Previous to the nineteenth century when iron safes became common, people were accustomed to hide their valuables and papers. Favour was shown for furniture containing secret drawers or compartments, and they are frequently found in chests, bureaux, writing-tables, cabinets, etc., of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These hiding-places were of very varied character, since so soon as a particular device became common and familiar it was no longer secret and it became necessary to invent a new one. Thus we find a hidden drawer behind an obvious one, or beneath an ink-well; not infrequently a box had a false bottom. Hiding-places were often contrived behind the pigeon-holes or drawers of cabinets; the pilasters dividing these pigeon-holes were sometimes hollow, forming slender concealments for papers. In many cases a secret spring had to be touched before the cavity was revealed. Sheraton was much given to contriving secret drawers.

Secretary, Bureau, Escritoire, Scritoire, or Secretaire.

- A desk with writing appliances, or, as Sheraton says in the "Cabinet Makers' Drawing Book," "for a gentleman to write at, to keep his accounts and serve as a library." It was made late in the seventeenth century as a chest of drawers, the secretary being formed in the top drawer the front of which was hinged, provided with brass quadrants, and pulled down to form the writing surface. Its developments in the eighteenth century were the secretary, cabinet or bookcase, and the knee-hole secretary. Without the cabinet or bookcase above it was usually called a bureau.