In Paris, January 4, 1908, burglars broke into the premises of Martin
and Baume, colonial traders, at Marseilles, and stole money and goods
to the value of $20,000. Most of their booty they took from a safe,
the door of which they burnt through with an apparatus giving an
acetylene flame of sufficient heat to melt the metal.
The case recalls one at Antwerp recently, when the thieves melted a
safe with a combined oxygen and acetylene flame.
The police believe that the Marseilles burglars are past masters
of the art, and that probably not more than a dozen possess such
apparatus for melting safes. One or more of the burglars may probably
have been employed at a motor factory, where acetylene lamps are in
frequent use.
In any case, even the finest lock or the best steel safe can't resist,
if burglars take to using oxygen and acetylene lamps with blow-pipes.
Safe manufacturers have a new problem to solve.