Insurance companies were noticing a trend. They were getting fewer claims for burglaries. Crime rates, it seemed, were going down. That’s interesting, but it’s some of the article’s peripheral details that interest me most, like this pictures showing tools of the criminals’ trade. One tool is a “jack to raise the safe to position to operate.” Another depicts a three-pegged doohickey suspended in front of a safe. The caption says it’s “the most successful safe-breaking appliance ever invented” but I can’t tell what it is or how it’s supposed to work. Anyone have any ideas?

The article also talks about people who try to scam the insurance companies by faking a break-in when none happened. One jeweler reported a break-in, and when cops arrived they became suspicious. So “the detectives took him to a near-by saloon. When he had had several drinks they took him into the back room of the police station. There he confessed.” Do cops still take suspects for drinks before interrogation?

BURGLARY INSURANCE MEN SAY CRIME IS DECREASING: They Are Paying Less Money for Losses by Robbery Than for Years Past — Flynn Has Reduced the Number of Burglaries Below That in Any Regine Since Inspector Byrnes’s. (PDF)

From April 9, 1911