478 Mr. E. B. Venison, . [Feb. 19, 



locks in America had also had them, as well as other contrivances 

 since introduced here, but without defeating the art of the lock- 

 picker. False notches do undoubtedly increase the difficulty of 

 picking, and the time required for doing it ; but the facts already 

 mentioned are quite sufficient to show that they do nothing more. 

 Of course that is worth something ; but it is very far short of 

 restoring the Chubb and Bramah locks, for instance, to the position 

 which they enjoyed while the tentative method of picking was 

 unknown, and when they really were impregnable by any known 

 mode of manipulation. 



The first invention which really defeated this process of lock- 

 picking was appropriately enough Mr. Hobbs's own. What he 

 calls his " protector," or moveable stump lock, is so made, that as 

 soon as you try to make the bolt press upon the tumblers, the 

 pressure is taken off them altogether, and transferred to a fixed pin 

 in the lock, which would prevent it from being opened in that state 

 of things, even if all the tumblers were then raised to the proper 

 height. This is done by the moveable stump, for a description of 

 which we must refer to the book above-mentioned, or to the Rudi- 

 mentary Treatise on Locks, in Weale's Series. This invention, in 

 its present form, is perfectly eflfectual against any mode of picking 

 yet known. At any rate, a challenge to attempt it was refused by 

 that same Mr, Goater, who confessed at the trial above referred to, 

 that he could pick the locks of his own master, Mr. Chubb, and 

 pretended to be able to pick any others as well, and had really 

 picked one of Hobbs's locks as they were made at first. This 

 " protector" lock, it should be observed, is quite distinct from the 

 great American lock with a changeable key, also made by Mr. 

 Hobbs here, but invented by Day and Newell, of New York, a far 

 more complicated and expensive machine, and with the disad- 

 vantage of requiring a very large key, and apparently not more 

 real security than the " protector " lock, except so far as the power 

 of changing the lock by re-arranging the " bits" of the key may be 

 supposed to increase its security by guarding against the risk of an 

 impression being taken from the key ; and the lock is also not 

 without some special risks of its own, which might have remarkably 

 unpleasant consequences, if the key got into the hands of a mis- 

 chievous person, either while the lock is open or shut. 



A varietyof inventions are described in the above-mentioned book 

 on Clocks and Locks, and in the large volume on locks, published 

 by Mr. Price, of Wolverhampton, all aiming at the same object as 

 the moveable stump, but very few of them doing it successfully. 

 Revolving curtains, and barrels, and " detention catches," and " self- 

 acting," and " double-action levers," and a variety of other recent 

 inventions of old and new things, may be dismissed at once with 

 the same remark as the false notches ; viz., that they make a lock 

 more troublesome to pick, but they do no more ; and they are all 

 only more complicated contrivances for doing that incompletely 



