If he is noticed on the road he is taken for a rich man touring in his car, and if a great social function is in progress he is regarded as a belated guest. The car is carefully stalled in an obscure place while the robbery takes place. The booty is subsequently placed in it and a quick trip back to town is made. The police are left practically without a single clew.
Those members of the community who make a business, or a profession, rather, of burglary keep up with the march of science quite as closely as do people in a more legitimate calling.
The burglar of today is a vastly differently equipped individual from the one of a generation ago. He must of necessity be an enterprising and daring man, and in addition to that if he would make a success of safe cracking in this twentieth century he must be something of a scientist as well. The great progress made in the manufacture of safes for the storage of valuables has brought about this revolution in the burglar's methods, and it is a regrettable fact to note that no matter how strong and secure safes may be made, the ingenuity of the scientific burglar is pretty sure to devise some method to overcome their security.
The most recent development in the burglar's advancement is the use of electricity to open safes in place of the old-time jimmy and the more recent dynamite.
Old-Time Strong Box.
Years ago the old-fashioned strong box was considered quite an adequate protection for hoarded wealth and was the legitimate successor of the stocking in which the gold pieces were carefully stored and hidden away. The strong box of wood bound with iron and with ponderous locks proved but child's play for the burglar thoroughly intent upon obtaining its contents. Then came the more modern iron and steel safe, with its thick plates of highly tempered metal and ingeniously complicated time locks.
Safe breakers have more than kept pace with improvement in safes, including time locks, chilled steel chests of eight or nine inches thicknesses and electric protective attachments. Their tools are made by some of the finest mechanics and inventive geniuses of the world. A full kit of the most approved modern safe workers' tools costs about $5,000.
The modern burglar is like love in one respect; he "laughs at locksmiths." Yet he is not much of an artist, although he is rapidly improving. The simple tools of the burglars' trade indicate how easily the contrivances made to bar his progress are overcome. Yet these tools give no mark of great mechanical genius. They are as crude as the average burglar is. They are in keeping with his practices of force and brutality. The destructive power of the best pieces of handiwork is their main advantage, and doubtless an illustration of the house-breaker's stunted idea, that the best way to overcome obstacles is in all cases to break them down.
The tools used by the burglar are supplied to him. They are made by men after his own heart, and who make for him what is most effective in his hands. No doubt there are smart men engaged in the business of defying law and setting the rights of honest people at naught. Some of the methods they employ might be used to their credit in a commendable industry.