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Passages from the Life of a Philosopher

Chapter 35: CHAPTER XVIII. PICKING LOCKS AND DECIPHERING.
By Charles Babbage
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About This Book

This work presents a collection of reflections and experiences from the life of a prominent philosopher and mathematician, exploring his thoughts on various subjects, including science, technology, and society. It delves into the development of the Analytical Engine, highlighting the challenges and triumphs encountered in its creation. The author shares insights into his interactions with notable figures of his time and discusses the broader implications of his inventions. Themes of innovation, intellectual pursuit, and the relationship between knowledge and society are woven throughout, providing a glimpse into the mind of a pioneering thinker.

CHAPTER XVIII. PICKING LOCKS AND DECIPHERING.

Interview with Vidocq — Remarkable Power of altering his Height — A Bungler in picking Locks — Mr. Hobbs’s Lock and the Duke of Wellington — Strong belief that certain Ciphers are inscrutable — Davies Gilbert’s Cipher — The Author’s Cipher both deciphered — Classified Dictionaries of the English Language — Anagrams — Squaring Words — Bishop not easily squared — Lesser Dignitaries easier to work upon.

THESE two subjects are in truth much more nearly allied than might appear upon a superficial view of them. They are in fact closely connected with each other as small branches of the same vast subject of combinations.

Several years ago, the celebrated thief-taker, Vidocq, paid a short visit to London. I had an interview of some duration with this celebrity, who obligingly conveyed to me much information, which, though highly interesting, was not of a nature to become personally useful to me.

He possessed a very remarkable power, which he was so good as to exhibit to me. It consisted in altering his height to about an inch and a half less than his ordinary height. He threw over his shoulders a cloak, in which he walked round the room. It did not touch the floor in any part, and was, I should say, about an inch and a half above it. He then altered his height and took the same walk. The cloak then touched the floor and lay upon it in some part or other during the whole {234} walk. He then stood still and altered his height alternately, several times to about the same amount.

I inquired whether the altered height, if sustained for several hours, produced fatigue. He replied that it did not, and that he had often used it during a whole day without any additional fatigue. He remarked that he had found this gift very useful as a disguise. I asked whether any medical man had examined the question; but it did not appear that any sat­is­fac­tory explanation had been arrived at.

〈PICKING LOCKS, VIDOCQ, HOBBS.〉

I now entered upon a favourite subject of my own—the art of picking locks—but, to my great disappointment, I found him not at all strong upon that question. I had myself bestowed some attention upon it, and had written a paper, ‘On the Art of Opening all Locks,’ at the conclusion of which I had proposed a plan of partially defeating my own method. My paper on that subject is not yet published.

Several years after Vidocq’s appearance in London, the Exhibition of 1851 occurred. On one of my earliest visits, I observed a very curious lock of large dimensions with its internal mechanism fully exposed to view. I found, on inquiry, that it belonged to the American department. Having discovered the exhibitor, I asked for an explanation of the lock. I listened with great interest to a very profound disquisition upon locks and the means of picking them, conveyed to me with the most unaffected simplicity.

I felt that the maker of that lock surpassed me in knowledge of the subject almost as much as I had thought I excelled Vidocq. Having mentioned it to the late Duke of Wellington, he proposed that we should pay a visit to the lock the next time I accompanied him to the Exhibition. We did so a few days after, when the Duke was equally pleased with the lock and its inventor. Mr. Hobbs, the {235} gentleman of whom I am speaking, and whose locks have now become so celebrated, was good enough to explain to me from time to time many difficult questions in the science of constructing and of picking locks. He informed me that he had devised a system for defeating all these methods of picking locks, for which he proposed taking out a patent. I was, however, much gratified when I found that it was precisely the plan I had previously described in my own unpublished pamphlet.