Scientific Equipment of Burglar Includes High-Class Automobile.
Jobs at Country Houses Usually Planned Far in Advance, and With Intimate Knowledge of Loot To Be Gained.
HOW BURGLAR UNLOCKS DOORS.
Unlocking a door is one of the easiest tasks of the professional burglar. His ingenuity defies the efforts of locksmiths to invent safety devices. The picture shows how an expert turns a key in the lock, and also a simple device to prevent this.
The up-to-date burglar must have a motor car, the use of which is only a part of his scientific equipment. That the modern burglar does not consider that he is properly equipped unless he possesses a motor car is an incontrovertible fact. House-breaking nowadays has been reduced to a science. The use of gloves renders detection by finger prints impossible. Besides, the modern burglar's tools are most scientifically made. The men who make it their business to manufacture these tools are first-class workmen.
The majority of large country burglaries are planned for days in advance, and every detail is most carefully arranged. In some mysterious manner the word is conveyed to the gang that a visit will be made on a certain day, by a member of the household which it is intended to rob, to a jeweler's shop. The train is met at the terminus and the person followed to the jeweler's or wherever they go.
When they enter the shop a man strolls in casually and makes some inquiries. While an assistant is attending to his supposed wants it is very easy for him to see what the person at the same counter is purchasing and, having obtained all the necessary information, the man leaves and imparts all his information to his confederates.
Before a county ball or such function a visit to the jeweler's is often necessary to get the family diamonds, and the fact that this visit is going to be made is either communicated or anticipated, and the same system of following is put in operation. Equipped with all the desired information, the modern burglar then brings his motor car into operation. There is no tedious waiting for trains; he simply drives down to the "crib" and avoids the old-fashioned way of taking a train at a small wayside station, with the chances of being arrested on his arrival in the metropolis.