Protection from Fire and Thieves. George Hayter Chubb
from attempts with picklocks or false keys.
‘3rd. Simplicity of action is requisite, so that any person having the key, and being unacquainted with the mechanism of the lock, should not be able to put it out of order.
‘4th. The workmanship, materials, and interior arrangement of a lock should be so combined as to ensure the permanent and perfect action of all its parts, and its durability under all ordinary circumstances.’
Besides the better class of locks made in South Staffordshire there are really trumpery locks made in abundance, and Willenhall enjoys an unenviable celebrity for the cheapness and worthlessness of its wares. There is a familiar saying that if a Willenhall locksmith happens to let fall a lock while in the process of manufacture he does not stop to pick it up, as he can make another quicker. The late Mr. G. B. Thorneycroft, who once lived at Willenhall, is said to have been taunted with the fact that some padlocks made there would only lock once, but when told the price of them was twopence each he replied, ‘It would be a shame if they did lock twice for that money.’ The total weekly production of locks in the whole district was stated in 1866 to be no less than 31,500 dozens. A very large proportion of this enormous supply goes to foreign markets.
CHAPTER II.
THE ART OF BURGLARY.
IN order to show the absolute necessity of secure locks and safe depositories for property, especially in banking establishments, it may not be out of place just to trace the systematic care and great sagacity with which large burglaries are planned. An unsuccessful attempt, where the booty is of any magnitude, is seldom made. The first-rate ‘cracksmen’ always know beforehand where to go, when to go, and what they are going for. When a ‘plant,’ as it is termed, is made upon a house or a bank, precise information is gained if possible as to the depository of the valuables, and if it is found that the safeguards are so strong in themselves and the locks so invulnerable that there is but little chance of success, the affair is quietly dropped; but if otherwise, then no expenditure of time or misapplied ingenuity is spared to gain the desired end; the house is constantly watched, and the habits of its inmates observed, their ordinary times of going out and coming in being noted. Possibly the confidential servants are bribed or cajoled, and induced to leave the premises when their employers are absent, so that impressions may be taken from the locks, and false keys be made.
When all the keys required are ready, generally one or two men who have not been previously initiated are called in, and receive their instructions to be ready at a certain hour on the following day to enter the premises. A plan is put into their hands; they are cautioned to step over a certain creaking stair or board, and the false keys of the different doors are given to them. The inmates of the house being absent, their servant takes advantage of this fact to fulfil a long-standing engagement with his or her new and liberal friends; a signal is given; the two confederates enter; the so-called safe is swept of its contents; all the doors in the building are carefully re-locked, and not until the house is opened for business next morning is the robbery discovered.
Many years ago there was a bank robbery at a town in Kent, effected as follows: Two respectable-looking and well-behaved men went to the principal inn of the town and informed the landlord their object was to look out for and purchase a small estate in the neighbourhood. They stopped there for nearly three months, taking frequent drives in their gig, lived well and paid well; and at length took leave one market-day between twelve and one o’clock, much to the regret of the landlord, who felt sorry to lose such unexceptionable customers.
These men were thieves, and at a few moments past one o’clock that very day robbed the bank of nearly £5,000.
The banking-office was the ground-floor of a house in the Market Square, and the manager never left the cash there at night, but always took it to his own residence near by. He was accustomed, however, with the clerk, to be absent from one till two o’clock in the day at his dinner, during which time the money was put into the safe and the premises locked up.
It appeared that all the arrangements of the business were perfectly ascertained and understood by the two sojourners at the hotel, and that the necessary impressions of the locks had been taken on various nights and the false keys made.
On the day in question the gig was taken just outside the town. One of the men went back, and in mid-day unlocked the street and internal doors, opened the safe, took out the money, and then the two set off to London with their booty and got the notes cashed the same afternoon. After locking the safe the burglars slipped a small ring over the key-pin of the lock, so that when the manager on his return from dinner tried to open it with its proper key, the key would not enter. A smith was sent for, and it was four hours before the safe was opened—too late, of course, for any effective pursuit.
A more recent and notable instance is that of a daring burglary which took place at Mr. Walker’s, the well-known jeweller of Cornhill, in 1865, the whole facts of which came to light in consequence of one of the gang volunteering a confession during an action arising out of the robbery. I am indebted to the ‘Times’ newspaper for the following particulars, which doubtless are still fresh in the memory of some persons: The robbery had been elaborately schemed, and was only accomplished by a regular expedition of well-equipped thieves. The cleverest of the gang had taken Mr. Walker, his family, and his habits under the closest surveillance for seven weeks before, night and day, until at last everything connected with his business and his practice was thoroughly known. This information being complete, a party of five of the robbers repaired to the premises at ten minutes past six on the evening of Saturday, February 4, 1865. The house was let and occupied in floors, Mr. Walker’s shop being on the ground-floor, Sir C. Crossley’s offices immediately above, and other offices above those, while below the shop was a room tenanted by a tailor. The occupants, when the thieves arrived, had not yet all left for the night, but the offices on the second floor were empty, and to these three of the robbers at once ascended by means of the common staircase, and there took up their first position, the other two remaining in the street to watch and give signals. At twenty minutes to eight the signal was given by the confederates outside the house that Mr. Walker’s foreman, who appears to have been the last on the premises, was gone, and their operations commenced.
It was past midnight before the three robbers inside began their most important work. Mr. Walker’s shop was secured by iron doors or partitions, but the thieves directed their attack against the floor, which had not unnaturally been left with less protection. They got into the tailor’s room, on the lowest floor, mounted upon his cutting-board and forced their way through the ceiling and flooring to the shop above. Having thus effected a lodgment against the real point of attack, they distributed the duties of the night. Of the two thieves stationed in the street one was to be on the watch, lest Mr. Walker or any of his people should return to the house, while the other was to keep guard over the police and give warning whenever a constable approached. Inside, one of the gang sat upstairs in Sir C. Crossley’s arm-chair, at the window of the second floor, to notice the sentries in the street, and the signals of these men he communicated by means of a string to his comrades in the shop.
One of these handed up such instruments as were wanted; the other at length opened the safe (by wedging, as described on p. 36); so that at a quarter to four they washed their hands in the office upstairs, and an hour later were miles away on the Guildford road.
The success in this happily unique case was due to the desertion of the premises for six-and-thirty hours together. The men did not get into the shop till one-and-twenty hours after the commencement of their operations. Aided by time, the science of the housebreakers was successful. The police passed the place every nine minutes, but with such deeply-laid plans were not likely to detect the mischief going on, and so the thieves escaped for three weeks, when a part of the stolen property was traced and the rascals themselves ultimately