476 Mr. E. B. Denison, [Feb. 19, 



Professor Cowper, in a lecture here in 1852. Mr. Cowper had 

 been one of the arbitrators in the case of Hobbs versus Bramah, 

 and he explained in that lecture the mode in which both the 

 Bramah and Chubb locks had been picked by Mr. Hobbs in 1851 ; 

 which applied equally to every P^nglish lock then in existence, of a 

 higher order than the common warded locks, which had long been 

 known to possess no security at all. 



Mr. Denison said he believed there was still a notion prevail- 

 ing among persons who ought to know better, that the picking of 

 locks by this method required singular skill and dexterity, such as 

 need not be feared from ordinary lock-pickers. That was quite 

 a mistake, now that the method is so well known to everybody 

 in the lock trade, and to everybody who takes the trouble to look 

 into any modern book on locks. The long delay of the thieves 

 who opened the box with a Chubb lock on the South-Eastern 

 Railway, in the gold-dust robbery, only proved that they were 

 grossly ignorant of their business. Any moderately good hand, 

 among not merely Mr. Hobbs's but Mr. Chubb's own workmen, 

 would have opened the box, and shut it up again, between London 

 and Reigate. Indeed, in a trial before Lord Campbell, a few years 

 ago, one of Mr. Chubb's men confessed that the picking of one of 

 his locks, or of any others then known to him, was merely a ques- 

 tion of time ; and Mr. Hobbs has several times said in public, that 

 he is acquainted with persons, both in the trade and out of it, who 

 can pick locks quicker than he can, now that the proper way of 

 doing it is known. 



Moreover, the time required to pick the best locks of the usual 

 construction is really very small. Mr. Denison said he had seen 

 one of the newest Bramah locks, with eight sliders, or eight slits in 

 the key, picked in less than four minutes ; and it is part of the 

 regular business of Mr. Hobbs's shop in Cheapside, to send men 

 to open Chubb and Bramah, and other locks of which the keys 

 have been lost, or which have got out of order. 



For this and other reasons, more fully explained in the book 

 referred to, the Bramah or Mordan lock, which has not been at 

 all improved since 1851, has no longer any pretence to be 

 reckoned among the secure class of locks, but ought to rank 

 with others — if not below them, — which are now sold for much 

 less, such as Tucker's, Parnell's, and Hobbs's cheap locks, 

 even those which have not the addition to be mentioned pre- 

 sently. One of the good effects of the exposure and defeat of 

 our best locks has been the invention of a greater variety of 

 really different locks in the last six years, than in the previous 

 sixty, or six hundred. The competition thus arising, and especially 

 the establishment of a lock factory by Mr. Hobbs himself, where 

 locks are made by machinery (like Colt's revolvers and the 

 American clocks), has effected a very great reduction in their 

 price. The common three-inch drawer locks, with four tumblers, 



