pon the latch, spindle,
and follower; the amount of actual wear upon the rest of the lock is
comparatively slight. Let any of you consider the number of times you
open and close a door, compared with the times you lock it. Our
drawbacks and large rim locks are used about once a day; the great
bulk of our mortise locks are not used, except as latches, once a
week. One argument used by our manufacturers against the American lock
is that, being made by machinery, there is necessarily a great
duplication of parts, and a consequent lowering of the standard of
security; while their own locks, being made by hand, are not alike,
and therefore cannot be so easily opened.

Let any of you put this argument to proof, by trying how many front
doors you can open with one key in a row of workmen's dwellings such
as are found in Manchester, ranging up to L25 rentals, and the result
will astonish you. If our own manufacturers made their locks
sufficiently well to give this security, there would be some force in
what they say; but so far as security is concerned, they might as well
make their locks by machinery as make them in the way they do.

I now show you two thumb latches, one of American and one of English
make. Notice the general finish of the American latch; the shape, the
mode of construction, and everything about it proves that brains were
used when it was designed and made. The English "Norfolk latch," on
the other hand, is ill designed, uncomfortable in hand, clumsily
finished, the japan hangs about it in lumps, the latch is clumsy, the
catch is clumsier, and the keeper, a rough piece of hoop iron, seems
as if designed to "keep" the latch from doing its duty. In this case
the American latch is 25 per cent cheaper than the English one; and
the English latch is of the same pattern as the one that was in use
when I was a boy, only that it is a greatly inferior article.

I will now introduce you to the well known nuisance which we have been
accustomed to use for fastening our cupboard doors--the cupboard
turn--and without further comment, ask you to compare it with this
neat and simple latch of American make, costing about 5 per cent more,
twice as efficacious, and five times as durable. In this case no
improvement has been made in the English fastener. It is just as it
was when I went to the trade, about 28 years ago, and although many
attempts have been made to improve it they have added so much to its
cost as to prevent the