HOW SCIENCE HELPS THE CRIMINAL.

Lake County Press, Issue 2140, 18 October 1906, Page 7

HOW SCIENCE HELPS THE CRIMINAL.

It, is known that Raymond Iho j (hiring crook who was responsible’ 1 tor (he long undiscovered (hell of (he 1 dainshorough portrait from Messrs. ' Agtlevv, spent no less than twenty hours in drilling the solid steel j plates of the strong-room of (lie Selby Smelting Works, from which | ho abstracted ,£(.>8,000 worth of gold, i Vonr modern safe-burglar would have j done the work in one-twentieth of i the time. lie no longer burdens ! himself with a heavy and costly set' of tools. Mis outfit consists of a small cylinder of oxygen, a few feet 1 of rubber tubing, and it blow-pipe. | Allixing the tube to the gas-burner' ho rapidly rigs up an oxy-hydrogen blow-pipe, directs the flame on the : safe door or lock, and hey presto ! under the terrific heat (he solid sled ! drops away like water, and in a very ' brief space there is a hole large, enough to thrust his hand through, j ELECTRICITY THE CRACKS- i .MANS Fill END. It was thus that the safe of the' Tottenham Court Hoad Host Cilice t was opened a year or two ago, and' £IOO in gold and paper money abstracted. The whole thing was done; in half an hour, for a police-constable j looked in every thirty minutes during the night, and he saw nothing of the I crime. The blow-pipe (lame gives a i heat of 11,000 deg. Fahr., and will j melt even the Ilarvey-iscd sled of a British battleship. .Supposing that electricity not gas, ' is the lighting agent of the strong- ; room the task of tin* scientific cracksman is equally easy. He connects a couple of wires with the electric light' terminals, aea! with the aid of a car- | bon electrode produces a heat ampl,\ sullicient to fuse any metal. It was thus that two daring robberies were! perpetrated in St. Petersburg not! long since. In one case the safe at-: tacked was that of a wholesale to-j bacco shop ; In (he other the strong-! room of the crimnal court itself, and 1 ten thousand roubles secured. In tlie rare eases where neither gas I nor electricity is available, modern 1 science has provided the crinj.inal j with another agent of destruction, which is, in its way, one of the most wonderful discoveries of modern i times. Known as "Thermit,” it. is i a compound of powdered aluminium, I and another simple substance prepared, wo believe, from oxide of iron. j USEFUL "T1 IEH.MIT.’i Laid upon a piece of iron or steel I ami lighted, it burns with tremendous heat, eating its way, noiselessly) and rapidly, through any thickness 1 of metal. "Thermit" may be car-j ried about with perfect safety, Only a. very small amount is needed, and 1 it can be rapidly ignited with the aid : of a spoonful of spirits of wine. So much for safe-breaking. -Now, ; with ivgard to some of the other aids to crime which the progress o: science and invention has enabled the law-breaker to adapt to his own evil uses. It is hardly necessary, j perhaps. to mention the electric pocket-lamp. Vet its superiority over the hot, smelly, old-tashioned bnliseye is so great that it has been universally adopted by the profession. Electricity is also employed for other purposes by tin* criminal. A Parisian burglar, recently arrested, had m bis possession that the police called an , |,..uric bludgeon. It was operated by a storage battery, carried in the man’s clothes, ami was capable of shocking, ami instantly stunning a person. Another thiei. of the "confidence" trickster variety, who was also arrested l.y the French police, was in posession ot a powerful battery, connected by wires to a . plate grasped in tin* palm of his right hand. Anyone who was fool enough to shake hands was at once struck helpless with a numbing shock, and Ins pockets rilled with ease. An amusing point about this: ingenious machine was that it was , "made in tlermany." Scotland Yard chuckled coiisumedly over .Mr. (.Jerald Balfour's valuation of the average burglar's kit at. £!••■> The detective-inspectors put tin* value of Bill Sikes's tools at from two to five pounds only. But even the police do not deny that then* are exceptions Pile three gentlemen of Herman extraction who committed such a series of burglaries iu the Edgware Hoad, and were at last arrested in a jewel- . ler's shop in Lisson drove, had a wonderful outfit Between them. Among other things was a bottle ot aqua fort is. and it was afterwards discovered that these gentry had tested, by means of the acid all ' doubtful articles. They were thus, able to discard all elect ro-plate. and) carry off only solid goods. It will be remembered that a stir; was caused by* the great banknote ; forgeries of three years ago. These ' was science and to spare about the; methods of the daring crimnals who turned out so many thousands of pounds worth of counterfeit paper in : lho shape of £•">. £lO. £">o. and) £IOO Bank of England notes. The' plant, seized in the East End ol ■ London was simply marvellous in its 1 completeness, and must have cost a 1 very large sum. SIKES THE CHEMIST. i 'die press alone, which was of the; most up-to-date manufacture, weigh-! Ed twenty-five lons, and tin* engraved : copper and steel plates, the tools and ; indeed Ihe complete out til could only i have I men purchased and made by ; men of considerable mechanical and scieiil i tic aI ta inineni s. Ebeinical science bus .also been adopted by tbe modern criminal to bis : own evil ends. It will be remembered that, less than a year ago. a lady 1 slaying in a French hotel was made j insensible in her sleep by poisonous gits injected through a bole bored in ! Hie wall near the head »t her bed, j and I hem robbed Drugged cigars figure frequently in 1 novels which deal with crime, but in j real life they are a complete novelty. , r j’he first victim was Frol, de duber- ! natis, who, travelling on the Lyons j and Mediterranean Line, accepted a, ! cigar from an affable stranger, and j woke up to (ind himselt minus the > contents of his purse —sixty pounds. Few chemists would be able to so 1 doctor a cigar that. it. would produce ) sleep without the taste of the drug | betraying itself to the .smoker. Be- I sides, the average crook runs as few j risks as possible, and there is al-; ways tbi' contingency that be might 1 got bold of the drugged weed him-; setf.— ' ‘ A iis.w ers.