Lock-picking and Lockpickers.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1027, 24 January 1882, Page 2

Lock-picking and Lockpickers.

Lock-pickino Considered as a Fine Art. It was De Quincey, I believe, who, in writing upon the subject of murder, proposed to classify it as one of the fine arts. From the startling revelations upon the subject of lockpicking made in the Resident Magistrate’s Court, on Thursday last, lock-picking, if not deserving of being numbered in De Quincey’s category for murder is at all events a business of sufficient importance to the public generally to merit, their careful attention. I do not in the slightest degree presume to make comment upon a case nub judi.ee. I merely deal with the abstract question of lock-picking. “ I could,” said Burch, make a lock-pick that would open 150 locks in Gisborne, without my first seeing the lock.” Oh ye bankers! ye merchants! and ye men of vast estate ; when the labor of tbe day is past; when ye have locked the room that contains your mortgaged securities, your title deed- your m *ghty treasure, and the result of years of labor; think ye upon the fact that a plain “Jack of all Trades” can, without seeing the locks, make a pick-lcck— a simple piece of wire bent so as to open a lock—and with that contrivance alone open 150 locks in Gisborne. It might have been better if the techinical details of the art of lock-picking were not so generally known. Perhaps, after all, it is just as well, now that the public generally may share the full knowledge, so that if any of us desire to

take up the bujuaess, we may ail start fair. For those who do not like the trade they caa remember that to be forewarned is to beforearmed. LOCK-PICKING CONIIDIBED JOB Amateubs. It is true that amateur lock-picking hae it* disadvantages. “ Au amateur,” says Mr Burch, “ is a person who is learning. Amateurs opening a look with a lock-pick would leave scratches of the pick on parts of the lock where the pick ought not to go.” That is a piece of information that I desire to impress upon the minds of my readers. If any them returning to their places of business in the morning find that during the.night they have been robbed by some one picking the lock of their office they can, if tha hypothesis of Mr Burch be reliable, solace themselves, almost instantaneously, with the oomfort of knowing whether they have been plundered by au expert, or an awatsnr. Poesib'y the number of scratches on the “tumbler” of the lock, would boar an equal ratio to ths amateur’s (degree of prolciency-. Thus, a graduated scale might be arrived at, and a calculation made, as to what longer period the student would have to remain ou probation before the chrysalis condition of a swell lockpicker was attained. For even Burch, himself, I presume will net attempt to controvert the argument that although all amateurs may not become experts, yet all experts in the embryotic state of their career, must have been amateurs. It greatly depends upon the amateurs’s natural talent for the business, and the degree of prolciency he makes, whether he ran hope to aspire to irst-class honors as a lock-picker. Jf there be any gentlemen in Gisborne whose proclivities might lead them in the direction indicated, beyond the ordinary attention to business, and the usual display of energy and perseverance, t* ere is no reason why they should not hope for a fair amount of success. The seeker after knowledge as lock-picker, need but visit Mr Burch. On demand he will furnish him with the aeeeseary wire, at least he did so in Berry’s case. The applicant, therefore, need have no hesitation in demanding the wire to pick any lock. If he has served some months in gaol, is wellknown to the police, and is in fact a noted bad character, throe little trifles may militate against h’s taking up the study of lock-pick-ing, If no enquiry be made as to your — ■what’s offensively called—“ respectability," everything will be all serene. Merely intimate that you require a piece of wire to open a lock—“ You pays your money, and you takes your choice.” But if you go to a chemist’s shop, and buy sixpennyworth of stiyehaine, and should you be impelled with a curiosity to penetrate what Voltaire calls the “grand secret,” by drinking the fatal draught, the chemist who supplied you will most likely be prosecuted, because he furnished you with a means of gratifying a morbid curiosity. If, perchance, some observant penna, taking an interest in your pcs/ morfem examination, lias beheld a wild look ia your eyes, the unfortunate chemist may, possibly, get twelve months, or two years, for vending poison to a lunatic. But should your search after knowledge and wealth, direct your talents in a different direct’on, for instance, a curiosity to know what is in your neighbor’s cash-box, nothing is to prevent your visiting the unsestl'.etic Burch. You demand a piece of wire—a piece of wire, and nothing more. You tell him you want to open a lock. Io« need not be too act urate as to what lock. It is not Mr Bureh’s business to request a certificate of character, or to ask who are your sureties As an honest, industrious man he lies quite enough to attend to. He carries on hie business openly in the eye of the law. Nevertheless it is due to the public that they should know that lockpicking is a branch of the jack-of-all-trades-and-nothinjj-in-particular enterprice, and that the indiscriminate supply of pieces of wire for opening locks, with instructions as to how to proceed, as evidenced in Sony’s case, throws unusual facilities in the hands of persons evilly disposed. A terrible temptation to wrong-d Aug is placed in the way of persons so inclined. The look-picking business is like dynamite—it requires careful handling* Lock-Pickers. I am not acquainted with many lock-pickers. In fact within the whole range of wy varied acquaintance, an extensive one too, including many wealthy persons, many persons who are living upon the reputation of a squandered fortune, or a heavily mortgaged run ; many persons who never will be wealthy, such as journalists, shorthand writers, and men who, before the Gaming and Lotteries Bill became law, used to have “ under-and-over ” on racecourses, but I only know one lock-picker. His name is—well, it doesn’t matter. From the only living example how before my mind, they are men of divers talents, work hard, but Christianity, as practised in the modern churches, don’t seem to be their strong suit. Burch could make a pick-lock that would open 150 locks in Gisborne, but he does not know the day of the month Christmas Day falls upon • “ And this is in a Christian land where men kneel down to pray." He knew what day Boxing Day fell upon, bccauxe he had an Aunt Stilly on the Racecourse ! He was confident, however, that New Year's Day was the beginning of the year, because it was the Ist of January ! I am discouraged with the study of lock-pickers. Perhaps, after all, it is a mental peculiarity of lock-pickere, to have the organ for determining dates, abnormally small. I wonder what Professor Fraser would say about it. It is to be hoped that seme such explanation as the foregoing is the correct one. For the sake of the district, let anything at all be hoped, rather than it should be thought that now in the nineteenth century, in this great era of enlightenment, when so much power is placed in the hands of the people, that there is to be found a sentient being amongst us who has arrived at the years of maturity, ignorant, as was Mr Burch on Thursday last, of the birthday of the Great Founder of Christianity. • • • • Viscovnt de Whatatutu and Lord Repongaere spoke very fairly at the meeting at Dan Page’s, on Saturday afternoon last. These distinguished noble-men fully sustained the reputation they hold amongst their friends for possessing common sense. How nice it is to find the Patricians, the Shepherd Kings, leave their snowy flocks upon the mountains, to meet the plebiana, and confer with the commons upon the great affairs of the County, nay, the Colony at large. It reminds one so of the good old Boman days, when “ None were for a party, “ All were for the State ; “ And the rich man loved the poor man, “ And the poor man loved the great.” Relinquishing for the moment, Macauley’s poetical lay, it would have been altogether impossible for an Association of the character proposed to approach being a success without the aid of the majority of every class in the community. Verily the movement is for the good of all. Mr Matthews, the Manager of the local Bank of New Zealand, was quite right in his views upon the question of subscription. Speaking personally, I am seldom the recipient of anything for nothing (that is to say anything worth having) in these impecunious times ; but a feeling is abroad that what is got for nothing is not appreciated. Half-a-crown subscription places it within the power of almost the poorest man in the Bay to be a

maaabar of ths Association, and to have as big a voice ia the business of the meetings as the wealthiest ia the land. If'tradesmen, country people, and working men without land, but living in Lopes, do not avail themsalves of the liberalism that characterises the preaent movement, they have iiO one to blame but tliwniielves. I Lear'that since the late election the country people as well as the townspeople are perfectly uu full iu questions of joint tenancy, tenacy in common, and “ prohibitory-alienatory clauses ” of the so-and-so section of such and such an Act. In my young days, when we used to form Cricket Clubs and that sort of thing, the first step taken was to give it a name. The appelations were generally derived from some member of the Royal family, “ Prince Albert C. C,” w The Prince of Wales,” Ao. The name baa not yet been given to the Association. Of course it will be the “ East Coast Land Association." Everybody, as the speakers said, must back up the organisation. ♦ • a # TALKijre about Associations, there is one of an osculatory character that has, if that old girl Kumar be correct, been in existence for some time past. The scene of operations is confined to a country school. Wnetlier iu ils growth this particular Association will develops into what in Ilepwortk Dixon’s “Spiritual Wives,” is known a* the Ebeiiau theory, I cannot say. One thing is evident that iu educational establishments supported by ths State at an enormous cost, the conventional notion of morality cannot bu upheld where the scholastic tendency is f r the teacher to kiss the big girls. The attachment doubtless, may be of a purely Platonic charaoter, but as much modern legislation, such as the Education Act, 1877, has taken place since the days of Plato, perhaps tha local Committee will move in the matter. Mops us.