Protection from Fire and Thieves. George Hayter Chubb

A SMALL book, embracing such subjects as herein treated of, is necessarily somewhat disconnected in its character. In endeavouring to be strictly practical, I fear I have made some portions of the book uninteresting to the general reader; if so, it must be remembered that my chief aim has been to place certain facts before professional and business men, at the same time introducing matter that may be useful to everyone.

I have to offer my best thanks to Colonel Fraser, Colonel Henderson, Captain Shaw, and other Gentlemen, who have afforded me valuable help.

If the importance of protecting life and property becomes in the least degree better understood and appreciated, I shall feel amply repaid for the time and trouble incurred in the preparation of the book.

57 St. Paul’s Churchyard, London:

January 1875.

PROTECTION
FROM
FIRE AND THIEVES.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I.
LOCKS, KEYS, ETC.

Table of Contents

WHEN it is known that cash and securities to the value of upwards of six millions are almost constantly kept in the strong-room of one only of the London banks, it will be understood that the safe custody of valuables is a subject of very great importance. Unfortunately it is a matter that has hitherto been greatly neglected by the general public and professional men; and the ignorance on the part of the majority of people as to what is real security, has given rise to this attempt to place a few facts together that will be of general use. The incidents relating to fires, burglaries, &c. are gathered from authentic sources, and from private records that have been compiled during many years.

Although before the last ten years there were but few persons who employed their skill to foil the increasing attempts of safe-breakers, the subject of locks had long been thoroughly considered. The great interest taken in the lock controversy at the time of the Exhibition of 1851 showed that there were many persons not indifferent to the efforts then made to improve the quality of locks; but it was not until the great burglary at Cornhill, in 1865, that safe-making was fairly investigated by the public. Sufficient proof of this is that in the sixty-four years preceding 1865 only twenty-eight patents for safes were registered, while in the nine years following there were no less than 122. Being myself engaged in the manufacture of locks and safes, I have, of course, some knowledge of their construction; and shall endeavour to state facts that apply to the work of every maker, and my opinions formed by practical acquaintance with this manufacture, and guided by others who have previously written on various branches of the subject.

Locks have, it is said, been in use for above four thousand years in Egypt; anciently these were mostly made of wood, and it is a remarkable thing that the locks that have been in use in the Faroe Islands for many centuries so closely resemble those found in Egyptian catacombs as to be scarcely distinguishable from them. More modern, but considered now to be old-fashioned, are the letter lock and warded lock; later still are the patent locks of Barron, Bramah, Chubb, and others. It is not necessary to describe the variations in all these; it may suffice to say that the most trustworthy are those with levers and tumblers, and protected in other ways from false keys and picks. One chief point of security consists in a lock being so unlike any other that no key but its own will open it; and a 3 in. Chubb’s drawer lock can have no less than 2,592,000 changes made in its combinations. Mr. Tildesley,

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