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 or imperfection; and, as long as it could be kept unimpaired, would be a perfect security.—But the tumblers on which its security depends, being of a slight substance, exposed to perpetual friction, as well from the application of the key, as from their own proper motion; and their office being such, as to render the most trifling loss of metal fatal to their operation, they would need a further exertion of Mr. Baron’s ingenuity to make them durable.

Duration, and an exemption from many casual disorders, to which other Locks are liable, are qualities, which the projector of solid wards, appropriates in a peculiar degree to his invention. That they are more durable, and less subject to disorder, than wards more delicately constructed, are claims which I believe no locksmith will dispute with him. But, if his Locks are less exposed to the effects of time and chance, he hath certainly furnished them with keys, which do not possess the same properties. They are less formed for duration, and are more liable to accidental injuries, than the keys of any Locks I have ever seen. For the various angles they describe, unavoidably subject them to perpetual entanglements; and the stem, which in other keys is protected