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Show f rp jit "e o m edy I IMPREGNABLE If JH "OME of the LiUle Things Thai Make a Laugh I Ha Even in Connection with a Safety Deposit bK ' f ." -v :' Niii Hi W ytVi M A Mob from "Little Italy" Went to the ill ' Vault to See the Fiddler Take Out the Savings Bank Book I BY J. B. LIVINGSTONE. HI (Copjrtcbt. JIMO by ibc Ncr, VorL LUruld Co All rights rcsctTcd ) Hi . Xct l'orlc. Saturday B y-v XK of the most Ingenious Inventors of safety I deposit appliances lias devised whnt a Gcr- II "1!in -ecliniL-i;in calls tlic "best twentieth cen-II cen-II tury joke on burglars." It is designed par- ' ilciilnrlv lo foil Hie up to date crook, who Hll ' "" ' "" Htt works noi with drill or explosive, but with the Oxygen D and ncciylcne blow-pipe. This "Joke" Is a safe of steel in polygonal form, IB having many angles, and set in a powerful stone Hi chamber upon nn axis and ball bearings. On the clos-1 clos-1 Ing of the door, the safe, moved by an electromotor, IB begins lo revolve, exposing Incessantly a thanging Hi surface at the point of the chamber used as an en-IB en-IB trance hen the safe '.& at rest. IB Should n burglar tuccecd hi getting a blow-pipe into K operation t'he flame could .not be brought to bear Ww upon any one spot long enough to disintegrate the liS , steel. If he were to try to -heck the revolution of the IR safe a number of alarm bells would ring loudly and ft' the watchman, public or police would do the rest. It'l Safe deposit coined v at the expense of the burglar It I I Is comedy from the outside, but there Is a comedy of w the inside of a vault that provokes a lauglrnow and UtML HB again, though often it may seem next of kiu to B tragedy. H Ignorance on the part of a large sect!onrof the pub- B lie regarding the real objects of safe deposit concerns, K eccentricity in the" uses to which vault space is put V by not a few whu rent 11, carelessness of box or safe B renters, accidents .disclosures that follow the open- B ing of boxes or safes by officers of the civil or crlml- B nal court, or by the vault owners themselves under B the statues with all these "phases of the business B there Is bound up more or less that Is humorous, as H any safe deposit man will 'admit if you approach him H discreetly, B "Some one on Hie 'phone for you, sir," said bis B stenographer to the secretary of the Union Safe Do- B posit Company of Pittsburg. He took- up the rc- B ceiver. Hk HV Voice at the other end; Is that the Union Safe Bi Deposit Company? B Secretary it is. "What can we do for you? II Voice I'd like to rent a box In your vault lrm an Kr Ironworker but non-union, and I want to know S If ihnt shuts me out from the Union Safe Deposit. m With a Binllo to his stenographer, the secretary ex- rji plained that the Union's vault was an open shop for tm legitimate trade. ft At the olllce of a ebneeru In mid-Manhattan a IB wpmnn in deep black and with a countenance as B funereal as her raiment asked to rent a bor. The B ollicials were more llinn ordinarily solicitous and E llie secretary personally escorted her to the vault.' B Plunged in abyssninl melancholy, she told Jiim with B broken voice why she wauled the box. From a piece B of velvet she tool: a small casket of steel. B' ' "It contains the nsbes of my beloved husband, HB HE cremated a few days ago. I shalj place it in the box; HV nothing else Is to go there My thoughts remain B with his ashes through my lifelong widowhood. It m Is my sacred pledge to him on his deathbed. This m -vault is my Mecca for evermore." B Bowing profoundlv, the olllclal led the stricken HE II ok from the steel chamber to her automobile. Three I :? uiontlLs later bhe made her ucx.Uvi.sil. The. morning I -j v i -f-r I v papers ha'd.announced 1191 returnfrom Eurojijijouhe, I n Lusltaiila. Iicr costume was o'f tho gayest. Slit I SiS ' . dagkc- Offering;, 'to "Lick" Anybody and Everybody OncofmcPrivaicCornpartacnt, -"PlfeW ",11 U il I II 1 Lincoln Saic Deposit Co. , I J&W&Kln ' ll l&4 V l"S SSrl ' HMS f .Jsmlled brightly. To the astonished functionary, who recalled vividly her only other appearance In the vault, she said, with a certain shy, half simpering confusion that heightened the charms: of her widowhood: widow-hood: "I shall not need the box any more. I am liking out the casket to scatter the ashes to tho winds of heaven. I nm engaged to be married soon." There are companies that maintain, in nddltjon ts vaults, arranged for safes and boxes, specially constructed con-structed strong rooms where a customer may place a trunk with the company's guarantee -against los through burglary, theft and fire. Last month a concern con-cern decided to open a trunk left years before In It.s "sliver vault" and to sell enough of the contents to liquidate the Indebtedness for storage. ' Its owner during the eighties ami early nineties was a much advertised American author, .writing of high themes and affecting the gorgeous style of Hul-wer Hul-wer Lyttou. in the heyday of prosperity lie rolled around In wealth and a dog carl. Socia!ly"hc was the centre of many a "halcyon and vociferous proceeding." pro-ceeding." Tic was a crack gentleman rider In Ceu-tral Ceu-tral Park, but he came a cropper In various ways eventually and did not recover his seal. Just Photographs. What was found in the trunk silver? No. Valuable Valu-able manuscripts for posthumous publication and the delight of later ages? No; but a collection of 23r photogrnphs of actresses taken betwoen 38S0 and 1 1S9."), each bearlug the signature of the original and a kindly sentiment of nuld lang syne. Among them were Ada Itehan as Kosnllud, Rose Coghhin In "A Scrap of Paper," Marie Proctor as Desdemona, supporting SalvinI tlic great I-'uy Tcm-pleton, Tcm-pleton, slender as u cypress; Lllliun Russell, eighteen and at Pastor's; Gcrnldine Ulmar, 'Marie Stone, Maxlne Elliott as a debutante at Dulys, Modjeska as Queen of Scots, Ellen Terry ns'rortln, Marie Jnn-hon. Jnn-hon. Pauline nail, Sylvia Currish, Gebrgla Cayvna, fresh with the hopes that tilled her ere the shadows fell. All these and others were mixed iu the trunk with a bizarre assortment of overused colored shl7ts, shoos i'wilh frayed lacqs, a few tennis balls, an ink stalmd toothbrush and a box of screws. Sentimentalists might weep for tokens of friendship thus prostituted. Not so with rhc, vault othchds. "It Is to laugh," they --ha Id. ( ??"'" Temporary failure of memory a kind of financial amnesia hasbe'n knownto have comic bas-relleL rVj.'horc js a shrewd buKlnessman wJlicTwpjit tojthe sec-" sec-" relary of a-vnult concern to" coinplninthat railroad .coupon jbondjwwn? misingfrom hls. ..box. lie had( looked everywhere for ItPTt'innst have boon ab-str.ictwl ab-str.ictwl The company should make good the loss. Facing the situation calmly, the olllclal communicated communi-cated with the trust comijany Unit regularly paid the coupons for the railioad janil, when the next coupon on this particular bomlfcamc In, the mystery was cleared up. Tt turned out that the financier had lost not the bond but only his memory oCthc fact that he bad given the bond lo a pretty young woman living in the lower sixties on the west side of Mnnhnttan. When his recollection was-'refreshed by her state--nient to the trust company mid the vault people that "Uncle Dudley gave It to me one evening when he was calling," he wrote a letter of apology and the matter dropped. There weTehose who thought the Incident amusing. "The Uiele Dudleys of New York often give bonds lo their nieces," remarked the secretary secre-tary of the company, "but tYiey rarely forget to make the proper memoranda " ! ' When you go to the vanfj. of n properly conducted safe deposit establishment vto examine your box you are requested to take it "!of the vault and into the cuslomeis room" sometimes called the "coupon "rooip" and to make the hpec(Ion In one of a series of small compartments there. In the compartment to wlilch you are led by an attendant at-tendant you find oidinarllyfii table, chairs, a rug, a waste paper basket, peus.llnk. mucilage, a blotting i pad. scaling wax. a box of matches, scissors and n ' case of the stationery ofrthe concern. You open your bo v. examine the contents, rearrange them, cut off your noupons, write lerjers. Vt'lion you leave the compartment to 'carry your box 'hafk to the vault an mttcudnnt usually enters It at once to tidy It up fljhc use of the next customer. cus-tomer. Naturally he glances around to see If "you 7 . When sho came outshc went tp the secretary of the company and showed him n magnificent diamond-heart, diamond-heart, valued as It turned out at ?30,000. "Found this undor a corner of the rug In the compartment," com-partment," she said. "Felt It with my foot just as I was about to leave." She could have kept It with vory littleJ likelihood of discovery. The owner, who believed tlic ornament secure In the 'vault, was ho much Impressed by the conduct of the actress that she, scut to her a diamond an 90stly as the finest In the heart. And the two are now fast friends. Trembling with distress, a widow told n safe deposit official that her bonds were missing from her box, rented to her and her daughter jointly. Two days before, she explained, she had seen them in the box, nnd the daughter had visited the vault in the meantime. mean-time. The mother wrung her hands. "If my child has yielded to temptation I shall die; I know I shall die,-" she moaned Going with her to the vault, the ofiiclnl explored the box. Then the compartment was searched. But there was nostra ce of the bonds. Returning to the vault, he offered to ast her In putting the box back In the receptacle, re-ceptacle, which was considerably above her head. To his surprise It did not slide in smoothly. Pulling it out', he thrust In his hand. There lay the bonds. They had been not In the box at all, but between the box and the lining of the receptncle. " Safe deposit men refer to such experiences as "Incidents "In-cidents iu our comedy of errors." But manifestly what is fun for the boys may be far from fun for the frogs. Complications ore thicker In a case like the following: Antonio Cavallazzl. aged seventy-five, and , feeble in beaut and limb, had a box In n vault on Manhattan Manhat-tan Island. There he kept a savings bank- book, as his friends knew, especially his dear friends, the fiddler, the chef and the wine dealer. Had he not taken them, one by one, to the box and' showed them the book and the credit entries; and did they riot know that the total was $1,1S."? They were devoted to the venerable Antonio, and he permitted them to call him "Tony." On every high day or "holiday the wine dealer sent him' a bottle of chiautl; the chef contrived often .to slip to have left anything valuable behind. On very busy days, however, a customer mny slip Into the compartment com-partment the instant you withdraw. It Is easy to believe that one might leave something some-thing of Importance In the compartment. As n matter of fact, Mich hiippejilugs are frequent. Nervous, abstracted. ab-stracted. In haste or suddenly summoned, a customer cus-tomer may become careless. On entering a 'compartment Just vacated by a New York dame of fashionable rojiown an attendant found a pasteboard box containing six expensive sets of false teeth. One sot was slightly moist, A few minutes later in an adjoining compartment he noted that the waste paper basket was nearly n third filled with clipped coupons. The customer hnd gone to Iiuropo before he could be warned, and there was no communication by "wlrelos." In another case nn attendant found' carefully deposited In an envelope en-velope In the stationery case $.""..000 In fifty dollar bills. The customer had taken tho trouble to tidy up the table for the" next eonler, and had overdone the work. One of the wealthiest of New Yorks multl-mill-ionnalre circle, a woman from the Far "West, emerged one morning from a compartment, which was occupied forthwith by another customor. On the latter's withdrawal the. attendant entered. During Dur-ing the next three hours the compartment sheltered a dozen persons qt lutcrvals. A $30,000 Discovery. Toward the end of the business day a woinnn of modest means, an actress, used the compartment. the old fellow a crumb that had fallen from a rich man's table; and the fiddler never tired of playing for him the melodies of Italy, It wns not so difficult to understand either. Cavallazzl Caval-lazzl had made them his foster children, lie had taken them separately Into his confidence. "You, my dearest frlcud and favorite son," ho hnd s'nld to each, "can ee that I am not long for this world. And are you not making my lust days comfortable? com-fortable? Well, then, 1 desire that you find n lawyer and hnve a will drawn for me, In which I leave you all. Keep your own counsel. It is my savings I lenve you, and you will remember the old Antonio." For each to get a lawyer, for each to pay that lawyer law-yer for drawing Cuvnllazzi's will as Cuvalhizzl Instructed, In-structed, and for each to keep the existence of the will under which ho wns sole bcueficlary a close secret was easy for fiddler, chef and wine dealer. Cnvallazzl was sternly truo to his pledge of secrecy to each. The three lawyers in Cavallazzl's presence hnd given separately the same opinion. All the devisee would have lo do would be to go to the vault with an order of court after Cavallazzl had passed to his fathers, take the bank book to the bank nnd receive the $l,lSo, "And the interest," murmured the old man; ''don't forget the interest."- 'J ' ' Cavallazzl lived comfortably for a. year or uioi'e nnd, much Abetter than pofclrc. Hls acqalntanccs In IH the Italian quarter could see theMiddlcr never would fl tiro 'of "Funiculi Fnniculn;" tho "cook hurt instead J of helped the old man's digestion, and the wine has- H tened rnther than retarded the Inevitable. BH When "Tony" died the friends vied with each M other In giving him a costly funeral. Awful cursing H began when three wills were submitted for probate. H The fiddler had the one of latest dnte: nnd tho Sur- rogale told the cjaimants under the'-others Jo pre- H sent to the fiddler any bills against Cavalazzi for the iH choice dishes and the wines. BHJ All three, accompanied by their lawyers and a mob M from "Little Italy," went to the vault to see tho H fiddler take out'the savings hank book, and then the H procession moved to the bank. The fiddler's attorney' BBJ made out a withdrawal slip for $1,18."), "We will BAfj draw the Interest later," ho said. lfl Locked in the Vault. jH Handing back theslip nnd the book to the attorney, l the teller 'remarked that the Cavallazzl account M showed a balance of something less than $3. When M the bank watchman, assisted by the police, had B quelled the riot, the bank man explained that Cavnl- M Jazzi, beginning with n deposit of $100, had with- M drawn and rcdcposlted this amount frequently, until M the credit page of the book showed a total of $1,185 M of deposits, and that then the wily Italian had torn H out I he page upon which withdrawals had been en- H (ercd, the result being that the book, if not closely M examined, seemed to show nn unbroken account for H the aggregate deposited. And that very morning tho , M fiddler hnd paid the safe deposit company a year's j box rent of Cavallazzl's arrears. B To be locked Involuntarily in tlic Impenetrable M darkness of a modern air-tight and sound-proof vault M comes pretty close to the nigged edge of tragedy. M But if rescue be timely and effective the victim of the H experience may learn to smile,over 1L M Before a vault la closed for the day with the com H bluntlon and time locks nn official Is supposed to M make sure that no one Is within. At three o'clock of M a recent Saturday afternoon, two hours after a big M vault'had been closed, a vault manufacturer's expert, M working on the outside of a door not often used, ' M thought he detected nn unusual noise in the mcchan , M Ism. PIc laid his ear close, listened awhile and heard It again. He mentioned the circumstance to the manager, i M who had remained late to attend to his letters, but the BVJ official laughed, and soon went to his club. At four BAJ the export thought he heard the noise repeated, no i H wns nlono with the watchman. ) M Strange sensations began to possess him. Suppose ) M there wns some one locked In the vault. The time , lock would not release the bolts till Monday morning, M nnd the air In the vault would not support human life jH more than eight hours. His mind begun to work rap- M Idly. Taking n hammer he tapped once, twice, thrice jH ou the door at which he was at work. His car wns M pressed to the steel. Was there not a knocking ou M the other side, faint but distinct? M He struck the steel again twice, once twice. Thp fl answer was unmistakable twice, once, twice. He B leaped to the switch that turned on the clcctrlc.llgllt M in the vault, thea to the 'phone. His swift message M went in n dozen directions: "There's some one locked ' M In the vault here. Come on your life!" i fl In half an hour the vault was surrounded by com- I M pany officials and safe exjiorts. They understood fully , M the gravity of the case. "It would not be possible to M open those doors, even with dynamite, in seventy H hours," said the safe expert, "and the' first discharge BVJ would kill n human being Inside. There is no possible ' B hope unless we can get him to lift the time lock H clutch that holds the bolts till Monday morning. How B in God's name can we convey that idea to him?" HBB Three hours of effort, anxious consultation, keenest B suspense followed. Every five minutes they signalled B with rnpplngs, and the replies came bacl:. Were they B coming more feebly? Was the air nearly exhausted? B "Was It possible that the mnn would study the dial of B the time lock apparatus and reach the conclusion in- HBfl dopcndently that he could release the bolts by lifting BVB the clutch in plain sight before him? Would his B presence of mind be equal to it? IH Sm i mm-' i i i i ii hi 1 . m HBJ j z :: z- : 1 H Entrance to Vault H Lincoln Safe Deposit Co. jH Every second of this lime a vault olllclal kept H his hand on the apparatus of the combination lock H in order to throw the bolts Instantly if the man jH within even by accident should lift the clutch. Hint- HBHI ijclf of Iron nerveShc shook like a leaf as he thought H how much might depend upon his quickness. Almost on the stroke of seven his shout broke the H suspense of the watcher. "She gives; she gives " j 1 In a tlash he had swung the bolts, the massy door H opened slowly, and the victim of what was almobt H "a growsorae tragedy rushed wildly from the vault, 1 black in the face, gus'plug for breath, in prodigious ' HBHB excitement, and offering to "lick" anybody and H everybody responsible for the job. ne had lifted H the clutch after studying the dial for two hours. H It seems thut he was trapped because, contrary H to the rules, he had seated himself for the examl- H nation of his box just, before the closing hour be- H hind a big desk temporarily In the vault, and had not jBABH been noticed when the inspection wns made. He jH received $o00 as compensation, and the company jH would have given hlin ?n,000 had ho demanded it. If .-H all's well that ends well, this wns comedy. B Perhaps it is on the same or a similar prlnclplo H that most of the blunders, mis'conceptlons and ec-I H ceutrlcitlcs of the safe deposit vault patron have aj ' jB comic Interlude. H 1'hbhbJ |