fig. 14. The same, with a portion of the front let down, shewing the key-hole.
From the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries locks were made in France, on which a vast amount of care and expense was bestowed. They were, in an especial degree, decorative appendages as well as fastenings. They were of three kinds: room-locks, buffet-locks, and chest-locks; they were fixed on the outside of the door or lid, so as to be fully visible. The key had a multitude of perforations which bore no particular relation to the wards of the lock, but which were regarded as tests of the workman’s skill. The honorary distinctions awarded to apprentices and aspirants in the art depended very much on the number and fine execution of these perforated keys. The locks, considered as fastenings, had slender merit; although usually throwing four bolts, they were not very secure. [Fig. 13] represents the exterior of a lock made about the year 1730, by Bridou, a celebrated Parisian locksmith. It was a lock belonging to a coffer or strong chest; all the works being sunk below the level of a carved architectural moulding or ornament. There is a secret opening near the part C, forming a portion of the ornamental design; it allows a bolt, shewn at D, [fig. 14], acted on by the spring E, to be touched, by which a doorway opens upon the hinges at B B. A A are a sort of pilasters, which aid in forming a hold for the bolts. The little ornament at C is drawn down by the hand, opening the secret door and revealing the key-hole G. S S, O O, Z Z, are ornaments fastened on at b c d, [fig. 14], by nuts and screws, intended to display the skill of the workman. The lock itself, access to the keyhole of which is obtained within the secret door, has nothing very remarkable about it.
fig. 15. Examples of true and false keys.
Mr. Chubb, in his paper read before the Institute of Civil Engineers, illustrated the insecurity of the warded lock by the example of one which had actually been placed in the strong-room of a banking house, and which is represented in the annexed cut ([fig. 15]). The wards are here shewn, surrounding the central key-pin; and from the appearance of the key, shewn at a, it is evident that these wards must have been rather complex. But the uselessness of the wards was proved by the result. A burglar employed an instrument, shaped like that at b, having on one of its faces, or sides, a layer of wax and yellow soap; this instrument, being introduced through the keyhole and turned a little way round, brought the soft composition in contact with the ends of the wards, and these ends thus left their impress on the composition. A false key was then made, as at c, which, however clumsy it may appear, has a cavity, or vacuity, where there is a cavity in the true key; and by such a surreptitious instrument was the lock opened. Even so rude an instrument as d, by passing round the wards, might open such a lock.
We are somewhat anticipating the full consideration of this subject; but it is desirable at once to explain how and why an improvement on the warded lock was sought for.
In connexion with the fanciful eighteenth-century locks, lately adverted to, we may remark, that no less a man than Louis XVI. was an amateur workman in this department of mechanical art—or at least in smith’s work, which in France is generally considered to include lock-making. Sir Archibald Alison says, in his History of Europe:—“He had an extraordinary fondness for athletic occupation and mechanical labour; insomuch that he frequently worked several hours a-day with a blacksmith of the name of Gamin, who taught him the art of wielding the hammer and managing the forge. He took the greatest interest in this occupation, and loaded his preceptor in the art with kindness; who returned it by betraying to the Convention a secret iron recess which they had together worked out in the walls of the cabinet in the Tuileries, wherein to deposit his secret papers during the storms of the Revolution.” There are not wanting indications that the unfortunate monarch wrought upon locks, as well as upon safes and strong-rooms.
Besides wards, there have been numerous other contrivances for adding to the security of locks—including screws, escutcheons, spiral springs, wheel-and-pinion work, alarums, and multiple bolts. As these are not of sufficient importance to be treated in separate chapters, we shall here give just so much notice of them as will illustrate their general character. Some of them are found combined with the “tumbler” principle, presently to be described; but all of them, it is now well known, were employed in various, ways when the tumbler lock was but little understood, and when the warded lock was held in esteem.
The Marquis of Worcester, whose curious Century of Inventions, written nearly two hundred years ago, contains so many suggestions which ingenuity has since developed into practical completeness, gives four of his inventions in the following words:—