Here is a common, cheap English mortise lock, and you will naturally ask why the outside of this lock is ground bright, when it is buried in the door and never seen except it has to be taken out for repairs. I have asked the same question, and for 20 years have paused for a reply. This lock is not reversible, the follower is not bushed, and the inside is rough and cheap. Contrast it with this neat American lock, and notice again the bosses to receive the wear; notice also that the bolts are brass; the latch-bolt is, of course, reversible--I never saw an American lock which was not. The body of the lock is cast iron; and, seeing that there are no strains upon a mortise lock, it is quite as good as if it was of wrought iron. There is no unnecessary grinding, but the iron is japanned, and the japan is as much superior to the English compound as is the lacquer ware of the Japanese to that which is executed in Birmingham and palmed upon the ignorant buyer as Japanese work. In fact, as you can see for yourselves, the English japan looks almost like gas tar beside the American. This American lock is a two-lever, and there is no sham about the key, which is made of some kind of white metal and is small and neat. This lock is only 21/2 per cent higher in price than the English. Before leaving these locks, let me say a word or two upon the relative wear upon their different portions, and their relative safety. The English maker appears to ignore the fact that nineteen-twentieths of the wear of a lock is upon 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.