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32 CONSTRUCTION OF LOCKS AND KEYS. made by other persons, in imitation of his locks. If a workman did not understand how to make one of his locks, he might leave a similarity between the bellies of the tumblers when ai, rest, and the steps in the bit of the key, but he denied the possibility of this in any of the locks made by him, and in proof of this, the locks then exhibited were referred to. There was no reason, why the bellies of the tumblers should not be perfectly uniform, and in the same plane, and it would be seen from the lock made on that principle, that an impression of the inside of such a lock must be utterly useless for any felonious purpose. Mr. STEPHENSON, M. P., V. P., said he had been under the impression, that the bellies of the tumblers in Mr. Chubb's lock were always flush, or in the same plane, when the lock was in a state of rest, and that the lift of the tumblers was entirely regulated by the notches, or steps in the key ; therefore, it was evident, that unless the impression could be taken from the key, any attempt to make a false key must be futile, and even a fac-simile of the interior of the lock would be useless. When the lower side of the tumblers were flush, as in the lock then produced by Mr. Chubb, it did not seem probable that any scheme could be devised, by which an impression of the lock could afford any assistance for picking the lock. Mr. FAREY coincided in Mr. Stephenson's opinion, of the improbability of the American plan of taking an impression of the bellies of the tumblers, being at all effective, in aiding to pick a lock really made by Chubb, whatever it might do in the case of bad imitations of that kind of lock. Mr. WHITWOBTH said he had much pleasure in bearing testimony to the great value of Mr. Chubb's locks; he used them almost invariably in his establishment, and never found them get out of order. The workmanship in them was of the best kind, and he thought it would be impossible to pick them, by the means that had been mentioned, or by any picklock keys, as long as the detector was in good order ; that was the main feature of the lock, and distinguished it from all other tumbler locks. Capt. D. O'BRIEN was sorry to differ, in some degree, from the opinion expressed by Mr. Chubb relative to the value of Davis' " cabinet" locks. The cabinet boxes frequently contained secret papers, and the promulgation of their contents might be of serious consequence. He formerly had occasion to open from ten to twenty of them daily, during a period of two years, and he never once observed the locks to be out of order ; in fact they always appeared to afford great security. As an Inspector of Government Prisons, his attention had been |
On the Construction of Locks and Keys by John Chubb