The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-08-06

ury from New York not long ago to
open a safe that declined to respond to
it's figures. The expert opened the safe
in half minute. Then he made a
tour of the building and opened every
one of the safes except those fitted wi h
time locks There was not one of them
that he o.dn't get into within IA min
utes after making the first turn of the
combination handles He modestly
stated to the officials accompanying him
that he didn't amount to much as a
safe-opener and that there were any
number of cracksmen at large who
could do anything he did in one half
the time
The treasury watch force is divided
into three reliefs, like an army guard,
only the treasury Waterman is on post
longer than the soldier. His tour of
duty lasts eight hours. The first watch
of the day goes on at S O'Clock in the
morning. 1t is relieved at 4 in the af-
ternoon by the watch which remains
on duty until midnight. The midnight
watch, which is regarded as the most
important of the three, completes the
triple-linked guard chain and goes off
at in the morning. Although, as
stated, the midwatch, so called is
considered to carry the greatest weight
of responsibility of the three, on ac-
count of the wellknown nocturnal
preferences of burglars, Captain Co.
baugh, the head of the watch force, is
of the opinion that the day guard needs
to be more on the alert than either
night shift.
Each of the night Watches" said he
the other day, lis made up of twice the
number of men comprising the day
watch, in spite of the fact should an at
| tempt ever be made to loot the treas
ury the job would undoubtedly be at
70, in, Ia ;ol,t
would be impossible for an organized
band of robbers to gain access to the
building, for all the entrances are Sc
curely locked and guarded after 4
o'clock in the afternoon. A gang OF
| robbers, to effect an entrance at any of
the doors after nightfall, would have
to employ dynamite and battering
rams, and by the time they had made
thoroughfare they would be f1anked
by the entire police force of the District,
the soldiers from Fort Myer and Wash
ington barracks and the marine bar
racks with all of which forces we have
direct alarm communications. Such an
assault is about as probable as another
sacking of washington by the British.
We should have much more diff
Guilty in repelling day invasion. A
large number of robbers, for instance,
might walk into the building in broad
daylight, when the department is open
to visitors, entering at the many differ
ent doors so as not to attract attention.
At given signal, all of them having
assembled at a convenient point they
might make an onslaught upon the
cash room, where in the neighborhood
of 5000, 100000 in currency is kept, and
hold up all the clerks and other en-
ployes in the room at once.
IAN attack of this sort would give
the men of the day watch a heap of
/, sNf
time. Of course, even If band of
daylight robbers successfully accom-
plished this trick, they could not get
away with their booty, even If they
had race horses waiting for them out
side the building. They would be
swooped down upon by uniformed men
in such numbers that with them it
would be a case of hands up before
they had reached the exits. Notwith-
standing all this, daylight robbery of
the treasury is much more practicable
than a night robbery, although I
should not particularly care to be
ringleader of such foolhardly robbers,
either at high noon or midnight. There
would be some tall old shooting in this
building on such an OCCASION"
The watchmen distributed through
the treasury at night are each required
to ring up the main entrance by touch
ing a button every five minutes during
their tour of duty. In case they do not
register it is taken for granted there is
something wrong and patrol is sent
to investigate. A few years ago the
man who was locked in the cashroom
for his eight-hour tour, beginning at
midnight, overlooked the registering
end of his job after the first half hour.
and the patrol approached that part of
the building with the light footballs of
Italian opera conspirators, each man
with a Winchester and a pair of ASS
The Waterman was found stretched out
on the fioor-not dead but delriously
happy. There was a nearly empty
quart flask beside him. He lost his
job, Of course. These are the sort of
scares that are occasionally thrown
into the watch force, but the men who
guard the building are always waiting,
nevertheless, for the actual appearance
of the men with the masks and the
jimmies.