But curl their locks with bodkins and with braids

The language used in the law does not permit any other interpretation.

It beats all your guns and your rifles, / For it goes off whene'er you desire, / And it's sure to hit just what it aims at, / For shillelaghs they never miss fire.

Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with (by way of local colour) on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust […].