The San Francisco call., 1896-09-23
DECAP|TATED BY
A STREETCAR
Burglars Interrupted in
Their Early Morning
Work.
HAYEs-sTREET CAR 2O7
Catches a Telephone Wire and
Cuts Off a Lamppost's
Head.
A CRIME WAS PREVENTED.
Early Morning Roof and Porch Climb.
ers Who We're F1iled by the
Detective Cable Car.
A CRIME WAS PREVENTED.

A cable-car, in the role of detective, is
something out of the ordinary. Yet there
is such car running on the Msrket-street
system. and until yesterday morning this
fact was unknown.
1t is car 207 on the Hayes-street line. It
is one OF the only cars in the entire service
that has not, at some time or other, run
over some infant or winged an adult.
This particular car, quite evidently, has
been silently bent OF doing work in an
other way, protecting life and property
instead OF sacrificing the one and allowing
the other to be despoiIed.
1t was on the down trip-meaning east
ward-on Hayes street, shortly after 80
O'Clock yesterday morning, that car 207
showed its hand" as parlance goes. On
the down grade between Buchanan and
Laguna streets it encountered a swaying
telephone wire reaching from the roof of
6l5 over to the other side at 624.
The wires caught in the roof of the car,
where the ventilators are located, and by
1t was dragged along down grade like a
bull would plunge away with riata.
IS the wire became taut on the port
side it caught mp the lamp of one of the
very few gas company's posts in that
neighborhood. The tension was so great
that the lamp flew off and hung limp on
its post, and the wire was carried on
dozen feet more before it snapped under
the superior power of the cable and the
detective car.
Without details as to the fright OF the
passengers who were rudely awakened by
succession of loits and jerks from the
semi -somnolent state following the recent
exit from pleasant couch, the detective
feature OF car 207 may be briefly gone into.
Unlike the members of Captain Lees
so-called upper Office" who await the
commission OF crime and then try TO
arrest the criminal, with frequent mis-
carriage of result. the car broke right in
on one or more burglars. routed him or
them in short order and went its way.
The report of the affair was made at
headquarters before noon yesterday, and
an investigation followed, resulting in the
disclosure of plan to rob the house at
6l7, on the south side of Hayes street.
There is every Indication on the roof OF
the buildings two-story modern house
that one or more persons had reached the
roof by means of the ladder in the rear of
the water-tank. The supposition is that
the burglar, in lowering himself to the
front porch so as to gain admission to the
second story through the ballroom win
dow, broke the telephone wire from its
insulator, and it hung in loop across the
street. The wire originally was strung
east and west from 615 to 617 and thence
across to 614, and the sageing allowed it to
hang just low enough to be caught by the
roof of the detective-car.
There was no robbery or burglary on
the premises" Captain Lees said yester-
day. "a wire caught in the car and broke
a lamp-light, that's ALL"
Captain Lees, however, has a number of
his best men out securing Hayes Valley
aud the Richmond district, where bur-
elaries have recently been numerous and
undetected.