Locks.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 17, 24 April 1902, Page 15

L o c k s .

Locks were, many years ago, very ponderous ; indeed, so large were they that the key was almost as much as a man could carry. Coming down to 1851 we find (says the Carpenter and Builder) the scientific journals filled with accounts of the lock controversy, as it has been called. In that year Mr Hobbs, an American expert, stated that none of the locks made in this country were proof against a properly-directed assault, and in order to justify his assertion he exercised his ingenuity on a padlock which had been banging in a shop window in Piccadilly for nearly half a century, and to which was affixed a notice offering a reward of 200 guineas to anyone whi should succeed in making an instrument that would pick or open it. After spending 51 hours over the look Mr Hobbs succeided in shooting the bolts backwards and forwards in the presence of several witnesses, but on another occasion, in 1854, Mr Hobbs was unsuccessful, and admitted that the improved lock was more than his match. In order to give one an idea of the precautions that are taken by some makers, we may Bay that Mr Parsons, a lockmaktr, stated thit a lock with 26 levers would admit of 403,291,461,126,665,635,584,000,000 different combinations. The reader will thus be able to understand that it is next to impossible for two keys to be alike, if the method adopted by the best makers is carried out.