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f people everywhere is illustrated in the apof the modern rotary registering lock to the ticle of mail bags. Formerly it was not unat losses by theft of mail matter were due in the extraction of a portion of the mail matter cking or removing the lock and then restoring

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United States, with its 76,000,000 of people, it necessary to use in its mail service hundreds isands of mail pouches, having locks for securckages of valuable matter. But these locks are h character that it is impossible for anyone to into the bag and conceal the evidence of his

The unfortunate thief is reduced to the ney of stealing the whole pouch. Losses under ystem have grown so small " as to be almost inble of mathematical calculation."

afe and convenient locks for so very many purs are now so common, even to prevent the unhorised use of an umbrella, or the unfriendly takaway of a bicycle or other vehicle, that notwithading the nineteenth century dynamite with ich burglars still continue to blow open the best structed safes and vaults, still a universal sense greater security in such matters is beginning to anifest itself; and not only the loss of valuables fire and theft is becoming the exception, but the mptation to steal is being gradually removed.

or the combinations may be set as one. In their time locks a safe can be set so as to not only render it impossible to unlock except at a predetermined time each day, but the arrangement is such that on intervening Sundays the time mechanism will entirely prevent the operation of the lock or the opening of the door on that day.

Another feature of the lock is the thin, flat keys with bevel-edged notchings, or with longitudinal sinuous corrugations to fit a narrow slit of a cylinder lock. To make locks for use with the corrugated keys machines of as great ingenuity as the locks were devised. In such a lock the keyhole, which is a little very narrow slit, is formed sinuously to correspond to the sinuosities of the key. No other key will fit it, nor can it be picked by a tool, as the tool must be an exact duplicate of the key in order to enter and move in the keyhole.

Of late years numerous locks have been invented for the special uses to which they are to be applied. Thus, one type of lock is that for safety deposit vaults and boxes, in which a primary key in the keeping of a janitor operates alone the tumblers or guard mechanism to set the lock, while the box owner may use a secondary key to completely unlock the box or vault.

Master, or secondary key locks, are now in common use in hotels and apartment-houses, by which the key of the door held by a guest will unlock only his door, but the master key held by the manager or janitor will unlock all the doors. This saves the duplication and multiplicity of a vast number of extra keys.

The value of a simple, chief, safe, effective lock in a place where its advantages are appreciated by all

classes of people everywhere is illustrated in the application of the modern rotary registering lock to the single article of mail bags. Formerly it was not unusual that losses by theft of mail matter were due in part to the extraction of a portion of the mail matter by unlocking or removing the lock and then restoring it in place.

The United States, with its 76,000,000 of people, found it necessary to use in its mail service hundreds of thousands of mail pouches, having locks for securing packages of valuable matter. But these locks are of such character that it is impossible for anyone to break into the bag and conceal the evidence of his crime. The unfortunate thief is reduced to the necessity of stealing the whole pouch. Losses under this system have grown so small "as to be almost incapable of mathematical calculation."

Safe and convenient locks for so very many purposes are now so common, even to prevent the unauthorised use of an umbrella, or the unfriendly taking away of a bicycle or other vehicle, that notwithstanding the nineteenth century dynamite with which burglars still continue to blow open the best constructed safes and vaults, still a universal sense of greater security in such matters is beginning to manifest itself; and not only the loss of valuables by fire and theft is becoming the exception, but the temptation to steal is being gradually removed.

CHAPTER XXVIII,

CARRYING MACHINES.

THE reflecting observer delights occasionally to shift the scenes of the present stage and bring to the front the processions of the past. That famous triumphal one, for instance, of Ptolemy of Philadelphus, at Alexandria, about 270 B. Č., then in the midst of his power and glory, in which there were chariots and cumbrous wagons drawn by elephants and goats, antelopes, oryxes, buffaloes, ostriches, gnus and zebras; then a tribe of the Scythians, when with many scores of oxen they were shifting their light, big round houses, made of felt cloth and mounted on road carts, to a new camping place; next a wild, mad dash of the Roman charioteers around the amphitheatre, or a triumphal march with chariots of carved ivory bearing aloft the ensigns of victory; and now an army of the ancient Britons driving through these same charioteers of Cæsar with their own rude chariots, having sharp hooks and crooked iron blades extending from their axles; now a "Lady's Chair" of the fourteenth century-the state carriage of the time-with a long, wooden-roofed and windowed body, having a door at each end, resting on a cumbrous frame without springs, and the axles united rigidly to a long reach; next comes a line of imposing clumsy state coaches of the sixteenth century, with bodies provided with pillars to support the roof, and adorned with curtains of cloth and leather,

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