Hopkinsville Kentuckian., 1906-04-10
Chicken Thieves.


here. The thieves broke in at night
lieut. off the heads Of the fowls, and
left sign, Merry Christmas" fol
the owner to see the next morning
Chicken raisers are much exercised
over the repeated ridings Of their
coops at this time Of the year
1t is passing strange how negli-
gent some folks are. One dollar
properly invested will deter SO out
of 100 chicken thieves from robbing
a coop. Only it takes little intel
ligence. Now, kept chickens for
six. years in a neighborhood where
robberies were talking place all
around men, and | never had my
coop robbed and it was not because
of dog or a gun, or because kept
awake nights watching the coop
had no dog, and l never used the gun,
and | most certainly did not stay
awake nights watching the coop;
but did go down town to a depart
ment store, and / lald out about a
dollar in electrical apparatus.
The apparatus consisted Of, say,
two dry cells, 80 cents; a bell, say %
cents; several little affairs for fixing
in doors and windows, not costing
over a quarter, and the rest of the
dollar in insulated copper wire. A
little common sense, a jack-knife, a
screw driver, and gimlet are all
that is necessary for installing the
plant.
The minute a door is opened the
bell rings. The minute a window is
opened the bell rings. The minute
the bell rings the thief skips-and
that is all there is to it. The sharp
cling-cling of bell at night is all
that is needed to drive the thief
away. His conscience and fears will
do the rest. 1t is not necessary for
you to hear the bell at all. Let him
hear the bell, and you sleep quietly
on, undisturbed.
AS | said, my neighbors were fire.
quently robbed, and | never was.
How many times my coop was ap-
preached at night with felonious in
tent, l have no means of knowing,
but everything was all right in the
morning | even went so far as to
leave the door unlocked-with stick
in the hasp as a hint to the thief that
here was the easiest place to enter;
but the minute the door was opened,
cling-cling went the bell. | had a
spring on the door that closed it
again-in case the thief should for
get to close it, and leave the bell
ringing to disturb my slumbers.
l did not have bell in the dwell
ing house. The bell was in the hen
house on purpose so that the thief
should hear the bell. If | had had
the bell in the house, it would be
necessary for me to wake up and
drive the thief away. In the mean
time ne might have done much dam
age; but with the bell in the hen
house, the thief never got a chance
to get in his work first. Of course
the thief might have robbed the
coop in spite of the bell ringing, if
he had the nerve, but thieves have
not, as a rule, that amount of nerve.
Another precaution that | took
was to have lot of blind wires, con-
nected with no bell, running about
the yard, and running to the house
This was for two purposes. One was
to make any Investigator, coming
around in the daytime, sizing up the
place for midnight raid, think /
had a bell connected with the house;
and the other purpose was to convey
the idea that the whole place was
wired up carefully. AS a matter of
fact, there were plenty of wires on
the outside of the house that he could
cut without in any way interfering
with anything; but the live wires
were all inside of the house, and the
house could not be entered without
ringing the bell.
Simple, inexpensive, invariably eff
cient. e. L. c. Morse, in Farm Poul-
try.
lust Because
Your cough is only in the throat and