Page:A Dissertation on the Construction of Locks (1815).pdf/32

 by the web, being left bare, is rendered considerably weaker, as well as more liable to be deformed; and of course must give more frequent occasion to call in the assistance of the locksmith. The key having thus lost as much, as the lock is said to have gained in point of duration, the degree of frailty is, upon the whole, undiminished; and, being less equally distributed, will of course be more inconvenient.

The resistance of picklocks, and the entire exclusion of false keys, is a property which is likewise ascribed to the solid-ward Lock. But to this excellence it hath no just pretention. For it possesses in common with all other Locks, the imperfection of being liable to be opened (in the manner above described) by a locksmith of any tolerable degree of skill; and it hath this peculiar disadvantage, that the key may be more easily copied, than those of the most common Locks.

I could add many reasons to those I have given, in proof of my original position, “that all dependance on the inviolable security of Locks (even of those which are constructed on the best principle of any in general use) is fallacious.”—But, presuming that I have proved by fair, and just observations, that Mr. Baron’s Lock is short