Oddest Scheme of All

1895

"You can talk about burglars," said Lieutenant Blow of the United States Navy when his turn came, "but the oddest scheme in the way of protection I saw in a big down town office the other day."

"Go ahead with the story," remarked one of the little group of professional men.

"Well, it was one of those big, roomy offices, with desks planted all over the floor. I was waiting for one of the firm to come in. While I sat there another partner came, opened his roll top desk and pulled off a silk lined overcoat, slipped one end of a chain into a sleeve of the coat, passed the chain around the arm of the chair and joined the ends with a spring padlock. After that he folded the coat, put it down on the seat of the chair and sat on it and began work. He did it in the most everyday sort of fashion. When I looked around the office, I noticed that every man in it had his coat chained to his chair."

When the lieutenant had finished, every man in the group was looking at the dining room clothes rack. — Chicago Times.


A Correction

"Who is the author of the song, 'Ben Bolt?'" asked the New York girl.
"Thomas Dunn English," said the Philadelphia girl.
"That cannot be the name," said the Boston girl.
"Why not?"
"It must be Thomas Did English." — New York Press.

The Mexican Secret Service

1895

It Keeps an Eye on the Affairs of Public and Private Men.

"The secret service of the French republic is generally considered to be the most perfect spy system in the world," said Oliver Beach, a traveling man of St. Louis, "but in my humble opinion the department of private intelligence supported by Mexico surpasses it both in extent and intricacy. A couple of years ago I was accidentally permitted to get an insight into its workings, and I was astounded. One would imagine that a great private detective agency would be a necessity only in a country like Russia, where the life of the ruler is constantly threatened, but down in Mexico there is a system of espionage that extends to every part of it.

"The motives of every public man in Mexico are not only perfectly well known to the government, but every visitor is subject to scrutiny. It was President Diaz who first established the chain of secrecy that now holds all the people in its links. Every now and then one will be surprised to see a body of Mexican troops hurried off to some remote place in a faroff state. None will know the reason, but the fact will soon become known that the government has prevented an embryo revolution from gaining strength and force. A considerable number of Americans residing in Mexico do so because the law will make it unpleasant for them in their native places. The Mexican secret service has the private record of each of these, and if any of them shows too much activity in Mexican affairs there is an arrest. The United States authorities are notified, and extradition of the prisoner follows. Yes, sir, the Mexican secret service is the greatest of them all, and its ramifications extend everywhere over the republic, and a good way on this side of the border." — Washington Star.

The Story of a Mean Man

1901

This is the story of a mean man. He may not be the meanest on record, but he carries a very fair brand of closefistedness. He had a contract to supply a certain amount of crushed stone. The machine he used could turn out all the work he could get by running eight hours a day.

The mean man had an engineer who was a genius. The genius went to his employer one day and said he thought he could make some improvements in that machine so it would do more work in less time. The genius was paid by the month.

He worked on the machine for several days, taking it apart and putting it together again. When reconstructed, it proved to have greater efficiency than before, so much so that it did the same amount of work in one minute and a half that it used to take four and a half to do.

The mean man, however, could get no more contracts than before. He could fill all his orders by running about three hours a day. The mean man then went to the genius and said: "See here, Henry, I've been paying you by the month, but there isn't as much work as there used to be — not enough to keep you busy. I shall have to pay you by the hour after this." Henry demurred. He had been too faithful, but he didn't think that ought to reduce his earnings over one-half. His employer was firm, however, and Henry resigned. — New York Mail and Express.

Holding His Job For Him

1901

"Of all the excuses I have ever heard from people for not paying their bills," said a collector for a prominent firm the other day, "I got the neatest today from a very wealthy man who always owes the house a bill. No matter whether the bill is for $10 or $100, he always pays $5. I have gone back the next week and got $5 more, and once I went back twice in one week, and he paid me $5 each time and seemed glad to see me. I got to know him pretty well, and the other day I asked him why he did not pay it all, as I knew he had the money."

" 'Well,' said the old fellow, "if I pay you everything I owe you at one time you will collect so fast that pretty soon you will be out of a job for the want of something to collect.'

"I don't know whether that was his reason or not, but I let the subject drop and am just going around there now for another $5. — Memphis Scimitar.

Taft Baffles the Secret Service Men

1910

President Taft has thrown a bombshell into the ranks of that portion of the secret service which is assigned to the duty of protecting the chief executive of the nation from assassination. It is a soft job for the secret service men and often leads to something better, several of those who formerly guarded presidents now holding government positions that pay well and make the holder a man of some consequence in his home territory.

It is feared among Chief Wilkie's men that some of them will have to be looking for other jobs if the president continues to go out for long walks through the busiest streets of Washington unprotected. The president has "had the laugh" on several of the sleuths recently when, without making any announcement of his intentions, he left the White House and started out for a walk. Generally he has been accompanied by some cabinet official, but none of Wilkie's men was along.

On his last walk the president was accompanied by his brother, Charles P. Taft, the millionaire Cincinnatian. They walked up to the capitol and strolled through its wide halls.

So far as runs the memory of Alonzo Stewart, deputy sergeant at arms of the senate, and that is a full generation, it was the first time that a president has visited the capitol on the Sabbath day.

On another occasion the president walked through Pennsylvania avenue, Washington's most prominent business street. He was wearing a sack coat and a gray sweater.

"That looks like President Taft," remarked one man as President Taft passed the five-cent theaters on the avenue. Brig. Gen. Clarence Edwards, who was with the president, giggled and the president smiled. Mr. Taft did not look much like himself in his sack coat with sweater underneath.

The walk began when the president and the general eluded the secret service men at the White House. They walked briskly down to the Potomac flats, along the Southern railroad right of way and back through South Washington, around the capitol building and library. The return trip was down Pennsylvania avenue at dusk.

A president who walks the streets of Washington is too much for Washington. Mr. Taft's predecessors rode in carriages or took their "constitutionals" across country.

The Luckless Procrastinator

1914

The procrastinator is always liable to be luckless. To postpone a duty that should be discharged at once is to invite trouble for all concerned.

Many a man who is well disposed toward life insurance is still deferring the purchase of a policy which would be a boon to his family in the event of his death. The would be insurant is in good health today, but tomorrow he may be stricken with a disease that may bar him from the ranks of the insurable.

His reason for putting off securing a policy may he that it is inconvenient at present to pay the premium. But he should consider carefully the fact that life insurance will never be cheaper for him than it is today. His yearly premium on a policy taken out now would be appreciably less than would be the premium on a policy of the same amount taken out when he is a year older. Delay, therefore, will add somewhat to the yearly burden he would have to carry. The best thing for any uninsured man to do is to insure at once. — Leslie's Weekly.

Safeguards Against Thieves

1888

A Reformed Burglar Tells Householders How to Protect Their Property

First of all, I may say that the householder, especially if his house is situated in the suburbs, should count as next to nothing the protection afforded by the night policeman on his beat. I don't mean to insinuate that the night policeman neglects his duty. I believe that, as a rule, he performs it as well as he is able to, and it may be pretty safely relied on that at each time he passes a row of villas he will cast the light of his bull's eye over the front garden, if there is one, and over the house front, and the lower windows and street door. If there is no front garden, he will see that all is right and tight in the area as well. But his beat is a long one, and it is probable he will not pass that way again for an hour, or perhaps longer. So that if there is a job afoot all that those engaged in it have to do is to hide and see the policeman off and they then know exactly how much time they have to get through their work before he can make his appearance again.

Speaking from my experience, and from that of others with whom I have been acquainted, I should say that at least a fourth part of the number of private house burglaries that are successfully committed are assisted by servants. But speaking of ordinary work it is the female servants who are made useful and that quite innocently on their part. Masters and mistresses have no idea what easy simpletons many girls in service are, or how easily they are induced to betray the secrets of the house. And not only girls, but women, cooks and housemaids, who are old enough to know better. A smart chap, with plenty to say and with money to spend, has but to scrape acquaintance with the kind of servants I am alluding to when they are out for church on Sunday and meet them a few times afterward, and he can learn all he wants to know respecting the valuable stuff in the house and where it is kept, and the ways and habits of their employers and when they are at home and when away.

It is not often the burglar himself who in this way goes a-fishing for useful information. Generally speaking, he is not what may be called a "ladies' man." He is very well in his own line, but he hasn't got the good looks or the insinuating ways that go down with the fair sex. That part of the programme is intrusted to the "sweetstuff man." He is an affable, well spoken young fellow, very respectably dressed, and so respectable in his manner that even if he was caught in the kitchen with the servants at houses where followers are strictly prohibited his appearance would disarm suspicion.

It should not be forgotten that the burglar has no particular desire in the pursuit of his calling to run his head into more danger than is necessary, and there is nothing that is so much to his liking as parapet work — getting in at attic windows that are screened by the roof parapet. Not one householder in a score gives a thought as to the security of the attic window. He will have the street door iron plated, with a patent lock on it, and a chain strong enough to hold an elephant, but a catch that can be put back with a bradawl is good enough for the attic window, and all the time it is quite as easy to enter by one way as the other — if the houses stand in a row and one of them happens to be empty. This is one of the opportunities the fraternity are always on the lookout for.

Nothing can be easier than to enter an unoccupied house at the basement, and once within all a man has to do is to walk upstairs and go out on to the parapet, and there, well screened from view by the coping, he can creep on his hands and knees, and by means of the attic windows get into any house he has a fancy for. If it is winter time, and after dark, he will have no difficulty in taking stock of the front windows before he makes the accent, and so ascertaining which of the front rooms are occupied or if the family is at dinner. If the latter he can be pretty sure that the servants are all down stairs, and he can explore the upper rooms without much fear of interruption. This wouldn't be called in the profession tip top work, but it is a means by which householders lose a considerable amount of portable property, and it very rarely happens that the robber is caught in the act.

As regards house fastenings there is, in my opinion, nothing safer for windows than a long thumb screw in a socket, going right through the frame and deep into the sash on both sides of the window. I don't know if there have been any wonderful inventions in that way since I took an interest in such things, but I never saw a door fastener except the thumb screw that should give a workman a minute's trouble. For the street door there is nothing so good as a flat bar fastened to a pivot to the center, so that it will extend across the jambs and drop into slots made on the plan of a watch and chain swivel. For window shutters the cheapest and best protection is a lightly hung bell on a coil spring. But better than locks, bolts and bars is a wiry little dog that, roaming loose, will open his pipes and let all the house know it the moment he hears a suspicious noise at door or window. — London Telegraph.