Mohave County miner., 1918-04-13
BURGLARY HOOKING UP
 AGAIN AS A FINE TRADE

These are the days of Specialization, and the lure of modern scientific methods of efficiency has enmeshed even the votaries of the gentle art of housebreaking, and your really up-to- date safe-blower is a marvel of chem ical and mechanical skill, so we are told in an interview with William A. Pinkerton published in the. New York Morning Telegraph. The article opens Interestingly:
 Employing methods and means of the very latest scientific value, the old-time skilled bank burglar is again working at his old trade, says William A. Pinkerton. The veteran detective's conclusion is based upon a careful study of a series of robberies in the suburbs of Chicago, especially that of the Summit State bank, which result ed in a haul of S40,OOO, of four-sev- enths of the payroll of the Corn Prod ucts Refining company, contained in two suitcases and one grip and left at the bank over night for safe keeping.
 "This was the thirteenth bank rob bery in the environs of Chicago within a period of month or six weeks.
 Ut isn't the yeggmen,' said MT. P;nkerton recently. These new rob berries are the work of old bank rob bers. They seem to have just come to life again after many years of quiesceAce.
 "'The work is not that of one gang, either. It seems to me there are sev- eral groups of men at work.
 "1 have been afraid for many years that some of the old fellows would see the. value of acetylene and begin to use it. My attention was called to the first about eight years ago, when a Birmingham, England, paper gave a lengthy description of the work of a gang of crooks who have been operating over there. was impressed with the possibilities of the aeetylene tank and torch, and thought l sooner or later they would be put to the uses that have now been adopted by the bank robbers.
  gent fellow, who had reformed and gone into business. remembered him J when 1 was on one of my tours of the country, and I took the English clip | ping to him and asked him what he thought. He led me to where a steel framed building was being constructed | and pointed to the men using acety- lene torches to cut great heavy steel beams as if they were paper. called | his attention to the weight of the | tanks and apparatus. "Oh," he said, they will get them lighter after a while" And they have. He after wards went back to his old ways and | fell into our hands, am sorry to say.
 " "'These fellows are operating in In diana, Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. | But it is not one gang, l am sure. It ig difficult to say where they make their headquarters. But one thing is certain: They eventually will be caught.
 "'These crooks are very quick to "catch on" to any new things. The | yaggman read in scientific paper 3 government report of the uses of nitro glycerine "soup" of the safe blower-and they immediately began to work with it. They overplayed | themselves sometimes, blowing the whole fronts of stores away when they | used an overcharge. One case in Ark ansas I remember. A blasting con cern kept its dynamite in the town banks safe for purposes of safety. A gang of yeggs worked the safe and blew the whole place, and themselves included, into bits.
 "'The new bank robbers have to carry quite an equipment. Their acety- Iene tank weighs between 200 and 300 pounds. Carrying it through the streets requires an automobile, the |