Page:The Greene Murder Case (1928).pdf/395

 Again he opened the "Handbuch."

"On page 943 Gross remarks: '' ' The latest American safety devices have nothing to do with the safe itself, and can in fact be used with any receptacle. They act through chemicals or automatic firing devices, and their object is to make the presence of a human being who illegally opens the safe impossible on physical grounds. The judicial question would have to be decided whether one is legally entitled to kill a burglar without further ado or damage his health. However, a burglar in Berlin in 1902 was shot through the forehead by a self-shooter attached to a safe in an exporting house. This style of self-shooter has also been used by murderers. A mechanic, G. Z., attached a pistol in a china-closet, fastening the trigger to the catch, and thus shot his wife when he himself was in another city. R. C., a merchant of Budapest, fastened a revolver in a humidor belonging to his brother, which, when the lid was opened, fired and sent a bullet into his brother ' s abdomen. The explosion jerked the box from the table, and thus exposed the mechanism before the merchant had a chance to remove it. ' '' . . . In both these latter cases Gross gives a detailed description of the mechanisms employed. And it will interest you, Sergeant—in view of what I am about to tell