow untied himself. They tied him up in a locked packing case and sank him…

• In the first paragraph, what does the writer say Houdini managed to do?
• The writer mentions Houdini's burial alive to illustrate the fact that