Protection from Fire and Thieves / Including the construction of locks, safes, strong-rooms, and fireproof buildings; burglary, and the means of preventing it; fire, its detection, prevention, and extinction; etc.

by George Hayter Chubb

Fire-Escape and Steam Fire-Engine in action	[Frontispiece]
	PAGE
Master-Key of Dublin Exhibition, 1865	[4]
Ornamental Key-handles	[6]
Ornamental Key	[9]
Hopkinson’s Patent Window-Fastener	[17]
Chubb’s Patent Diagonal Safe; action of bolts	[33]
” ” ” corner section	[34]
Chubb’s New Patent Safe, 1874, corner section	[35]
” ” ” elevation	[facing 36]
Chubb’s Patent Drill-Preventive; hole made by cutter	[38]
” ” ” cutter used for do	[39]
” ” ” system as applied	[39]
” ” ” cutter destroyed by	[40]
Reward Label for recovery of Lost Keys	[42]
Chubb’s Gunpowder-proof Lock for Safes	[53]
Strong-Room Doors, method of fixing	[61]
Strong-Room, plan of	[64]
” section of	[65]
Dennett’s Fireproof Construction; treatment of columns	[79]
” ” ” sections of arches	[86, 87, 88]
” ” ” section of vaulted roof	[90]
Smoke Respirator	[108]
Sinclair’s Fire-Exterminator	[119]
Merryweather’s Steam Fire-Engine	[124]
” ” ” sections of boiler	[125]
Shand, Mason & Co.’s Steam Fire-Engine	[127]
” ” ” sections of boiler	[128, 129]
Fireproof Warehouse, plan and section	[facing 138, 139]

PROTECTION
FROM
FIRE AND THIEVES.

CHAPTER I.
LOCKS, KEYS, ETC.

WHEN it is known that cash and securities to the value of upwards of six millions are almost constantly kept in the strong-room of one only of the London banks, it will be understood that the safe custody of valuables is a subject of very great importance. Unfortunately it is a matter that has hitherto been greatly neglected by the general public and professional men; and the ignorance on the part of the majority of people as to what is real security, has given rise to this attempt to place a few facts together that will be of general use. The incidents relating to fires, burglaries, &c. are gathered from authentic sources, and from private records that have been compiled during many years.

Although before the last ten years there were but few persons who employed their skill to foil the increasing attempts of safe-breakers, the subject of locks had long been thoroughly considered. The great interest taken in the lock controversy at the time of the Exhibition of 1851 showed that there were many persons not indifferent to the efforts then made to improve the quality of locks; but it was not until the great burglary at Cornhill, in 1865, that safe-making was fairly investigated by the public. Sufficient proof of this is that in the sixty-four years preceding 1865 only twenty-eight patents for safes were registered, while in the nine years following there were no less than 122. Being myself engaged in the manufacture of locks and safes, I have, of course, some knowledge of their construction; and shall endeavour to state facts that apply to the work of every maker, and my opinions formed by practical acquaintance with this manufacture, and guided by others who have previously written on various branches of the subject.

Locks have, it is said, been in use for above four thousand years in Egypt; anciently these were mostly made of wood, and it is a remarkable thing that the locks that have been in use in the Faroe Islands for many centuries so closely resemble those found in Egyptian catacombs as to be scarcely distinguishable from them. More modern, but considered now to be old-fashioned, are the letter lock and warded lock; later still are the patent locks of Barron, Bramah, Chubb, and others. It is not necessary to describe the variations in all these; it may suffice to say that the most trustworthy are those with levers and tumblers, and protected in other ways from false keys and picks. One chief point of security consists in a lock being so unlike any other that no key but its own will open it; and a 3 in. Chubb’s drawer lock can have no less than 2,592,000 changes made in its combinations. Mr. Tildesley, in an article published in ‘Once a Week,’ mentions a lock which had a chime of bells connected with it in such a manner that no sooner was the skeleton-key of an intruder applied to the lock than the latter began to chime a plaintive air, such as—

Home, sweet home;
Be it ever so humble,
There’s no place like home.

A sentiment in which the housebreaker would doubtless concur as he took his precipitate flight.

It is obvious that locks are only secure so long as their keys are properly taken care of. This is of the utmost importance, for some keys can under favourable circumstances be made merely from a wax impression by a clever workman. Numbers of robberies take place through keys being left about, and to the lock is laid the fault which ought rather to be charged to the careless owner of the keys.