There were many very fine specimens of iron castings of fountains, animals, statues, &c., for which Council Medals were awarded. But the most interesting, I think, as well as the most useful, were those exhibited by the Coalbrook Dale Company, Coalbrook Dale, Shropshire. The first single foundry was commenced two hundred years ago, and has been in the family of the present proprietors nearly one hundred and fifty years. The number of men and boys in the employ of the company, at the present time, is between 2,000 and 4,000. Their articles are of great variety-ornamental and other gates for Parks, Fountains, Domes, Chimney pieces and Grates. Every variety of Kitchen Ranges and furniture, vases, flower stands, chairs, and a great number of articles of amusement, are most admirably executed, and with a delicacy and beauty of finish which is seldom equalled. The French sculptures in Bronze were remarkably fine, and were decidedly superior to any others. A variety of warming apparatus, of great beauty of finish and convenience of arrangement was shown. CHILSON & Co. of New-York, received a Medal for their Hot-air furnaces, which commended themselves to the Jurors there, as they had so often done to our citizens here. An Honorable Mention, to Pond & Co., of Boston, for a cooking stove. Learned & Thatcher, Albany, exhibited two Chandelier stoves-Elihu Smith's Patent, which, for cheapness and convenience of arrangement and small amount of fuel necessary, appeared to me, deserving of special commendation. There, certainly, were no other stoves on exhibition which elicited, so far as I could judge, more numerous inquiries, and which appeared to give more satisfaction. But with such a multitude of articles to be examined and re-examined, it is not at all surprising that these have been omitted if they had commended themselves to the Jury as they did to me. A Medal was awarded to a Philadelphia firm, for Chandeliers, which were very creditable to our country. Silas C. Herring's Salamander Safe, received a Medal, and it was equal to any shown at the exhibition. There was deposited in this safe, in my presence, £200 sterling, by Mr. Herring, and the safe locked, (having one of Day & Newell's Locks, I believe,) and notice placed upon the safe, that any person was welcome to the money, who could open the safe-the key being at the service of any one who chose to make the attempt. It remained for forty-five days unopened. The exhibition of Locks was very extensive and of great excellence. CHUBB & SON, celebrated lock-makers, had a very fine exhibition of their locks, in great variety and most splendidly got up. They were exhibited as the Patent Detector Locks-are in use, or were, on the government vaults and offices, the Bank of England, and wherever safety was required. The Koh-i-noor diamond of the Queen, was exhibited in a case, with an arrangement for elevating and depressing the diamond without locking-and it was stated that it was considered impossible to pick the lock or obtain an entrance into their receptacle." (This precious diamond was formerly valued at £3,000,000, but since it came into the possession of the British it was found to have been over estimated, and now, I believe, is not considered worth over £2,000,000-and many, who profess to be versed in the valuation of diamonds, estimate it much lower.) Chubb's locks for ordinary purposes have each six separate and distinct movable tumblers and a detector. If a surreptitious attempt be made to open any one, it was said immediate notice is given by the detector on the next application of the proper key. BRAMAH & Co., exhibited very fine samples of their various locks, and one brass case lock, exhibiting the number of changes their locks will admit of, amounting to upwards of 479 millions! In their shop window in Piccadilly, London, was displayed a large padlock with a standing offer of 200 guineas to any person who would open it with a single instrument. There were many others on exhibition from England, France, Portugal, Sardinia, Spain, Sweden and Norway, Tuscany, United States, Africa and Zollverein. Soon after the exhibition opened, Mr. A. C. HOBBS, of NewYork, who had charge of Day & Newell's locks, obtained one of Chubb's locks and opened it in the space of 10 or 15 minutes, in the presence of several gentlemen. This, on becoming known, excited much interest and led to a publication from Chubb & Son challenging the opening of their locks. Mr. Hobbs was permitted to make the attempt to open one of Chubb's locks which was placed upon an iron door to a vault built for the depository of valuable papers. I give the proceedings which took place on this trial. "AMERICAN DEPARTMENT, Crystal Palace, July 21. GENTLEMEN :-An attempt will be made to open a lock of your manufacture on the door of a strong room at 34 Great George Street, Westminster, to-morrow, Tuesday, at 11 A. M. You are respectfully invited to be present and witness the operation. Yours respectfully, A. C. HOBBS. To Messrs. CHUBB & SON, St. Paul's Church Yard." (Messrs. Chubb did not notice this communication.) "LONDON, July 22, 1851. We the undersigned hereby certify that we attended, with permission of Mr. Bell of No. 34 Great George Street, Westminster, an invitation sent to us by A. C. Hobbs, of the city of New-York, to witness an attempt to open a lock throwing three bolts, and having six tumblers, affixed to the iron door of a strong room or vault, built for the depository of valuable papers, and formerly occupied by the Agents of the South Eastern Railway Company; that we severally witnessed the operations, which Mr. Hobbs commenced at 35 minutes past 11 A. M., and opened the lock within 25 minutes. Mr. Hobbs having been requested to lock it again, with his instruments, accomplished it in the short space of seven minutes, without the slightest injury to the lock or door, (having previously had the assurance of Mr. Bell that the keys had never been accessible to Mr. Hobbs, he having permission to examine the key holes only). We found a plate at the back of the door with the following inscription: "Chubb's new patent, (No. 161, 461) St. Paul's Church Yard, London, maker to Her Majesty.” Mr. Hardley, 26 Great Earl Street. Mr. William N. Marshall, 42 Charing Cross. Mr. W. Armstead, 35 Belitha Villas, Barnsbury Yard. Mr. G. R. Porter, Putney Heath. Mr. F. W. Winham, Effra Vale Lodge, Buxton. Mr. A. Shanks, Robert Street, Adelphi. Mr. Elijah Galloway, 42 Southampton Buildings. Mr. Charles H. Peabody, 1 Norfolk Street, Strand. The annexed remarks from the London Times on the Lock controversy, and the trial made upon Bramah's lock, by Mr. Hobbs, we give in preference to any remarks of our own, as the whole matter is treated with very commendable fairness, and atones for much which the Times took occasion to say of our articles in the early stages of the Exhibition. "We believed before the Exhibition opened, that we had the best locks in the world, and among us, Bramah and Chubb were reckoned quite as impregnable as Gibraltar-more so, indeed, for the key of the Mediterranean was taken by us, but none among us could penetrate into the locks and shoot the bolts of these makers. In this faith, we had quietly established ourselves for years, and it seems cruel at this time of day, when men have been taught to look at their bunches of keys, and at their drawers and safes with something like confidence, to scatter that feeling to the winds. The mechanical spirit, however, is never at rest, and if it is lulled into a false state of listlessness in one branch of industry, and in one part of the world, elsewhere it springs up suddenly to admonish and reproach us with our supineness. Our descendants on the other side of the water are every now and then administering to the mother country a wholesome filial lesson upon this very text, and recently they have been "rubbing us up" with a severity which perhaps we merited for sneering at their short comings in the Exhibition While we have been relying implicitly upon the artful arrangement of "tumblers" and such like devices, they have been carefully developing their ingenuity in picking and opening locks. A man makes a lock, and he brings it to a Mechanic's Institute in New-York with a certain sum of money secured by it, which sum becomes the property of the successful operator, who can shoot back the bolt of the new contrivance. Instantly astute heads, and clever, expert hands are engaged in solving the mechanical riddle thus propounded to them, and so far have these dexterous manipulators carried their art, that their "open sesame" sweeps springs, tumblers, false notches, letter devices, and everything else before it. Mr. Hobbs is by far the most accomplished and successful of these performers, and he has come over to this country at a very opportune moment to teach our makers a very useful lesson. It is well known, however Mr. Chubb may wrestle with the statement, that Mr. Hobbs has succeeded, by perfectly fair means, in opening his locks as they have hitherto been made; no formal and deliberate trial has taken place between them to establish the fact, but it nevertheless remains undoubted, and the sooner Mr. Chubb improves his patent, so as to set Mr. Hobbs at defiance, the better for his own interests. "Bramah & Co., have acted with more pluck, and have been beaten in a fair open field. They have acted with so much bold, open courage that even when Mr. Hobb's success was ascertained by us, we were reluctant to state the facts positively and circumstantially, until the award of the arbiters appointed on the subject, had been made. That document we now publish, and the public, we are sure, when they read it, will not think the less of a firm, which has been vanquished in a fair stand-up fight, maintained for so long a period, and against such extraordinary skill." "Report of the Arbitrators, to whom the Bramah Lock controversy was referred: |