They really didn’t think these things out too well, did they?

Light Beam Stands Guard on Prison to Quell Jailbreak

A LIGHT beam as a prison deadline—a beam that when interrupted by a felon bent upon making his get-away operates a machine gun pointed directly at the victim —is the latest addition to prison jailbreak safeguards. The apparatus, consisting of a beam transmitter which shoots a small invisible ray along the prison wall, and a beam receiver which picks up and records any breaks in the light, and at the same time fires a machine gun, is being installed in many prisons housing intractable criminals. Read the rest of this entry »

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Copter Cops

By Frank Tinsley

TODAY’S high-speed turnpikes require ground-bound traffic police to take to the air and graduate to the status of “Copter Cops,” mounted in a vehicle that could speed safely above the car-choked roads and provide a bird’s eye view of driving conditions and dangers. Such a vehicle could go far beyond the utility of the present patrol car. It could control traffic speed, clear jams at bottle- necks, perform emergency rescue work and provide fast aerial ambulance service, plus offering a more efficient pursuit of criminals.
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CAMERA COP In Tokyo can take flashbulb picture of traffic violations (for use as evidence) by touching button on handlebar. Any 35mm camera can be used with the mechanism; no photo skill required.

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Train Robbers Routed by Science and Brawn

ALL the world . loves detective stories. Here is one that deals with real men and tells the thrilling truth about their fight to save millions of dollars in stolen goods. Ten years ago American railroads were losing $13,000,000 a year to box car bandits. On one road, scientific methods and the careful training of road police have now cut off about ninety-nine percent of this loss. In this story you see how these men do their work.

By BOYDEN SPARKES

I LIKE detective stories. Best of all I like stories of real detectives. Consequently when Professor Charles P. Berkey, Columbia University geologist, told me that a pile of rocks on his table was a clue in a mysterious robbery I pleaded for details.

“I’m just a helper on this job,” said Professor Berkey. “The real detectives are members of the New York Central Railroad police force. I am not at liberty to tell you about this case, but if you see Carl Jellinghaus, the railroad’s superintendent of Property Protection, perhaps you can get the whole story.” Read the rest of this entry »

Heat Waves Set Off New Thief Alarm
THE heat from a burglar’s body, even the gentle warmth of his breath, may now be detected by science’s latest contribution to crime prevention, the “heat radio.”

The heart of the “heat radio” is a very tiny and very delicate thermocouple, which is mounted at the focal point of a large metallic reflector. This reflector, shown in the accompanying illustration, collects the feeble heat waves and concentrates them on the super-sensitive thermocouple. Read the rest of this entry »

I hope they don’t have rats at that bank, because it sounds like just about anything would set that alarm off.

New Burglar Alarm Set Off by Vibrations of Heartbeat

THERE have been numerous inventions to foil bank bandits in their hold-up attempts but the latest one is the most original. The vibrations of the human heart-heat set off an alarm bell.
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Tricks of the Rum Runners

A Chicago bootlegger recently remarked that there was at least one honest official in that town—Pat Roche, chief investigator for the State’s Attorney—who couldn’t be “fixed.” For eight years Roche was a special agent for the treasury on the trail of crooked dry agents. He tells here the inside story of the rum runners, and why they flourish.

by PAT ROCHE

Former Special Agent – U. S. Treasury

IN TWO weeks’ time a few years ago, on the strength of a set of credentials purporting to show that I was a prohibition agent, I had $85,000 in bribes handed me as my share of the money being paid a small ring of dry agents in New York.
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Lens Detects Bogus Coins in Subway

THE days when iron slugs and Chinese taels could safely operate the turnstiles of the New York subways is past, for the transit company has recently equipped the coin boxes controling the turnstiles with lenses that magnify the coins to twice the size of a silver dollar. This makes it possible for inspectors to detect spurious coins at a distance of 15 feet from the machine.
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Glass Banks Will Foil Hold-Ups

BANK hold-ups may soon become things of the past if the common-sense but revolutionary ideas of Francis Keally, New York architect, are put into effect. He suggests that banks be constructed with glass walls and that office partitions within the building likewise be transparent, so that a clear view of everything that is happening inside the bank will be afforded from all angles at all times.
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Robot Guards Foil Uprising in Biggest Jail

WITH one foiled jail break to its credit, a new electrical communication and alarm system installed recently in the five-story county jail at Los Angeles, Calif., is believed to make the institution proof against an uprising of prisoners or an assault by armed gangsters from without.

This ultra-modern skyscraper jail, called the largest in the country, occupies the top of a tall building whose lower floors are used as courtrooms. A prisoner attempting escape has the choice of a sheer drop of ten stories, or a desperate dash for freedom through the corridors and elevators. Read the rest of this entry »

Suicide or Murder? ~ Science Tells Which

NO LONGER can a murderer defeat justice by placing the gun in the hand of the victim to mislead the coroner’s jury into returning a verdict of suicide. On the other hand, it will no longer be possible for an innocent man to be convicted of murder on circumstantial evidence if the deceased fired the shot which ended his own life, for science can now identify positively the hand that fired the gun. Whenever a firearm explodes, the generated gases expand and blow backward as well as forward. No firearm has yet been built in which some of these gases do not escape backward. Read the rest of this entry »

“Alarmball” Warns of Burglars

THE “alarmball,” illustrated in accompanying photo, is a clever little device to prevent burglaries. Placed against a door or a window, its own weight pushes the three small legs down and stills a bell, which is controlled by a clock-like arrangement within the walls. The least little movement of door or window upsets device causing the legs to thrust outward, ringing the bell and warning its owner that there’s a burglar on the premises.