Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-09-30
PonuIist. Go Into Cont.
OBSTINATE SAFE LOCKS.
Troubles That Come TO People Who
Forget the Combination.

| Troubles That Come TO People Who
Forget the Combination.
| From the New Orleans Times Democrat
| Last Wednesday evening a painter work
| ing in the Commercial Hotel slipped from
| his ladder, and in falling struck his foot
| against the knob of the office safe. A few
| moments later the clerk attempted to open
| the doors. but found them fmnovable; the
| blow had thrown con- the combination.
| AS usual in hotels. where some one is
continually on duty close at hand, the outer
| lock was rarely used. 1t was last en-
pioyed so long ago that nobody could re-
! member the exact figures that governed it.
| and after vainly tinkering with the mechan-
| ism all night an expert was sent for next
| morning. In detective stories this individ-
ual would have placed his ear against the
! door. turned the knob few times smiled
systematically and thrown back the bolts,
but. unfortunately. such things don't real
| ly happen outside the works of NJ. Gabor-
iau. AS matter of fact, five skilled me-
chanics took turas at trying for some thfr-
ty hours, and yesterday the makers were
| telegraphed to for the cipher.
The sticking! of safe doors, as it is
| called colloquially, .iS something that oc-
ours now and then in every city, and the
most common cause is the sudden death OF
the man possessing the combination. Some
disease or apoplexy, and his safe is found
locked as tight ASIA drum. This has hap
pened more than onse in New Orleans and
in such cases thereJs only one thing to do
A hole is drilled through the door, so as to
give access to the mechanism, ard the lock
| is then picked with awYre.
AS burglars often employ the same pro-
cess. it may be INTERESTING to explain Just
how it is done. A Combination lock con-
| sists of series OF disks or "tumblers.
each having siosep Pie edge. and when
these slots are brought into al ignment a
bar slides through Ind operates the bolts
By means of hooked Wire it Is compare
lively easy for an, expert to r,volve the
disks until the slots are all in heir correct
positions. and that, In nutshell. Is the
whole trick g ~
The widely prevalent flea that 3. combina-
ton lock may be topensd ''by ear is, alb
surd. and the safe sharp who Iretends to
''ba cking up" Hef approaches q safe when
the combination is1''off'' and by quietly
turning the knob backward can tell, by a
slight obstructipn.1 when the first number
is reached. The second is picked up" the
same way, and so on until the cipher is in
! his possession, when he boldly announces
that he can open the doors whenever he
| winked into believing a good lock worthless
by this simple dodge.
Sudden death is by no means responsible
for all the lock-outs. Sometimes one of
those strange mental sessions, IN which the
OVertaXed brain itself slips a cog causes a
busy man to forget for the time being one
or more of the numbers. He may have
opened the safe every morning for years
and believed the combination to be as
familiar as the face of his wife but it has
slipped away into the mysterious regions
of oblivion, and the harder he thinks the
less apt he is to recall 1t.
Some years ago a New Orleans merchant
suddenly forgot the second number of his
combination. He was in great distress for
he feared mental breakdown and, strange
ha ho6
ciated in some manner with the idea of
stopping or pausing.
1T has something to do with standing
still,' he repeated over and over again TO
the batfled experts. At last he jumped up
with triumphant whoop.
Il have it, he yelled. "Its twenty
eight; don't you see, two eight, to wait? 1
knew 1t had something TO do with stop
ping
One of the most remarkable lock-outs on
record occurred in 1892 in a small town in
this state. general merchant had what
was known as screw door safe, with
time lock- which got out Of order. This
style of safe Is in principle much like the
breech OF modern cannon. The door is
circular and screws in, after which an au-
tomato continuance throws the bolts, which
are released at given hour by interior
clockwork. The expert sent for In this
particular case made the necessary repairs,
ing the clock and the lock. Consequently
when he closed the door the bolts flew into
position and there was no way in the world
to get them back
The safe contained q quantity of cur
rency. several fine watches and a lot of dia-
mond jewelry and the owner was wild to
have it opened. Then began a battle royal.
The first scheme of the experts was to
bolt a long iron bar to the door and then
raise the safe by tackle and let it drop.
The theory was that the jar might cause
the bolts to fly back long enough to en-
able the leverage pressure of the bar to
start the screw. This was tried at least a
hundred times, but without success.
They then determined to break down the
plates of steel held together by series of
| small bolts. A beam twenty-five feet long
was swung from derrick like battering
| RAM and hurled end-on against the front
| of the safe. Shifts of darkies were engaged
to relieve each other at fixed hours, and
| the blows were timed regularly. two to the
| minute. 1t was believed that a vibration
| could thus be set up that would eventually
| jar out the bolts. and, Incredible as it may
seem. the assault vas continued unceasing-
| ly three days and nights. The blows rever-
| berated through the little town like salvos
of artillery, and the whole country around
| turned out to see 1.-THE Gun. Sleep was i'm
possible. and one fxasPsrated resident had
actually applied for an Injunction when the
plates at last sprung ashnder.
The interior was la wreck. The watches
had been literally torn to pieces; the dia-
! plonds were found wrenched from their
| settings and the Currency reduced to rags
| by abrasion from 'f1ylhS particles. 1t had
| to be sent to the treasury for redemption
| A rare. but not upkpoBn. cause for a lock-
out is when some tFusted employe decamps
| also it's combination sNot long ago an alb
| sconder from sister state made the dis
closure of such information one Of the con-
| ditions of a compromise In that case the
| safe was unusually valuable, and its owners
objected to having it drilled.
| When an expert Is called in by business
| man who finds himself unable to open his
! safe, he tries the plan, to begin with, of re-
versing the numbers given him. 1t not in
| frequently happens that the owner has &C
| cidentany rearranged them in his mind, and
| in nine cases out of ten that proves to be
| the fact. The forgetful man Is always
| ready to take oath that he has made no
mistake until 1t is demonstrated before his
| eyes that he has. Then he scratches his
head looks thoughtful and wonders wheth-
er it isn't about time for him to take a
| short vacation
1t is said that the sales of looking glasses
| in the United States amount to about S.
100000 a year, and that the industry gives