Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/176

160 made to get in by the cellar door; in which they so nearly succeeded, that the arm of one was visible from within; but the besieged being on the alert, the villain retired his arm in great haste, to avoid the thrust to which it was thus exposed, and the effects of which he did but just escape. At four o'clock in the morning, the assailants drew off; but their retreat would have been cut off by the timely use of a bell, at any moment of their endeavours to break in.

"A word to the wise is enough," or ought to be so; this descriptive narrative speaking more than volumes can, to persons who are open to practical advice; let the morose and the selfsufficient suffer, if they neglect it.

A very common practice is, to break a pane of glass near the window-fastening, which can be soon displaced by introducing the hand at the aperture thus made. Shop windows are frequently entered by the same means; but the breaking is generally effected with a glazier's diamond: as the shopmen are near at hand and might hear the glass fall, a sucker is employed and placed on the pannel in the first instance; then having