The Century of Inventions of the Marquis of Worcester / from the Original MS., with Historical and Explanatory Notes and a Biographical Memoir

by Marquis of Edward Somerset Worcester

No. LXXXV.

A little ball, made in the shape of a plum or pear, which, being dexterously conveyed or forced into a body's mouth, shall presently shoot forth such, and so many bolts of each side and at both ends as, without the owner's key, can neither be opened nor filed off, being made of tempered steel, and as effectually locked as an iron chest.

NOTE.

The steel fangs with which this instrument is furnished must, like the bolt of a common latch, be chamfered from the point, so that, on its being inserted within the teeth, the bolts will instantaneously spring out; and no power short of the key previously made to fit the wards of the lock will suffice to free those who are thus ensnared. This is evidently one of those discoveries which, though practicable in itself, appears better calculated for swelling the catalogue of the noble Author's inventions, than for any beneficial result likely to accrue to the public from its discovery.