The record-union., 1895-09-05
ROYAL BAKING POWDER.

"The work of the professional burglar
and the expert is on almost parallel lines
| Burglars have been known to spend
months preparing to attack bank. They
exhibit great patience and energy, anC
| when the opportunity comes it is usually
q dark stormy night. They choose stormy
nights because they are less liable TO be
discovered and explosions are less liable
to be heard.
| GOVERNMENT EXPERIMENTS.
ION September 80 1890, Congress made
an appropriation to enable the Secretary
OF the Treasury to appoint commission
OF scientific and mechanical experts tC
report upon the best method of safe and
vault construction. The Commissioners
appointed were DIR. Robert Il. Thurston,
director of Sibley College, Cornell Uni
versity; Theodore Y. Ely, Superintendent
OF Motive Power OF the Pennsylvania
Railroad Company. and Francis A. Pratt,
OF the firm of Pratt IL Whitney, Hart
ford, Conn.
"These Commissioners. after many
tests, practically condemned all laminated
safes. The only safe the Commissioners
recommend for the United States Treas
ury is made OF solid metal. 1t withstood
! a total of ll5 pounds or dynamite and
other explosives without injuring it to
any extent.
! "One of the best laininated safes was
| operated upon and opened in three diff
ferent ways in six hours. First, by cut
ting four-inch hole through the body;
second, wedging off the sides. and third.
I blowing out the door with ex xplosives.
lie explosive and safe experts who made
! all the experiments before the United
! States Commissioners were Professor &.
II. Monroe, chemist to the torpedo corps,
| Y. 5. N, Lieutenant Samuel Rodman,
| w Init
myself.
The solid metal safe that the Govern
! mont Com misSionerS recommended for
| the United States Treasury was afterward
submitted to a test for thirty-slx hours at
jackson, Mich, January l3, 1893. Four
experts from Chicago-S. G. Wooley, L.
a. Straus and two others-worked ten
hours and gave up in disgust.
CHALLENGE AND SUCCESS.
at was recently claimed by the manu-
facturers of the laminsted safes that tn 9
defects heretofore exposed had been REM
edled. In January, 1898, [ issued chal-
lenge to bankers in behalf of myself and
L. +. King TO open any screw-door Iaml-
mated safe In any bank in Illinois inside
OF three hours. This challenge we ex-
tended exclusively to bankers. We were
to attack it with the tools usually used
by burglars. and if we failed to open the
TO the banker e-half the cash price paid
for his safe II we opened it in The time
specified the safe was to become our
property.
The challenge was accepted and P. f.
King, Lieutenant Rodmau and myself.
| working under all the restrictions and
using only small kit of tools, which
weighed less than twenty pounds. laid
the formidable screw door structure
minutes. Over thirty persons witnessed
the operation.
"Our first work was to remove the day
door with wedges and sledges. This un-
covered the screws that held the gear to
the door. The gear was removed and
this presented the filling plate to view.
The filling plate, an inch thick, was
wedged off and the second plate was
blown of by two-tifths of an ounce of
nitro-glycerine. A three-si xteenth inch
hole bad been drilled at an angle OF forty
five degrees and through this the nitro
glycerine was introduced. The first ex-
plUsion disturbed The plates so that the
explosive could reach the vital parts of
the door.
Mine plates, half an inch thick, each
were torn off by twenty-four explosions
All the explosions were with two-tifths
of an ounce eli nitro-giycerine except the
last one, which drove in the last plate
One ounce of the explosiye was then
used. They were all fired by the deto-
nator. None OF the explosions we're heard
fifty feet away and neither the woodwork
nor the fixtures OF the room were dam
aged. In fact, the conditions were that
the explosions should not be heard out
side the building.
This was the best screw-door safe
ever made. This SAFE was thirty three
inches wide. thirty-three inches high and
twenty-three inches deep. 1t was four
inches thick. The entire outside surface
tempered dull proof. regarded as the i'm
est steel in the world. The remaining
plates were of half-inch Brookl yn chrome
steel, tempered dull proof, except the in
ner plate. which was mild l."-New
I ork World.