THE ELECTRIC BURGLAR-ALARM. 57 



workmanship the modern safe-lock. The burglar's tools are not such 

 as are thwarted by nice mechanical combinations. Explosives and 

 the simple mechanical powers in his hands have a wonderful range 

 of utility, and are able to frequently set at naught the most elaborate 

 contrivances. The protection afforded by these combined agencies is, 

 however, only realizable to its full extent in the business centers of 

 large cities. In resident districts, and in suburban and country situa- 

 tions where policemen are often few and far between, reliance has 

 chiefly to be placed upon fastenings ; and these often prove insufii- 

 cient. Yet it is especially important to the owner of property that 

 his protection be good, for recovery is very difficult. The advan- 

 tages are so largely with the thieves, that they can frequently make 

 the search a long and costly, and often a fruitless one. The cost is, 

 in fact, the main bar to recovery. Only when stolen property is of 

 large value does it pay to regain it. Small amounts, such as are 

 usually taken from private houses, are practically irrecoverable. 



No practicable extension of the ordinary agencies can greatly in- 

 crease present security. Bars and bolts have now approached very 

 closely to their limit of strength and ingenuity, and police surveil- 

 lance is as extensive and perhaps as effective as circumstances will per- 

 mit. Greater protection must be sought in some further agency one 

 that will reproduce as nearly as possible the condition of watchfulness 

 present in the daytime. This the electric burglar-alarm is designed 

 to do, and does with a good degree of success. In its earlier forms 

 there were many defects, but in a development of twenty years these 

 have been mostly corrected. It has now attained to a simplicity of 

 construction and certainty of action that make it one of the most use- 

 ful and trustworthy of man's servitors. Though widely known and ap- 

 preciated both in this country and abroad, there are probably many not 

 acquainted with it, to whom a brief description will not be without value- 

 However the details of construction differ, the essential elements 

 of every system are, a bell to give the alarm, an annunciator to indicate 

 the point from which it proceeds, wires from all the openings of a 

 building, and a battery to furnish the current. These elements are 

 combined in various ways, depending upon the special circumstances 

 of the particular case, but the manner of use is practically the same. 



The main piece of apparatus, remarkable alike for the simplicity of 

 its construction and the range of its performance, is the annunciator. 

 In the earlier forms of the alarm, the indications were made by means 

 of a simple switch-board provided with buttons bearing the names of 

 the apartments protected. When an alarm sounded, the depression of 

 each of these buttons in turn, until the bell ceased ringing, was neces- 

 sary to determine its locality. This is still quite largely used, as it is 

 cheaper than the more perfect annunciator, which tells at a glance 

 where the disturbance in the circuit is. In shape and size this latter 

 instrument resembles an ordinary mantel-clock. The indications are 



