Burglar alarm

“ I silently resolved to have a burglar alarm installed before the next day came to an end. I would take no more chances, rest assured of that, as this business was taking a decidedly serious aspect. It took me well into the night to put the room into any semblance of order, but the events of the evening had driven all thoughts of sleep from my mind.
I was handicapped by the oath of secrecy and I did not dare report this matter to the police because of the publicity that such a proceeding would entail. No, it was to be a battle of wits, and I must fight it alone. ”

“ By means of his pretext of alarm about cranks and kidnapers she was being thoroughly spied upon without the spies suspecting what they were really about. By day there were the personal guards, to inform him if she tried to communicate with Roger [228] either personally or by message. By night there were the watchman within and the three patrolmen without, and a system of burglar alarms that made it impossible for anyone either to leave or to enter without flooding the whole house with light and starting up a clamor of bells from attics to cellars. ”

“ She gave utterance to a faint scream as the burglar entered her sleeping chamber, and modestly covered her neck and shoulders, which were bare, with a shawl.
“For the love of mercy, how came you here, sir?” she inquired in evident alarm.
“My dear young lady,” said Peace, in his most persuasive tones, “do not be alarmed. Take pity on a poor fellow who seeks your protection.”
“Protection, you must be some madman, or else—​a—​a burglar.” ”

“ The burglar who sneaks up to a house while the inmates are asleep, and plies his nefarious calling in silence and under shade of night, and is ready to start off, leaving everything behind him, the moment the alarm is raised, is a contemptible miscreant, for whom the gallows is almost too mild a form of punishment. ”

“ Before checking off more elaborately his mental inventory, Lanyard turned attention to the protective device, a simple but exhaustive system of burglar-alarm wiring so contrived that any attempt to enter the apartment save by means of a key which fitted both doors and of which no duplicate existed would alarm both the concierge and the burglar protective society. ”

“ I switched on the alarm every night at bed- time, no longer trusting on Thomas's frail memory; and as soon as the lights were out the burglars walked in at the kitchen door, thus taking the alarm off without waiting for the cook to do it in the morning. You see how aggravatingly we were situated. For months we couldn't have any company. Not a spare bed in the house; all occupied by burglars.__
"Finally, I got up a cure of my own. The expert answered the call, and ran another ground wire to the stable, and established a switch there, so that the coachman could put on and take off the alarm. ”

“ In this paper a paragraph caught my eye, which was headed, "A Burglar Alarm." I read it. The idea of the thing was this. You were to cover the hall, and the stairs, and the banisters, and any other place where anybody was likely to tread, with open newspapers. Then, if a burglar came into the house in the middle of the night, he would step on the newspapers, and you would hear them rustle, and would know that he was there. The idea rather struck me. I mentioned it to Leila. Indeed, I read the paragraph to her there and then. She was quite ecstatic. ”

“ These two fellows were burglars in a small way; and burglars, like other people, get a great deal of information out of the newspapers. When they see that "John Smith and family have gone to the Catskills; the house is closed for the summer," they find it more interesting news than the latest election returns.
"Oh, pshaw!" the younger burglar exclaimed, as his eye fell upon the paragraph about the boys' telegraph line—only he used language better suited to a burglar sitting in a saloon; "those fellows have put up a burglar alarm." ”

“ The bells of burglar alarms may be arranged to ring in a bedroom or in the street, and in the United States, where burglar and in fact all electric alarms are in more general use than in England, large houses are sometimes connected to a police station, so that the alarm is given there by bell or otherwise. ”

“ Electricity can and will eat its way through the hardest chilled steel, high explosive will open the strongest door of a vault ever manufactured after the most ingenious plan of the master mechanic, bank clerks and night and day watchmen of easy morals can be corrupted, burglar-alarms may be put out of service by detectives like Tom Davidson and Joe Seymour of the New York City Detective Bureau, but there is one safeguard which cannot be broken down by the burglar craft, and that is Eternal Vigilance! ”

“ Same scene, brilliantly lighted, with burglar at left end of table; girl in pink wrapper at right end of room, hair down and arm extended holding toy pistol or revolver. (Face powdered white.)
3. Same as second. Girl moved a little to right with arm reached toward burglar alarm.
4. Burglar turned facing girl, back half turned to audience.
5. Burglar passing water, which girl has stretched hand to receive.
MATRIMONIAL PHILOSOPHY.
[With Moving Tableaux Arranged for this Publication.] ”

“ My experience with house burglary in the small hours of the night left me a nervous wreck and an opium smoker. Almost every house prowler turns to booze or drugs. Reader, I’ll ask you if you wouldn’t take a jolt of booze or hop after an experience such as this?
You are a burglar; you have put in a week “tabbing up” a residence. You decide to “make” it; it looks all right; no children, you haven’t seen a dog. The night [284] arrives. You jump into the yard. It’s two o’clock. You look the house over. Every door and window fastened, not even an open coalhole, no porch to go up. ”

“ And the man who has projected a great burglary, perhaps a murder, steps forth from the old rickety house. He steps forth into the street and breathes a sigh of relief.
But the street also—the deserted, hushed street of the suburb, where the pure white snow of the fields grapples with the noisy city, and forcibly penetrates into it with its white streams—the street also terrifies the man when he is alone. Already night is on, but darkness is not yet to conceal him. Somewhere in the distance, before and behind, it coils itself up in the dark houses with their closed shutters ”

“ I find you in the dead of night on my property after scaling a locked enclosure, handling my implements, and for all I know getting ready to carry them away. It’s as though I woke up in my room at night and found a burglar rifling my bureau drawers. The fact that he didn’t have time to get anything before I nabbed him wouldn’t prevent his being tried and convicted for burglary. I imagine that if I chose to hand you over they’d put you where the dogs couldn’t bite you for a while. ”

“ Peace heard these observations, and remained as quiet as possible in his place of concealment.
“He’s made off over the roofs of those houses,” said one of the police officers.
“Impossible!” exclaimed the watchman. “No mortal man could reach them from where we are standing. Oh, no—​impossible!”
“You don’t know what these fellows can do,” returned the constable. “They’re like cats—​they’ve got nine lives.”
The speaker flashed his bull’s-eye in all directions, but no burglar was visible. ”

“ It was my opinion that there were few men who, after a night walk and perhaps some labour in forcibly opening a door or a window-shutter, would not cease for a moment in pursuance of their self-imposed task to partake of the refreshments so conveniently left behind them by the occupants of the house when they retired to rest. Should my surmises be correct, I might reasonably expect, should my house be broken into, to find an unconscious burglar in the library when I went down in the morning. ”

“ We can make an attack on that house like a real gang of burglars, and enter it in true burglar style. I've always wanted to have a chance to commit a burglary. There's nothing so exciting in the world as a burglar's life,—but what chance do you get to lead one? None at all. I was brought up to believe that it's all wrong,—many's the time my poor old grandmother told me: 'Never be a burglar.' And the effect of that teaching has not worn off. I still believe that it's wrong to be a burglar. Besides, they put you in jail for it. ”

“ The police at once set about unearthing and following up clues. But all their labor was in vain. The burglar had carefully covered up his tracks, and left no clue as to his identity. Nobody had seen him enter or leave the house. There was no one in the house at the time of the robbery. The family had gone off for the night, and the butler who had been left in charge took advantage of their absence to visit some of his friends. During his absence—which he averred did not extend over two hours—the burglar had come, seen and conquered. He entered a poor man and went away comparatively rich. ”

“ If I should waken in the night, and find a burglar in my room, I think it would kill me, and I know I should scream, and then there is no knowing what they might do. If ever you think there is a burglar in the house, Nixie, whatever you do, don’t scream or make any noise. It would be better to have one’s things stolen, than to be killed by burglars for screaming. ”

“ When they think there's a burglar in the house, they pull the clothes over their heads and scream "Murder father Jimmy there's a man in the house call the police fire!" just as if that would do any good. What you ought to do if there is a burglar is to get up and shoot him with a double-barrelled gun and then tie him and send the servant out to tell the police that if they will call after breakfast you will have something ready for them that will please them. ”

“ I try to put myself in the position of a burglar leaving my house with his loot, desirous of avoiding all roads and tracks, and of finding a safe hiding-place until excited policemen have calmed down sufficiently to make it safe for him to get away. ”

“ HOW FINE HOUSES ARE ROBBED. Families living in the city cannot, of course, know who they are taking into their midst as servants, and it frequently happens that these girls are the confederates of burglars. They come for the purpose of spying out the premises, and from time to time report the internal arrangements to their "men." At the proper moment, the burglar, who has thus acquired a sufficient familiarity with the house, is admitted by the girl. He performs his work sometimes without detection, but sometimes adds murder, or attempts at murder, to his crime. ”

“ What do those reporters expect of a man? Do they want [288] him to shoot everybody in sight, cut the dog’s throat, carry out everything valuable, and burn the house down? Can’t they understand that the burglar’s first thought is the loot and his second thought is to get out of the house as quietly and quickly as possible without harming people when they wake up on him? And what madness for the householder to try to corner a burglar in the dark, prepared to resist capture but not to kill for loot. ”

“ The speaker was flourishing a long house broom, with the thick end of which she delivered another blow on the burglar’s head.
Peace was quite unprepared for this unlooked-for assault; he caught hold of the broom and swore a terrible oath.
A struggle now ensued between the two, Peace held firmly on the end of the broom, and the old woman above clung tenaciously to the handle.
“Murder! thieves! police! help!” screamed the woman, in a shrill penetrating voice, which rang like a clarion note in the night air.
“You nasty, ugly, good-for-nothing, thieving scamp!” she continued. ”

“ Burglars guard against the ordinary precautions which they think a live policeman will take to prevent their crimes or to capture them. Do not imagine that every burglar or thief wears a peak cap, box coat, sweater, striped trousers or bull-nosed shoes, so typical of stage burglars. They realize that to dress in such a manner would arouse immediate suspicion, and, accordingly, dress and carry themselves in a manner least likely to attract attention. They do [30] not, as most persons fancy, carry burglary tools on their persons at all times. ”

“ He had seen the window left open and had taken the chance.
The burglar softly opened the door of the lighted room. The gas was turned low. A man lay in the bed asleep. On the dresser lay many things in confusion -- a crumpled roll of bills, a watch, keys, three poker chips, crushed cigars, a pink silk hair bow, and an unopened bottle of bromo-seltzer for a bulwark in the morning.
The burglar took three steps toward the dresser. The man in the bed suddenly uttered a squeaky groan and opened his eyes. ”

“ They are not as successful as the others in their operations, and are most frequently arrested. Indeed the arrests for burglary reported by the Police Commissioners occur almost exclusively in this class. A really first-class burglar in a prison cell would be a curiosity in New York.
Closely allied with the Safe-blowers and bursters is a class known as Bed-chamber Sneaks. These men are employed by the burglars to enter dwellings and obtain impressions in wax of keys of the places to be robbed. ”

“ By a professional burglar, say! I really believe——”
“Oh, let up on that professional burglar business! No burglar is going off without his loot, when he has uninterrupted time enough to kill a person twice, with poison and then, to hide that, with a fractured skull! How do you explain, even in theory, those two murderous attacks?”
“Good Lord, man, I don’t know! It’s all the most inexplicable muddle. I don’t see how any of the things could happen, but they did happen! You’re the detective, not I! Aren’t you ever going to discover anything?” ”