The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-11-26
GUARDING IHE gold ROOM
WATCH KEPT OVER THE TWO
MAGNIFICENT MUSEUMS
IN NEW YORK
TREASURES OF GREAT VALUE
Every Precaution Is Taken Agains:
VandaIs and Thieves While
the Rooms Are
Open.

The city of New York boasts of two
magnificent museums-the Metropolitan
Museum of Art and the American Muse
UNI of Natural History-in which are
works of art and rare specimens the ag-
gregate value of which runs into mill
lions of dollars.
The purely artistic value of some of
the exhibits in these collections cannot,
of course, be estimated, since many of
them, if lost, could never be replaced.
j. Pienpont Morgan's recent gift to the
Museum of Art of pictures and gold
Greek ornaments is alone worth $500, 900,
to say nothing of the valuable paintings
by old masters and other treasures of
great value. In the Museum of Natural
History there are small stones, unattrac-
tive perhaps to the casual observer, but
which the expert knows are worth thou
sands of dollars. One tiny gem in the
collection which is coming from the Pa
ris exposition to be placed in the mu-
scum is itself worth nearly as much as
the entire collection, valued at several
hundred thousand dollars, while the val
ue of the gold alone in the gold room of
the Museum of Art is estimated at $780,
000
How are these treasures protected?
The museums on most days of the week
are open free to the public, and it must
be taken for granted that there is al
ways a certain risk of dishonest persons,
to say nothing of professional crooks,
being among the large crowds that
throng the museums, especially on Sun
days and holidays, when thousands pass
the turnstiles. Any of these might at
tempt to rob the cases, or in a pure spirit
of vandalism, damage some of the mu-
seum's treasures.
To guard against this danger. which
they recognize as ever present, the Off
GERS of the museums have taken extraor-
binary precautions. Canes and UNI
brellas, as is we'll known, are taken
away from the visitors at the doors, a
wise measure for some vandaI in pure
deviltry might poke his cane through a
$2O,00O painting.
FAMOUS GOLD ROOM.
All the visitors are carefully watched,
and any person acting in a suspicious
manner is followed until he has left the
museum again. There is a large staff of
attendants constantly patrolling through
the different rooms, and even at night,
when the silent mummies and the clas-
sic statues are left in the dark to rumi-
nate in peace over their glories of an
other age, there remains on duty an
other force of attendants, who keep
guard until daylight, as much to give
the alarm in case of fire as to watch
for possible burglars.
But these precautions constitute only a
small part of the steps taken to protect
the collections from the eyildoer. Both
the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the
Metropolitan Museum of Natural His
tory are fitted with burglar alarm sys-
tenn elaborated so as to protect the rooms
and the cases In each room.
The famous gold room in the Museum
of Art is where J. Pierpon Morgan s
$3.50, 600 gold Greek ornaments will be ex-
hibited. The value of the gold already
in the room-worked in the form of an
tique cups, wreaths, crowns. rings, neck
1aces, etc.-is, as already intimated, $780,
600. That is to say, where thieves able
to carry off the contents of the room
they would be able to realize half a mill
lion dollars by merely melting down the
gold.
OF course, any attempt to dispose of a
valuable art curio that has been stolen is
dangerous, and the crooks know it. The
contents of the museums are familiar to
most dealers. and any thief trying to sell
a stolen article would run a good chance
of being caught. The same is true of the
pictures in the museum No clever crook
would run the risk of cutting a painting
from its frame and attempting to sell it.
Nor if a thief undertook to do business
in the museums gold room would he have
much chance of success. There is only
one entrance to the room, which is
guarded constantly by two men. The en-
tire room is literally threaded with electric
wires. Under each article in the cases,
even though 1t be only small ring, there
is a tiny wire, invisible to the casual OBJ
server, and the presence of which would
never be suspected by the initiated This
wire connects with the Office of Gen. di