1938-08-20 — Page 10

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THE CHINA MAIL, AUGUST 20, 1938

The China Mail

ed the spring lock, now used ex- tensively on the doors of our houses and cupboards. The tum- Ninety-Third Year of Publicationed as unforceable. In fact, at bler principle came later, herald-

Wyndham Street, Hong Kong. the Great Exhibition of 1851 a prize of two hundred guineas was offered to anyone who could pick a selected specimen. Houdini would probably have done the

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London Office:

17, Garrick Street, London, W.C.2.job in two minutes, but it took

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an American lady, Mrs. Hobbs, fourteen days to devise suitable - tools, and fifty-one hours of hard work to apply them successfully. In the last century there have been numerous improvements in suited to scores of various pur- design and construction of types

poses, from tiny padlocks to en- gine-like "combination" models. But with the modern “Yale" latch-lock we revert to an ingen- ious modification of the original unwieldy Egyptian invention.

- From its earliest days the strength of the. lock has been largely psychological rather than physical. Love is not the only person to laugh at locksmiths. It is giving away no secret to re- Hong Kong, Saturday, August-20, 1938 veal the sad and sometime glad

LOCK AND KEY

truth that most of the simpler sorts of lock can be easily picked with a couple of lengths of bent wire, or at any rate by a dupli- As soon as man started amass-cate key made from a wax im- ing his earliest humble treasure, pression taken through the key- he began to feel the anxiety com-hole. Not infrequently the bath- mon to all capitalists. At first, room key will be found to accom- apart from sitting on his hoard; modate itself to the lock on the he knew of only two security de spare bedroom. And story of vices either to leave a friend on escaping prisoners stresses the guard, or to hide his possessions fact that locked doors were the and keep the secret to himself. lightest of their problems. But Both methods were apt to prove the average law-abiding citizen unreliable. A very old proverb who has mislaid his front-door- asks, “Who guards the guards key usually abandons hope and themselves?"always a worry-leither sends for an expert forcer, ing reflection even before the

or else smashes his way in by days of honest, stout-hearted po- ruthless sacrifice of good wood- licemen. The secret hiding-place, work. However, the locking-de- too, was often so good that the vices on safes and strong-rooms owner failed to find it again; a are or sterner stuff. As with big lapse which thousands of years guns and armour-plate, the race later occasionally brings sunshine between attack and defence has into the life of a modern excava-wavered for many years. At one tor. So long as men lived in time an intelligent burglar, with caves and flimsy huts there was a set of skeleton keys and some hot much that could be done perseverance, was seldom baf- about the difficulty. But as soon fled. But gradually the safe- as buildings of stone and timber maker improved his technique to became, fashionable, it seemed such a pitch that a modern absurd that a well-to-do house-strong-room requires several holder could not comfortably keys, a code word and the mani- leave home for a couple of days pulation of some timing machin- without employing a caretaker, ery before even a packet of cop or else surreptitiously burying pers can be extracted. To tickle pots of coins and jewellery in the such an elaborate piece of me- back garden. A lock on the front chanism with a wire is mere door was the obvious solution, waste of time. For a few years but it probably took many cena neater job could be done with turies before the idea occurred to an acetylene blow-lamp, but cut- some bright barbarian. The very ting the lock right out.

But early Egyptians, however, were nowadays the strongest safes are. interested in safety gadgets at their beat a lengthy sapping, their kings went to infinite trou-mining and blasting adventure, ble in burying themselves and and the more enlightened rob- their treasures under a few mil-bers prefer to eliminate so much lion tons of masonry, andthen manual and mental labour;

and sealing and concealing the en- tap their booty at its source by trances. For more workaday pur holding up the cashier. poses they used large, cumber fortunate business for the bank some locks, with keys on the same concerned, but a triumph for the generous scale.

By Biblical times locks becoming household words,

An un-

locksmith. We are all in fact his were disciples, and put as blind faith and in his infallibility as in that of

spiritual advis

dozens of these things have been our medical and the doors are

now locked, we leave our houses and and motor-cars in blissful security. been Our confidence in the integrity

turned up⠀⠀ among the ruins offers, So long as Pompeil and Herculaneum, made compactly of bronze iron. Since then there has [constant = change and im of the lock is maintained by such,

ment in the type and

mmon incidents of daily. as tion of locks. From the

devastating effect of losing to the seventeenth century locks 18.8 bunch of keys, or éven became more ingenious and com- mislaying the individual mem- plicated, especially in Germany, her that releases the ignition of

hat nursery of mechanical puz- our

ould

des

re possibla

way fortunatel

the

one