BEATING THE BURGLAR

Hokitika Guardian, 5 February 1929, Page 7

BEATING THE BURGLAR

LONDON'S FORTRESS SHOPS. .IIA.W ING FNIOUS OF VIC ICS. NETS OF ELECTRICITY. Tlie Londoner’!-; shop is liis fortress. This will soon he n nuirh truer, axiom than the old one of the Englishman's home; for, at the rate of about one a day, all kinds of places where merchandise worth stealing is kept are being scientifically fortified, says a writer in the London Evening News. And it is difficult to say what merchandise is not worth stealing—there is a. sealing wax maker, whose place of business has been made Imrglar-prool or, rather burglar-sensitive. The modern burglar cannot be kept out by locks and bolts. And anyhow, there is usually the emergency exit. The London County Council has laid it down that only a “panic holt” may secure a lire exit door—“ Push Bar,” and one is through —and the modern burglar gets a special too! under the door, “jumps the bolt,” and lie’s through. But nowadays he raises such a clamour from bolls both inside and outside the building, as soon ns the door moves that ho stands an excellent chance of being able to test Lovelace's famous sentiment by personal experience. For in the hinge of the door are two spring stops making an electrical circuit when the door is closed, and that circuit is part of the network of electricity that completely encases the shop. Floors, walls and ceilings all carry wires a few inches apart ; they can be seen between the double glass of the window-panes and every door and window makes a contact when closed. INCREASING THE CLAMOUR. The alarm hell outside is itself contained in til is network, for a burglar might climb up and bend back tbe striker so that it could not ring. But there arc two cases covering the bell which act as sound-boxes, increasing tin* volume, of the clamour, and start the hell ringing if anyone tampers with them. Six hundred places in the City of London alone are closed round with thest* nets of electricity—nets they may catch their prey only when they are broken for if the current is interrupted at any place throughout the whole, system, off go the alarm-hells and the burglar, with flic nearest policeman in' Hot pursuit. In some shops, where all things of value can ho kept in a safe, the burglar may break in without encountering a net. Ho knows, perhaps where the safe stands in its ornamental mahogany cabinet. Clever fellow he does not prise the wooden door open—there may be an alarm fitted to it (there is) —but he breaks neatly through a panel He does not stop to open the safe. No one would with a bed that can he heard for a quarter of a mile screaming “Thieves!” in llm street outside. Tlu* network was built into the wooden cabinet. BURGLARS' NEW DRILLING TOOL So publicity, the spur to production has become the shield and buckler for protection. No safe is pertoctlv safe—in the war between > safemakor and burglar a safe door becomes obsolete in 20 years; and there is now a report from Germany of a new tool steel with, a guaranteed performance of 300 per cent, over the* highest speed tool steel in existence. Its cost is it is stated.-£35 for a cubic inch. When this falls into the hands of the burglarious fraternity, and the princes among them go to work with tools tipped with it. what steel walls will resits them? No lock can lie called absolutely uupickalde. “Jimmy Valentine,” with his sensitive fingerprints, pumice-ston-ed nearly to the nerve points can. it is said, read a combination by the sense of touch: and if bunion sen.son arc not tine ought for tbe purpose he used a microphone. He spins the knob and feels the slots in the discs of the lock as they turn under the lever. When all the slots are in a line the lover falls into them, and the door can be opened. If he makes a mistake |„. spins the knob hack to zero and begins again. There is only one door in the world with a lock of the combination principle that should he entirely beyond Jimmy’s uncanny skill. 'lbis one is in Poris. and the lock of it is embedded in the door of the vault. Between the lock which contains no dies, but is worked on a principle of sliding bars nnd stops, having the permutations of o() t is an arrangement ot cylinders.

AN INGENIOUS SHUTTER. Each step of •the. combination is made by admitting compressed air into the cylinders which actuate tbe bars of l.lie lock, and iT Jimmy makes one false move lie cannot go back to zero and start again—he must first know the closing combination. The inventor of this principle has also made a shutter to prevent the common. smash-and-grab raids of unskilled thieves and this is being lifted in a few London, shops. A glass rod is arranged with one end touching the shop’s window and the of’er against a glass disc a few thousandths of an inch in thickness. Any ordinary vibration is taken up by a spring; but a blow bard enough to crack tbe window smashes the frail disc, and the spring actuates a tripper, releasing the little winch that winds the shutter up. Down comes the shutter, snapping off the glass rod as if falls, and the smash-and-grab raider has n metal wall between him and his spoil. Incidentally the alarm hell has begun it': unwelcome publicity. This shutter is the portcullis of London’s modern fortresses.