The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-08-20
BRAINS NEEDED IN BURGLARY.
Much Time and Labor Expended
When the Prospective Booty Is
Worth While.
From the New York Recorder

| W Va 80 w AA@Os
From the New York Recorder.
Few people have an idea of the immense
amount of labor, forethought and scienti-
ffc skill brought to bear on a big burglary
The first thing necessary is to find a
house containing sufficient valuables to
repay the trouble aud risk, and this first
step alone may take many weeks. Let it
be understood that only the highest class
of eXpeEt burglars are meant; men with
comfortable banking accounts and houses
of their own and who, after reducing the
risk to a minimum by elaborate plans
acquire enough in one night to keep them
in affluence and eminent responsibility
for more than year, although having
but third share, as these burglaries are
invariably worked by three. To illustrate
the wonderful resources and leasure-
ly way of proceeding adopted by
burglars, take case related by a promi-
nent detective. The principal of the
burglars in this instance, having fixed on
a certain house, was unable to acquire
sufficient information concerning it and
the owners. This man then went to the
local butcher supplying the house and APP
piled for a situation as driver of one of
his carts which delivered meat at Gus
toners residences. After producing I'M
questionable references chow obtained no
one ever knew the man was engaged on
the round, which included the house fixed
upon. Incredible as it may appear, he
stayed with his employer for over seven
months, and gave the utmost satisfaction;
his only failing being a weakness for
chatting with the servants. Five days
after his resignation gigantic burglary
was effected at the house selected, and
property valued at over 900 was stol-
en-. The thieves had smoked several CT
gars and drank bottle of port, so that
they were in no hurry, and to crown all,
the booty was conveyed to its destination
in the owners pony phaeton, which was
duly returned the same night but no real
clew was afforded, and the burglars were
never captured.
On another occasion a chambermaid
was escorted out, with view to matri-
mony land burglary, for two months be-
fore the event came off. A conveyance is
always at hand, and generally of stylish
appearance; in fact, on one occasion a
brougham was used, which the passers-
by, and even the policeman on the beat,
imagined was the property Of one of the
residents close by AS regards tools, very
few are necessary, owing to the skill and
ingenuity of the operator. With a jimmy,
Spreader, drill, a few pieces of strong
bent wire and a little gunpowder, the ex-
pert burglar can make his way anywhere.
To theseare sometimes added a set of
"stumblers" These are lengths of fine
steel wire, with pointed stakes about n
foot long attached to each end, and
half a dozen of these make but little bulk
These stumblers are fixed on the lawn or
paths about the house in such a way that
the wires are raised about six inches from
the ground, and prove such success in
case of pursuit that the burglars are com
PEELED to hang pieces of white paper from
the wires in order to escape their own
traps, as they always run over them.