Burglars whose chief qualification is the mechanical ability to open
bank vaults and safes and steal thousands of dollars in bonds or cash
cannot be classed with those who break open a store door and filch a
lot of buckets, brooms or dry goods.
The man who makes the defects of a combination lock, safe or vault a
study must have intelligence and mechanical knowledge equal to that
of a man who draws a big salary for what he knows. Whenever any new
combination lock is brought in the market for vault or safe use the
scientific burglar obtains one, and by patient study discovers its
weakness or defect, something which every safe or vault has.
The combination of a safe or vault has often been learned by these
burglars by obtaining an entrance to the banking house after banking
hours, removing the dial of the combination and placing a sheet of
tin foil behind it. Then, replacing the dial, the turning of the
combination in opening or closing makes the impression of letters or
numbers on the soft foil, which is removed by the burglar at the first
chance he has to get into the banking house. Having the combination
impressed on the tin foil, he and his accomplices open the vault or
safe, secure the contents, and then often change or put out of order
the combination, so the doors of the vault or safe cannot be opened
for some hours after the regular time for opening, and then only by
an expert of that particular safe company. This, of course, gives the
thieves several hours of valuable time in which to effect their escape.
The tools required by the mechanical burglar who forces open safes
are the air pump, putty, powder, fuse, sectional jimmy, steel drills,
diamond drills, copper sledges, steel-faced sledges (leather covered),
lamp and blow pipe, jack screw, wedges, dynamite and syringe, brace
with box slide, feed screw drills, steel punches, small bellows, blank
steel keys, skeleton keys, nippers, dark lantern, twine and screw
eyes. The latest, most dangerous set of tools manufactured is the
second power in mechanics--the screw.
The method of work with the screw is to first rig a brace, and then
drill a hole in the safe, cut a thread in the hole and then insert
a female screw. Then, with a long steel screw with a handle so long
that two men can turn it, the screw is inserted in the female screw,
and by turning it goes in until it strikes the back of the safe. Then
either the back or the front must give way. In nearly all cases it is
the latter, as that is the weakest, and it gives enough to insert the
sectional jimmy, which the screw handle is part of. The jimmy is then
inserted in the part forced out, and the safe is then torn asunder and
its contents easily appropriated. This work is accomplished without
much noise.