THE WEALTH OF HATTON GARDEN.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVII, Issue 140, 16 June 1913, Page 2

THE WEALTH OF HATTON GARDEN.

Jewel robberies, that have occurred with such alarming frequency during the past three years, may be divided into two classes—those that are the result of daring and clever raids on shops and houses and those that are the result of the "body-snatching" method.

As a rule the modern jewel thief— except where he has tracked down a

certain individual who .he knows is in the habit of carrying large cjuantities of precious stones about with him— prefers to confine his work to the shop or house. In London, as is well known, Clerkenwell. is the district in which the bulk of the jewel robberies took place. Bounded: by Hatton Garden on the west, stretching through Clerkenwell to Goswell Road, this area is the abode of nearly all the .stone dealers and manufacturing jewellers in London. But a walk along this dingy home of the diamond dwellers, Hatton Gai'den, will show you men handling precious stones as they stand on the pavement—as though there was no such person as a jewel thief in the world. They know that the district in which they work is one of the best policed in all London. There is an interesting fact to be noted in connection with the policing of Hatton Garden. The City and Metropolitan Police each have one side of the street, as it is the dividing line, and thus a very large number of men, some in uniform and

some in plain clothes, are always in the neighborhood. SCIENTIFIC METHODS.

But the modern jewel thief knows his Hatton Garden, and knows that the carriers who hurry along it are too well guarded—and as a rule' too clever—to make the risk he runs in attacking them worth while. Nearly all the big jewel robberies of recent date have taken place in other parts of the city.

The modern jewel thief's methods— improved as they have been by scientific knowledge—are such as to make him realise that the surest way to success does not lie in waylaying men carrying jewels but in attacking shops in which valuables are housed. All the jewel thefts this year of any note and all those last year were carried out in the most daring and ingenious manner. The £10,000 robbery last April from a jeweller's shop in Regent Street affords an excellent example of the courage and resource of the modern thief. The thieves bored their way to their objective

through three walls of four distinctbusiness premises, iffirfjiL so thoroughly was their work doSglxnat after their departure not v was found broken nor a catch forced back. Once inside the building they ascended to the showroom and leisurely collected; and took away £10,000 worth of jewellery. It is believed that they spent the whole week-end in their tunnelling operations. Last year a skilful gang adopted a remarkably clever ruse in the market. The burglars by the aid of a skeleton key entered an unoccupied house at the back of the shopthey were about to break into. Climbing to the top skylight they dropped a rope some seventy feet, and traversing this they reached a narrow ledge?and dropped on to another wall, andf from this reached a fanlight in thejewellery department. They cut theglass, dropped another rope down into the room, and. ransacked th© place, departing by "means; of the' ropes as gracefully as they had come. Although the modern jewel thief' lays his plans for entering a shop with great care and ingenuity, his" greatest difficulty nearly always arises^ when he is inside the building ami face to face with the safe. But science has come to the aid of the thief, andf this method of breaking open a stubborn safe has been adopted. A cylinder of oxygen is screwed on to two blowpipes. One of them conveys the oxygen, which rushes through theflexible gas-tubing, escaping at thei* mouthpiece, where the second' pi^edischarges air under pressure. This air is worked by a foot-bellows. Thfifmixture of air and oxygen causes a flame, and this is directed on to th© safe near the lock. The locality of the flame is surrounded by asbestos to'1 keep in the heat. After about an' hour the great heat on the iron of the safe softens it and 1t melts and runs away like oil. From the hole thus; made the lock is easily picked. Is it< any wonder, when one considers such a method as this and recalls a hundred and one other ingenious devices employed by the .modern thief, that he generally succeeds in securing the*valuables he is after, though he miayr not avoid ultimate capture?