In the year 1873 the total amount of property lost by robberies of all kinds within the metropolitan district alone was £84,000, of which nearly £21,000 was subsequently recovered.
So large a proportion of this loss was occasioned by the use of insecure fastenings on doors or windows, that the Metropolitan Police have drawn the special attention of householders to the risks thus incurred. Colonel Henderson not long since issued a notice, of which the following is an extract:—
‘Caution to Householders and others.—The Commissioner considers it to be his duty to caution householders and others that larcenies are in most instances committed by thieves entering through windows left open or so insecurely fastened that they can be readily opened by thrusting back the catch from the outside with a knife, without any violence or force whatever. The plates of window-fastenings should overlap each other, and self-acting side-stops should be used in sashes. Attention is also directed to the following means by which thieves effect their purpose:—
‘In the absence of the family, especially on Saturday and Sunday evenings, entering with false or skeleton keys, passing through an empty house in the neighbourhood, going along the parapet, and entering any window found open—climbing up the portico and entering through upper windows—calling at houses under pretence of having messages or parcels to deliver, and during the absence of the servant stealing articles from the hall or passage and decamping.
‘If ordinary and necessary precautions were taken, as above recommended, the efforts of the police in preventing crime would be materially aided, and property more effectually secured.’
A short time since there was a robbery at the warehouse of a person who immediately wrote to the newspapers blaming the police and making out a plausible case. Now, the real facts were, that this person gave up residing on his City premises without informing the police. The door had on it only a common latch, easily opened by a false key. There was a window up a side-passage through which it was easy to obtain entrance; and though all these circumstances conspired to facilitate the operations of thieves, yet this was thought a proper opportunity to blame the City Police!
Although seventeen years have elapsed since the conviction of the men who stole the bullion on the South-Eastern Railway, the case is still the most remarkable of its kind—remarkable for the deliberation, the professional spirit, and the pecuniary resources of the modern offender.
The following very condensed account I take from the ‘Times’ newspaper of the day, merely premising that the case shows the extreme importance of guarding one’s keys most jealously, for even up to the present time no lock, such as can be brought within the reach of everyone for practical use, has been invented that will permit of its keys being carelessly used.
On the night of May 15, 1855, gold to the value of £12,000 was taken from the van of a train on the South-Eastern Railway, between London and Folkestone. The boxes were weighed in London and again at Boulogne; at the second place the weight, as was subsequently discovered, differed from the weight in London. The weight in Paris corresponded with the weight at Boulogne. Consequently the boxes must have been tampered with between London and Boulogne, or, as it had been impossible to touch them while in the boat, between London and Folkestone. When the boxes were opened, bags of shot were found substituted for gold. Of course the surprise was great, and the search after the offender earnest. But whatever may be the skill of the detectives, we know from sad experience that the criminal world is more than equal to them in craft. For sixteen months the pursuit was in vain, and the robbery was well-nigh forgotten, when an unexpected revelation threw light on the matter. A man named Edward Agar was convicted in October 1855 of uttering a forged cheque, and sentenced to be transported for life. This man, after his conviction, stated to the authorities that he could give information respecting the great gold robbery of 1855. On being questioned he announced himself as one of the perpetrators, and named as his accomplices Pierce, formerly in the service of the South-Eastern Company; Burgess, a guard; and Tester, a clerk in the traffic department.
Agar was forty-one years of age, and had by his own confession lived by crime from fourteen to twenty years. His evidence was that Pierce first suggested the scheme, but that he himself thought it impracticable. Pierce said he believed he could obtain impressions of keys of the Chubb’s locks by which the iron safes were secured; and Agar then answered that if it could be done he thought the thing might be effected. Pierce and Agar went down to Folkestone as casual visitors for the benefit of sea-bathing. They took lodgings and employed themselves in observing the arrival of the tidal service trains to the boats. This was in May 1854, twelve months before the actual commission of the robbery—so long a time can modern depredators afford to spend upon their preparations. They went daily to the pier to enjoy the fresh air; but their constant observation of the trains and the station aroused suspicion, and they left, though not before they had discovered ‘what Chapman, who had the key of the iron safe, did when the trains arrived and the luggage was removed to the boats.’ By these means it was ascertained where the key was kept, the impression of which it was desirable to obtain.