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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (March 29, 1936)
Safe Cracking Dwindles-But Feminine Forgetfulness Keeps Locksmith Busy Fair Drivers Will Lock Keys Inside Sedans And So His Business Booms SAFE cracking, with police approval of course, has been a profitable occupation for many years for W. A. Robblee, Tacoma, Wash., locksmith. But today It is rapidly dwindling in imjiortance along side another phase of the locksmith's business one In which the feminine influence is making itself felt. In fact, since women have commenced to drive closed cars, safe cracking has become just a sideline for Robblee. Feminine drivers must be more absent-minded than those of the masculine persuasion, Robblee believes. Anyway, drivers of the fair sex leave their keys inside the car or at home so frequently that 40 per cent of a locksmith's business nowa days is getting into locked cars! Robblee has been cracking safes for a couple of decades, and in all that time no policeman has attempted to put him behind the bars. He believes he knows how to open practically every safe. Also, he opens safe-deposit boxes and front doors when absent-minded householders forget and leeve keys inside. II OW do you open a safe, or any kind of a lock, for that matter? Well, that's a trade secret known only to a select group of men, the locksmiths. And, just like Daisy, the locksmith never tells. He doesn't even W, A. Robbies, Tacoma, Waih., locksmith and safe expert, aaya that safe oracklng haa become juet a aldellne with him since women began driving closed cars. He spends a good portion of his working hours opening the doors of coupes and sedans for feminine motorists who have forgotten their keys or left them inside the cars. tell his helpers. They have to learn the business by keeping their eyes open. Th ?re are still a few members of the profession win don't like to be watched while they work. But th :y are pretty old-fashioned, Robblee believes. Anyway, he doesn't mind spectators. Sometimes, when he gets a call for assistance from a motor ist who has locked himself out of his car, a hun dred or more spectators will be watching by the time he has the job finished. Robblee started to learn the locksmithing trade when he was a boy of 13 in Newton, a suburb of Boston. He wasn't told anything by his teacher, a professional locksmith, but he had sharp eyes and a quick mind, so it didn't take him long to acquire the finer points. Then he went into busi ness fpr himself in Tacoma. During his years of experience opening safes, Robblee has been called upon to open a number of strong boxes filled with nitroglycerin by less ethical members of the profession who had been Craftsman Still Opens Nitro - G lycerin - Filled Safes For Police, Too frightened away by police before completing the Job. OPENING a safe in which there is mtro-glycerin is no task for the chicken-hearted. Most safe crackers (those that work without police approval) , open a safe by filling up the cracks around the ' door with soap, then making a soap cup above the top edge of the door in which is poured the thick nitro-glyoerin. They then hang a detonator over the knob on the outside. The concussion that follows explodes the nltro-glycerin inside and blows off the door. When Robblee is called to treat such a safe after the safe crackers have been frightened away, he follows a similar technique. First he pours a neu tralizer in through the door and over the explosive which has leaked out .on the floor. After he is sure that the safe has been washed out thoroughly, he opens the door. Robblee is proud of the fact that he has never opened a safe nor a house for the wrong person. He insists on being certain he is working for the right party before he takes the job. He is particu larly wary of night calls, and says he has no inten tion of going to a dark office or plant and having someone stick a gun in his ribs and tell him to go to work. When one knows how to open safes, one can't be too careful, he believes. Your services might at times come in too handy for someone else! It's Fun Being Crazy1 Says Famous Reno Preacher t , i Brawstsr Adams By BREWSTER ADAMS For 26 Years Reno's Baptist Preacher WE SAT by a prospect hole down in Southern Nevada, the old-timer and myself prospec tor and preacher. The reader will smile and say, "There s a good combi nation, a couple of God's fools who are always seeking treasure in strange places; follow ers of dreams, who be lieve that unlikely places and unlovely hearts are worth pros pecting. Crazy folks." Few people in this world realize the joy of being crazy. Most of the fun I have had was in being a fool. If wisdom makes a happy man, I have never met him. "Old Badger" that was the name they gave him, for he let the badgers do his mining, assaying the dirt they mucked out and brought to the sur face was queer. All prospectors and preachers are, That Is why we get a lot of satisfaction find ing values where the wise and prudent pass them by- It is strange how you can only find real conver sation where there is solitude and silence, such as you find out on the desert. The old-timer never hurries his speech. He has been too long with the silences of the eternal hills. He Is unlike us, for he thinks a lot and Bpeaks a little. But when ho speaks it is from long thoughts, gathered as he worked over tho hills and sat by sagebrush fires alone. His philosophy is deep deeper than ours, for ho has gone deep into his heart. When you leave him, you know you hnve met a better ninn thun you are. He knows real values, for he has dug deep to dig thorn out. OLD BADGER'S find was undoubtedly a rich one the camp nt Gilbert followed it. It was located on a little hill overlooking a vast sea of sage and sand a blow-up from the deep treasury of the earth, carrying values almost to the grass roots. He had swept off the overburden, leaving a beautiful exposure of almost picture gold. Pros pectors know how to dress their windows. Before he could talk of his new-found wealth, hospitality must be served. That's where the wise men of the world think he is crazy. "Money should come first." But to him friends came first. He wiped out the frying pan with a bunch of sage and we ate his bacon and beans, seeming com- Newest Menace to Game Captures Wildfowl With Rice, Auto Exhaust Gas Criminal Invades Sanctuary With Ingenious Method for Killing Hungry Birds HERE'S the latest, most unique "duck-soup" recipe - cooked up by an ingenious criminal who is now the object of a city-wide search by San Francisco police. To one automobile (any make) add one package of uncooked store rice (any brand). Spread the rice lightly but evenly beneath the exhaust pipe of the automobile and leave the car engine run ning. The result is roast duck for dinner! The epicurean offender has been steadily de- IT HAD been a calm night, with a light snow fall ing. In the early morning tho people of South Devonshire found hundreds of strange prints in the snow such footprints as had never been seen before. The mark" apparently were made by a hoof two and a holf Inches across. Perhaps the foot of a young colt except for this weird fact: the beast mui.' have been two-leggedor had only one leg. Tho prints ran in single file, one directly in front of the other. Stranger still, they went across roof tops, through gardens protected by high walls in places where no known animal with hoofs could go. The marks were invariably 8 inches apart, and they appeared in an area covering five different Knglish towns. Hunters .and hounds followed the tracks to a forest. Here the dogs stopped they howled, hacked nwav, and refused to go into the trees. The men. dismayed, went home again and the beast which left tho prints was never discovered. Similnr puzzling prints have been seen in Scot land and in Poland always after know has fallen. How do you account for these curious prints? How were they made by what queer animal? PACE TWO B V straying the wildfowl population of Stow Lake, in the heart of San Francisco's famed Golden Gate Park, by his novel method of theft. He has also caused a large number of that city's pollcejiien to spend much of their time hiding be hind bushes and trees in a fruitless effort to sur prise him. So far they have not succeeded, although park department employees declare the criminal prob ably works his wiles just after sunrise. His tech nique is to park his car close to the edge of the lake, which is a thronged water sanctuary for every type of waterfowl With the engine still run ning, lie then lays a nice, thick, inviting trail of rice from the very edge of the water clear up to the back of his car. Beneath the open exhaust pipe he piles a par ticularly inviting heap of rice. The pile is high enough to reach almost to the pipe's outlet. Hun ger does the rest. One by one the ducks spy the intriguing trail of rice. One by one they peck their way up from the water to the car, And finally one by one they fall insensible, overcome by the carbon mo noxide fumes from the exhaust pipe. So successful has the criminal's policy proved that game wardens, wild-life conservation authori ties and xilice throughout the entire Pacific states area are becoming alarmed lest the San Francisco evildoer's deft trick be imitated in other important centers of waterfowl life. pletely to forget the 'Wealth at his elbow. "It looks good," I offered, endeavoring to open the conversation. "You just can't tell," he replied. "It might pinch out." It was not that he was gloomy about it, but you could see by the look in his eyes that he was think ing back over hopes that had come and had van ished. NOTICING my apparent anxiety, he turned with a sly smile and ventured, "Don't worry pard ner, there's enough enough to sell a mine any way." He is canny this old man of the desert and willing to share the risks as well as the re turns. ' "It's pretty," I started the conversation again. "Sure, it's pretty-prettier than it will ever be when men give their souls and women barter them selves for it. It's clean, too; clean as when God made it. A lot cleaner than it will be when it gets out there." And he waved his hand toward the civilization I had left. "I think sometimes that I would like to cover it up and let it lie untouched and untainted. I think of the kiddies it might feed, of homes it would build, of happiness it could bring, and then I think of other greed for it and the mad struggle of men to possess it. Sometimes I can see blood upon it stains of human strife upon my gold, and I wish I could put the dirt back on it. But I guess I am no different than the rest: I want the money," he added. "What were your feelings when you found it?" I asked him, for I had often wondered what was the sensation of finding wealth so suddenly. "Well, you see, it was like this. I grubbed around this hole a badger had made, cleaned it out and sunk a short hole and then I found this piece of float. It surely looked rich too rich. I thought it was too rich, too good to be true. There must be something wrong. Maybe it was the lucky piece we old-timers always carry in our pockets. You never see one of us without it, you know. But I looked in my coat and it was there and this was here. Then I thought I must be dreaming it. You know a prospector dreams a lot about finding some thing good. I burned my fingers with a match to see if it hurt and decided it was real and that I was awake. "Then I began to worry. Honest, Reverend, the sweat poured out on me. I climbed the ladder and looked off over the trail, certain that someone would come and steal it. I piled dirt over my dis covery, took the ladder away and hid it. I went and examined my stakes to see that they were in order. I imagined a thousand ways I might have it taken from me. Well, I was so worked up and so nervous that I knocked off for the day. That night I never slept a wink, the first, night in months, for you know we old-timers make a business of sleeping!" WEALTH and worry. I knew what he meant, for I had seen it so often in civilization so-called. Men who gain and who lose so much with the gaining. The cares of this world destroy so much of peace and tranquility. "Well, I suppose you will sell it and go to the coast for a good time," I offered. "No," he replied, apparently quite ready for me, as they always seem to be. "You see. there was a Swede I knew who made a rich strike and planned to go to the const. He got in such a hurry that he lit a short fuse and the rock blew off the tip of his nose. It is a wonderful climate and the Swede put the piece back and tied a bandana around it. It healed perfectly, but in his hurry he put it on wrong side up. That was ail right in this dry country, but MYSTERY SHIPS The Kobenhavn Modern And Sound, Yet She Disappeared ONE of the greatest sea mysteries since the war was the disappearance of the five-masted Danish barque Kobenhavn, which vanished like the legendary Flying Dutchman. In December, 1928, she sailed from Montevideo, bound for Melbourne to take Australian wheat to Europe. She was sighted by a steamer two days from the River Plata and never seen again. Al though she carried wireless equipment, no mes sages of distress were sent out. Was the storm (or whatever disaster overtook her) too sudden? It seems incredible. Ships searched vigilantly for her. No wreckage, no lifeboats or evidence of her fate was found. She went down supposedly carrying 60 appren tices and a crew of expert seamen sailormen who knew their business, and boys from the best Dan ish families. Not one survived. The Kobenhavn was more than an ordinary sail ing vessel. Built in 1921 at Leith, Scotland, she was 6000 tons deadweight, fitted with a Diesel engine for mild winds and calm days one of the best equipped sailing ships afloat. Her log had recorded as much as 305 miles for a day's run. A few weeks later, January 21, 1929, a mission ary on Tristan de Cunha Island reported a wrecked sailing ship. It looked like a ghost ship, driving in through the mist, and was five-masted. Painted like the Kobenhavn a white band around the hull she was apparently unmanned. The vessel was three miles out when first observed. It drifted in past the reefs, through water too rough for the missionary's boat. He last saw her within a quarter of a mile from shore, within the dangerous reefs. She began to sink. Buff-colored boxes washed ashore, and a flat-bottomed boat. Were the crew all dead? Had the ship been de serted far out at sea? There is no certainty that the wandering vessel was the Kobenhavn. Lands men seldom are accurate about ships and the sea. Seven years have passed since her disappear ance, and the puzzle is as great as ever. The polar regions may give up their secrets after manv years, as the Ice melts but the sea is not so kind. when he went to Los Angeles it rained and drowned him." I SAW it was time for me to go, so I said goodbve and added, "I hope to see you in the Better Land. You know the Good Book savs that "the streets of that city are paved with gold.' " "So I have read," he answered, with a wink of his keen eye. "And if they let me in I hope to knock off a few good specimens for myself. "Goodbye, Reverend." CoCTntht. ly.
