The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TEE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

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TIMES.—Time, which brings all things to light,
has now completely revealed the secrets of a very
strange story. It is just 12 months since a most
extraordinary robbery in Cornhill alarmed our me-
tropolitan tradesmen for their property. A jeweller's
shop, though protected in what was thought a secure
fashion, was found on a Monday morning rifled of
its precious contents. The premises themselves, after
being locked up on the Saturday night, were left
untenanted for the next six-and-thirty hours, but
the gas was kept alight, the shutters were pierced
with holes so that the police could see into the shop
at all times, and the most valuable part of the
stock was lodged in an iron safe, believed to be
thief-proof. When the proprietors, however, re-
turned to the shop on Monday morning, this safe
was found open, and the jewelry gone. The specu-
lations and controversies which followed, and the
arrests, trials, and convictions which ultimately
ensued, will not have been forgotten ; but the whole
story has now been revived and explained to its
minutest particulars in the course of certain legal
proceedings just reported. Mr. Walker, the jeweller
who was plundered, brought an action against the
manufacturers who supplied him with his safe, and
one of the witnesses produced in court was the chief
operator in the robbery. His frank and circum-
stantial narrative of the affair gives us an insight
into matters more interesting than the niceties of
ironwork. The robbery had been elaborately
schenied, and was only accomplished by a regular
expedition of well-equipped thieves. The cleverest
of the gang had taken Mr. Walker, his family, his
habits, and his doings, under the closest surveillance
for seven weeks before, night and day ; until at last
everything connected with his going and coming,
his business and his practice, was thoroughly
known. The information being complete, a
party of five of the robbers repaired to the pre-
mises at ten minutes past six on the evening of
Saturday, the 4th of February, 1865. The house
was let and occupied in floors, Mr. Walker's shop
being on the ground floor, Sir Charles Crosley's
offices immediately above, and other offices above
those, while below Mr. Walker's shop was a room
tenanted by a tailor. The occupants, when the
thieves arrived on the spot, 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 re-
maining in the street, to watch and give signals.
At 20 minutes to eight the signal was given by the
confederates outside that Mr. Walker's foreman,
who appears to have been the last on the premises,
was gone, and their operations were at once com-
menced. The three robbers concealed in the house
first went down to Sir Charles Crosley's floor,
where, more for pastime, as it seems, than anything
else, they opened the safe. The chief object of the
expedition was still postponed, nor was it until past
midnight that they began the work. Mr. Walker's
shop appears to have been secured by iron doors or
partitions, but the thieves directed their attack
against a part 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 then forced their way through the ceiling
and flooring into Mr. Walker's 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 warn -
ing whenever any constable approached the, shop.
Inside, one of the gang sat upstairs, in Sir Charles
Crosley's arm-chair, at the window of the second
floor, to correspond with the sentries in the street,
and the signals of these men he communicated by
means of a string to his comrades below. One of these
placed in the hole half-way between the shop and the
tailor's room, handed up such instruments as were
wanted for use, the other " did the work," and it is
he, now a convict undergoing his sentence of penal
servitude, who tells the story. The first proceeding
of the operators was to " test" the safe in which the
booty was secured, and this experiment was con-
ducted by the insertion of a thin wedge of steel into
the almost imperceptible chink left behind the door
of the safe and its side. Supposing a wedge holds
when so driven it is taken as evidence that the
operation is practicable, inasmuch as something
or other is clearly yielding to pressure, and that
pressure may be gradually and dexterously increased
up to the point desired.. If the wedge, instead of
holding, rebounds from the plates and flies off, it is
proof that the affair cannot be managed, or, at least,
not in this manner. In this instance, the wedge
held, and so the operation was continued. First, a
little bat was inserted to release the wedge, then
another wedge a little larger to release the bar, then
another bar a little bigger still to release the second
wedge, until after ten or a dozen such steps the
chink was opened sufficiently for the introduction
of the " alderman." The instrument thus dignified
in. name is a long iron bar, sometimes as much as
five feet in length, jointed together in pieces, so as
to be carried in a small case. With the end of
" the alderman " fairly introduced, and the arm of
a strongman acting at the other extremity of the
lever, the safe has no longer any chance, and so it
was on this occasion. The door was prized open by
the force of this powerful lever, and the booty was
won. At a quarter before 4 on Sunday afternoon the
thieves were "up in Sir Charles Crosley's office,
washing their hands," and by twenty minutes to 5
they were " miles away " on the Guildford-road.
According to this candid lecture on burglary, the
strength of a safe must consist in its power to
defy the introduction of the long lever. Once the
lever in, according to Mr. Casley's explanation,
no safe can resist. Indeed, one of the independent
witnesses stated that with any safe, however strong,
it was only a question of time ; but this view of the
case should be compared with the convict's descrip-
tion of the matter. He said that in his profession
certain means of opening safes are considered " law-
ful," and certain others " unlawful." " Lawful"
operations were those which could be conducted with-
out noise or alarm, as by wedges and " aldermen ;"
the " unlawful" were those attended with noise, and
likely to bring about detection. No doubt, any safe
ever constructed might be forced open if time were
no object and secrecy of no importance, but, happily
for honest people, these are not often the conditions
of a burglary. We remarked at the thee of the
robbery that the one thing which rendered it prac-
ticable was the desertion of the premises for six-
and-thirty hours together, and that proves to have
been the fact. The thieves did not get into Mr.
Walker's shop, with the safe before them, till five
minutes before 3 on the Sunday afternoon—that is,
not till one-and-twenty-hours after the commence-
ment of their operations, and even then they had got
the chief part of their work to do in forcing the safe.
The convict admitted that the safe yielded sooner
than he had anticipated ; indeed, it was opened in
about 35 minutes ; but the long interval between
Saturday evening and Monday morning left them
with ample time to spare. In the twelve hours 0:
a single night the work could not have been done

The real security given by these safes to the public
consists in this, that they render robbery impossible,
except under conditions not commonly realised.

A door which can only be opened by skilful thieves,
working with special tools and with more or less

advantage of time, is no protection for property. The professional operator said that on this occasion
Mr. Milner's safe was not so strong a specimen as
he had usually found his productions to be—indeed,
he gave them generally a very high character ;
but even if the door had held out for six or seven
hours, the robbery might still have been accom-
pli§hed in time for escape. Excepting, however, for
this favourable condition, it is clear that Mr.
Walker's shop was not ill protected. The thieves
could not so much as effect an entrance into it till
after nearly 24 hours' work, and we now have it on
the evidence even of the burglars themselves that
the police did their duty thoroughly. They were
ronnd every nine minutes, and the warning signals
from without greatly interrupted the operations in
the shop. Aided, however, by time, the science of
the housebreakers was successful, and a very natural
impression was produced in court by the aspect in
which this science was exhibited. The skill, intel-
ligence, and patience which the convict witness had
evidently carried into his criminal profession would
have raised him to eminence as well as competence
in any lawful calling ; but the example of depraved
gifts is unfortunately not without precedent.
Thieving, it is clear, is no easy life ; it is only a
pity that those who feel the truth cannot apply the
moral.

HERALD.—The reconstruction of the American
Union is as far off as ever. The Radical or Repub-
lican party, headed by Mr. Stevens in the House of
Representatives, and by Mr. Sumner in the Senate,
are in a great majority in both Housee of Congress.
However much he may disapprove of their acts the
President has no power of dissolving the houses or
appealing to the country. The present Congress
can do what it chooses for two years to come. The
first act of the Congress, which has exclusively de-
voted itself to the question of the Southern States,
was to deny admission to the representatives of
those States to either house. The next move was
the proposal of an amendment to the Constitution,
the design of which was to give the South the alter-
native of granting the suffrage to the negroes, or ex-
cluding the negro population from the basis of repre-
sentation. In calculating this basis two-thirds of the
slaves were reckoned under the system. The removal of
this quota would diminish by nearly one-half the
number of Southern representatives in Congress,
and cripple for ever the influence of the Southern
States in the Union. The proposed addition to the