Steal 300-Pound Safe From Owner’s Bedside

Burglars Rig Up Tackle at Window- Also Ransack House, Blow it Open; No One Wakes

Farmer Kinsey and his Family Discover Their Loss in the Morning; Bits of Safe in the Yard

William Kinsey, farmer of Juniper Swamp Road near Middle Village is a sound sleeper. So is Mrs. Kinsey. The little Kinseys have all inherited love of a good night’s rest.
Burglars profited early yesterday morning by the family’s somnolence. They not only ransacked the house from cellar to garret, but stole a 300-pound safe from Kinney’s sleeping room, rolled it to a front window, rigged up a block and tackle and lowered it to the yard. Then they hauled it about one hundred yards away, blew it open and secured its contents, which were worth in the neighborhood of $1,000.
Not once were the slumbers of the Kinseys big or little disturbed. At daylight the farmer was awakened by his wife. As he was dressing he noticed emptiness in the corner where the safe had stood. “By gum,” he exclaimed, “that’s mighty funny wife. Have you moved that safe of ours?” “How could I move the safe, William?” Mrs. Kinsey asked. “You know it weighs 300 pounds.”
The husband scratched his head. Then he called the little Kinseys. None of them was able to throw any light on the mysterious disappearance of the safe until one of the boys said that he noticed, “things in his room were mighty rumpled up.” “Burglars” gasped Mrs. Kinney and the Kinney girls. “Cats-foot!” said Mr. Kinney. “How could burglars get that safe out and not wake us up?”
A systematic search revealed the fact that nearly every drawer in the house had been cleaned out. Kinsey remembered that he had $150 and his gold watch in the safe. Mrs. Kinney thought of her diamond earrings. The zone of search was extended.
A front window on the second floor was found open, and a window downstairs, which had been forced, showed the method of entrance employed by the robbers. The safe was not to be seen.
It was finally determined to call in the police, and Detectives McGratton and Golden of the Newtown station were put on the case. The detectives asserted that it was evident that the safe could not have flown away. They then got to work. The second-story window bore marks which indicated that a block and tackle had been rigged there. There was no mark in the turf beneath the window such as would have been made had the safe been tumbled to the ground.
A trail was discovered which led to a clump of bushes in the corner of the yard. There fragments of the safe were found. A powerful explosive evidently had been used.
Detectives McGratton and Golden, up to that time incredulous, then indorsed the burglar theory. They did not get the burglars though and up to last nigh not a clue had been found.
“It’s a mighty funny case,” said McGratton last night. “I’ve heard of sound sleepers before but I’ll be gin-swiggled if I would have believed that burglars could roll out a big safe from a man’s sleeping room and get it out through a window with a block and tackle and not wake anybody up.”any sense would have mistaken my husband’s joke. At any rate, I’m glad he’s clear. Since the killing of King Humbert I suppose people over there are more careful than ever; but a joke is a joke.”