San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-05-20
SURGICAL OPERATIONS
SAFES.

SURGICAL OPERATIONS ON
An Expert Tells How These Recep
| tacies Often Get Out of
Condition.
/, From the Omaha World Herald.
When q man ia called on to open O
safe it is frequently with all the ur.
gency and anxiety attending q case Of
serious illness, and the safe expert
behaves himself in much the
must diagnose the case, fol-
trouble lie. The expert almost always
finds on the safe and In the room the
marks of the most assiduous. but un-
professional solicitude, for the owner
never calls an expert until he has ex-
hausted all his conceit of cunning
and pretension OF ingenuity. The
safe doctor will find finger marks on
all parts of the safe. as though mass
age had been tried. He will find q
coat lying on the floor, collar here,
cuff button there, q fragment Of .
pair of suspenders In another place.
Sometimes he will find pieces of plas-
ter knocked of the ceiling by cuss
words. All this simply amuses him
and puts him in good humor to 60 at
the safe. He puts his ear against the
safe and taps on the door with Q
hammer. He twists the spindle on
which the dial Is placed. II things
do not rattle just right, he concludes
that perhaps the difficulty is caused
by the wheels sticking together, ana
he gives the door q bang. This
loesens things up and the combina-
ton works, and that's the end of it.
If 1t is . time lock safe, as all the
best bank safes now are, the expert
listens to see If the clock is ticking,
and If it is ticking regularly. This
may or may net help him. When q
time lock safe won't come open, there
is but one thing to do. This lie to
"strip the door," The operation CON.
sists Of taking off the layers of which
the door is composed, until the in
terror Is reached. 1t is the work of q
day Or two.
When safe or vaxlt has q com BIZ
nation the expert tries to open it by
the com bination, il he believes the
machinery is all right. II the owner
has forgotten it experiments are tried,
but 1t has been found that it does not
pay to keep this up tor any length of
time-not longer than an hour or two.
If at the end of that time no results
are obtained the rules of the trade
demand a surgical operation. This
is drilling. The objective point Is the
"dog" is the lock. This is the little
piece OF iron or steel that keeps the
bolts from moving back. AZ soon
as this Is knocked off the
handling the lever and the door
Gomez open. The latest safes are
constructed with steel plates in the
door. This makes the drilling q tedi-
GUS operation. In the case of bank
vaults 1t has sometimes taken rs long
rs forty eight or seventy two hours.
Gustave Adrian had to work about
that long on vault he himself built
In one of the banks of the city about
two years ago. Meanwhile the bank
had to borrow money from its neigh
bors in order to carry on it's business.
Sometimes it is easier to 90 to work
on the back of the safe and work in
from that direction. The backs of the
safes are composed only of iron, and
the drilling can be done much more
quickly.
Safe men say that it is q compare
lively easy matter to get into the old
fashioned safes. 1t is sometimes no
trouble to pick the locks, and if this
can not be done, the drilling is mat
ter of only short time With mod
ern safe it is different. The lock can
not be picked, and if the com bination
will not work and shaking will do no
good, then the drill must be used.
Modern safes are callei burglar
p oot. This does not mean that it 10
absolutely impossible to work into
them, but that 1t Is impossible to do
80 inside of torty-eight hours. The
bonanza of the burglar is the safe
with a spindle. He knocks off the
dial, puts on another with a small
aperture or nick in the edge of it.
Into this hole he inserts his tube filled
with nitro-glycerine and with an air
bulb at the end. He works this air
bulb like bellows, blows the nitro
glycerine into the lock around the
spindle and explodes the material.
The time lock with the automatic
movement of the bolts gives him no
such an opportunity. He must drill
through plates of tough steel, and
this he cannot doin night.