Читать книгу Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks онлайн

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In an amusing article in the Observer, during the progress of the “lock controversy,” was the following paragraph relating to combination-locks of the letter or puzzle kind: “The French, in their exposition of 1844, availing themselves of the permutation principle, produced some marvels in the art; but the principle has not been adopted in this country. The Charivari had an amusing quiz upon these locks when they first came out. It said the proprietor of such a lock must have an excellent memory: forget the letters, and you are clearly shut out from your own house. For instance, a gentleman gets to his door with his family, after a country excursion, at eleven o’clock at night, in the midst of a perfect deluge of rain. He hunts out his alphabetical key, and thrusts it into his alphabetical lock, and says AZBX. The lock remains as firm as ever. ‘Plague take it!’ says the worthy citizen, as the blinding rain drives in his eyes. He then recollects that that was his combination for the previous day. He scratches his head to facilitate the movement of his intellectual faculties, and makes a random guess BCLO; but he has no better success. In addition to his being well wet, his chances of hitting on the right combinations and permutations are but small, seeing that the number is somewhere about three millions five hundred and fifty-three thousand five hundred and seventy-eight. Accordingly, when he comes to the three-hundredth he loses all patience, and begins to kick and batter the door; but a patrol of the National Guard passes by, and the disturber of the streets is marched off to the watch-house.”