replace the padlock as if all were right. The success of the scheme depended chiefly upon the padlock or its substitute always being on when the police came round; but, fortunately for the owner of the premises, the attempt was frustrated by the mere chance of the patent lock (now without works and found next day to open rather stiffly) being brought to be examined, when the burglar’s attempt was at once discovered. Further revelations of this trick were made to the police by a convict who died while undergoing a long term of imprisonment, and after his disclosures no less than twenty-seven padlocks were found in use in the City the works of which had all been taken out, to await the thieves’ opportunity, and done in such a clever manner that only the closest inspection could detect it. Two of the locks served thus were on a jeweller’s door, which shows the importance of preventing this mode of robbery. Such a well-planned scheme required an improvement to be made in the padlocks, and there is now largely in use what is known as the ‘police padlock,’ a lock which when once forced asunder is so injured that it cannot be repaired without being entirely re-made, so that if one should be taken off its door by a thief it cannot be put back again.
This is but one of the numberless instances that require the attention and thought of the careful lockmaker; and the other instances that will be given show that with respect to safes it requires yet greater skill to foil the cunning of modern burglars.
The whole of Chubb’s locks are made by hand, and differ one from another. The difficulty is not to make them to differ, but when such are needed to make several alike, for a touch of the file will completely alter a lock.
It is so essential for good locks to be totally unlike each other that we continue to make by hand only, although the cost is in consequence high. Machinery would and does produce well-finished and serviceable locks, but the changes and combinations cannot vary as with hand-work. ‘So extensive are the combinations,[1] that it would be quite practicable to make locks for the doors of all the houses in London with a distinct and different key to each lock, and yet there should be one master-key to pass the whole. A most complete series was constructed some years ago for the Westminster Bridewell, consisting of 1,100 locks, forming one series, with master, sub-master, and warders’ keys.
‘At any time the Governor has the power of stopping out the under-keys; and in case of any surreptitious attempt being made to open a lock, and the detector being thrown, none of the under-keys will regulate it, but the Governor must be made acquainted with the circumstance, as he alone has the power, with his key, to replace the lock in its original state.
‘It need scarcely be stated, that Barron’s, Bramah’s, Chubb’s, and most other locks are adapted for all purposes, from the smallest cabinet to the largest prison-doors or strong-room.
‘As has been already stated, various and numerous patents have been taken out. Ingenious, however, as are some of the arrangements, they appear to have complicated, rather than simplified, the general construction.