and additionally are positioned inwardly of the wall structure 25 a 25 b and away from a periphery of the housing 1 which thereby allows the fibers 28 b to be freely looped into the passageways 16 a 16 b without obstruction once the fibers 28 b have been arranged in the described manner the ends of the individual fibers 28 a are joined together using optical fiber splicers not shown with the fibers 28 b seated in the passageway 16 a for example the latch 15 a can be moved to close the passageway 16 by sliding the latch 15 a along the mount 19 transversely to the passageway 16 a and parallel to the base 2 so that the cover plate 17 covers the passageway 16 a to thereby secure the fibers 28 b to the housing 1 the result is the arrangement shown in fig3 the cover plate 17 is also provided with a flange 26 which abuts the inner wall 23 when the latch 15 a is in the fully closed condition in order to restrict further sliding movement of the latch 15 a the flange 26 includes protrusions 32 a 32 b cf fig5 arranged for resilient engagement with corresponding notches 6 a 6 b of the inner wall 23 to resiliently secure the latch 15 a to the inner wall 23 the latch 15 b is essentially a mirror image of the latch 15 a and like reference numerals are used to denote like parts as can be seen the latch 15.