The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-04-20

ton which the chest occupies when in the
safe is very awkward. and it is hard for
the burglar to work on it. L should imagine
that it would. be very discouraging to the
safe-blower after working all night to get a
safe open to run against one of these bank
er's chests, for l appreciate from my own
experience how hard they are to open. This
man Walters. who left town rather sud
denly some time ago, has a safe in his
office which L opened very easily, but when
L got the doors apart l found that there
was one of these chests inside, and as he
had failed to leave the combination with
any of his friends 1 could not proceed
further. The only thing that 1 can do in a
case of that kind is to break the box open,
and take it apart piece by piece, for ills
absolutely impossible for any one but the
man who possesses the combination to open
a bankers chest"
KNOWLEDGE OF CONSTRUCTION.
do safe-breakers ever have the same
knowledge of the construction of safes as
an expert?' Mr.. Isensee was asked.
Yes; once in a while you hnd a cracks
man who understands the building OF a
safe perfectly. All expert safe-robbers are
i'm a sense of the word, safe experts, be-
cause they have TO know where the weak
est part of a safe is and how they can force
it with as little noise and trouble as pos
sible. There have been a number of men
employed in safe factories who have
turned burglars after quitting their places,
and some of them have become very des-
perate criminals. But, on the whole, the
safe-breaker is generally a very poor eX-
ample of the expert, because he seldom has
the opportunity of learning anything about
the making of safes. and then it would not
aid him a great deal if he did, because he
hasn't the opportunities to work on safes
and it certainly requires time and patience
to open some of them.
'.Where people make a great mistake is
in thinking that a safe expert possesses
some superhuman knowledge, and when a
combination is lost he ought TO be able to
sit down and find it at once without any
trouble. The fact is, when the combination
of a safe is lost it would take a life time to
find it. 1t has been figured by mathema-
ticians that on a f~our-tumbler combination,
where each tumbler has one hundred num-
bers on it, and the dial has one hundred
numbers, 100, 5000 different combinations
can be worked from it. So you readily see
in opening a safe of this kind, which Is
about the average, a man has just one
chance in a hundred million of succeeding.
Where the knowledge of a safe expert aids
a man is that he knows how to break a
safe open and do as little damage as pos
sible. The burglar. of course, doesn't care
anything about this. for it doesn't make
any difference to him whether or not he
ruins a safe so that it can never be used
again.
A COMMON OCCURRENCE.
"A person would think that a man would
not lose so important a thing as the COM
bination of his safe, and yet it is a very
common occurrence. In many small BUSH
ness concerns in closing the safe they will
lust throw off what is called the day num-
bers. These are used when men don't want
to work the whole combination every time
they open it. The %janitor, maybe, when he
is cleaning up the office, will give the out
side dial a turn and then the combination
is lost. The chances are the man who knew
it in the first place has either forgotten it
or else has put it in a memorandum book
and locked it up in the safe. Well. the only
thing mat 1 can do is to drill the lock and
insert a small wire and try to catch the
tumblers and pull them around so that they
VIII open H. UuN IL 4 Ndh 1 SUNNtNh III NhAo
l Of course have to break the lock off.
Some times people, in trying TO change the
combination. will lose it entirely. but if
you can find what numbers they had in
mind to which they were going to change
it. YOU can very often open it on these, be-
cause they have come nearer TO the COM
bination than they supposed. But, after all.
it comes down to the fact that when the
combination of a safe is lost there is no
such thing as finding it."
Are there many time locks on the safes
in this city" Mr.. Isensee was asked.
Yes. there are a good many time locks
used here. All of the banks and trust COM
panies use them. and there are a number
of business concerns that have them on
their safes. but do not have them in use
on account of the trouble in setting them;
and then they very often want TO get into
the safe after it has been closed. You I'M
derstand when a time lock closes a safe it
Is locked until the next morning, no matter
what happens. This lock is not so much OF
a protection against burglars as it is
against employees who know the combins-
ton. The time lock is always alluded 10 as
though il were some kind Of a peculiarly
constructed lock. which it is not. 1t is
merely a device which slips under the dog,
as We call it. in the lock. and when il is
shut It holds this dog in a certain position
so that it cannot be moved. TIC open a time
lock this device merely has 10 be broken
Off, and then il works similar TO any other,
because the bolt il then released.
1t is seldom that a time lock gets out OF