The Keyless Alarm Lock.

Cromwell Argus, Volume 2, Issue 86, 4 July 1871, Page 7

The Keyless Alarm Lock.

From the New Zealand Mail, a now weekly paper published in Wellington, we clip the following description of a recent colonial invention : Our attention having been drawn to a description of an ingenious lock, invented | by our old townsman, Mr James Osgood, which appeared in the Melbourne Argus of the loth February, we wore anxious to examine a piece of mechanism so highly spoken of. Mr Osgood, who, we believe, has applied for letters patent in the other colonies, having several of the locks a.id drawers with him, took a good deal of pains to explain its mechanism and workings, and the manifold advantages. At the first glance, and on seeing the lock " put through its facings," as it were, it suggests an idea that however plain the drawer look's on the outside (for there is ! no outward sign of fastening to be seen), the inside mint conceal some very complicated machinery ; but the principle can be grasped in a moment, and the great advan- ; tage such a lock and drawer afford to all kinds of dealers who take money over the counter is at once suggested. To the publican, to every description of shopkeeper, ■ to railway, telegraph, and post-office clerks, who, as a matter of business, would wish to exercise a control over their till to the exclusion of everyone else, this lock is the very disideratum. It is a complete protection against all ingeuuity of the picklock. j After having examined it for a considerable i time, we can endorse the following descrip- ! tion of the patent from the Aryus as being ! very correct and full, at least as far as the i inventor cared to make it at the time : A new and highly ingenious method of 1 securing drawers or tills against robbery I was brought under notice recently by Mr \ James Osgood (formerly of Dunedin and i Wellington), of 28 Collins-street West, ! Melbourne, the patentee of a keyless alarm i lock. Shopkeepers are so liable to have i their counter-drawers emptied of the ready i cash contained in them, that no doubt they will be rejoiced to hear of a plan by which their money can be rendered safe from the attacks of petty thieves. Ordinaly locks are of no service to persons who require to be constantly opening and shutting their drawers. The new lock has no key, and can be opened and closed as readily as a spring lock, with this important additional | advantage, that only the owner of the ! drawer, or those whom he may let into the ! secret, can undo the fastenings. The sej curity of the lock arises from the fact that | it admits of being fastened according to ; any one of thirty-one different methods, | so that a person who knew the principle | by which the drawer was secured, but was unacquainted with the particular method which the owner ha I adopted, would be certain to fail in his first attempt to undo it; and (such is the mechanism of tho lock) his failure would not only sound an alarm, but double lojk the drawer, and completely baffle ad further effort on his part to open i*. No difficulty, however, would be experhnced by the owner of the drawer in unlocking it; he would see at once, even if he should not have heard the alarm, that some one had been trying to meddle with his lock. The extra fastenings would yield immediately to the properlyapplied touch of his fingers ; and then the drawer would open as if it bad not been j tampered with. No trouble seems to be ; necessary for the ordinary opening or closing of the lock. The drawer has merely to be pushed back into its place to cause the lock to close of itself, and the fingers which pull the drawer out at the same time serve to undo the fastenings. A slight pressure from the fingers, on the right spots, does all that is requisite; The knobs or points to bo touched by the fingers are placed on the under part of the drawer, and would not be seen from the front of a counter; n.>r even if they wore visible would they give any clue to the mode of fastening adopted. There would bo nothing on the face of the drawer to show that it was fastened at all. The look itself is placed at the inner end of the drawer, quite out of reach, and no amount of damage which might bo done to the knobs on the front would he]]) to undo it. After an hour's use of a drawer secured by Mr Osgood's lock, one would be able to close and open it as readily almost as if it were without fastenings.