Volume 36 Number 1 Fall 2013

The Journal of the Bootmakers of Toronto Volume 36 Number 1 Fall 2013

Canadian Holmes is published by The Bootmakers of Toronto, the Sherlock Holmes Society of Canada.

Bootprints (editors) are Mark and JoAnn Alberstat, 46 Kingston Crescent, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, B3A 2M2, Canada, to whom letters and editorial submissions should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected]

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Cover: ACD, the reason we all “hear of Sherlock everywhere.”

Canadian Holmes Volume 36 Number 1 Fall 2013 One hundred and thirty-seventh issue

Contents Canadian Holmes Fall 2013 Volume 36 Number 1

Traces of Bootprints 1 By JoAnn and Mark Alberstat

From Mrs. Hudson’s Kitchen 2 By Wendy Heyman-Marsaw

Sherlock Holmes in ‘The Hands of the Jews:’ 5 Jewish Stereotypes in the Canon By Clifford S. Goldfarb and Hartley R. Nathan

Strictly Personal: Thelma Beam 17

Sherlockian Thoughts on the Danforth: A Tale of Two 18 Multicultural Cities By Chris Redmond

Science and Sherlock Holmes 23 By Dana Richards

From the Editors’ Bookshelf 31

Letters From Lomax 33 By Peggy Perdue

News Notes 35 By Susan Fitch

Photos from the 2nd Annual Can-Am BOT-BSI Silver Blaze Event 36 Photos by Bruce Aikin and Peter Calamai

Bootmakers’ Diary 37 By Donny Zaldin

RACES OF BOOTPRINTS

Becoming a fan again

I have been a Sherlockian for more than 30 years. I started off by enjoying the original stories and my love of those grew when I started the local club here in Halifax, the Spence Munros. To sit around a table and talk Sherlock once every couple of months was a dream come true for me when I was in my mid-teens. We sat in a conference room at Saint Mary’s University Library, surrounded by show-and-tell items brought for that meeting about a fictional character. When I slowly learned about the wider Sherlockian world, I corresponded with like-minded people from across North America and around the world. I would regularly receive packages in the mail from the likes of John Bennett Shaw, Rev. Ben Wood and our own, and very encouraging, Cameron Hollyer. The years went by and my interest became more academic as I read biographies of Doyle and tried my hand at writing the ocassional scholarly paper for Canadian Holmes. It was a hobby I enjoyed but felt there were so few of us that it was a hobby to keep under wraps. The recent rennaissance in everything Sherlock has made me a fan again and a recent article in the local newspaper has brought people to my desk at work asking about Sherlock, the club and my thoughts on everything from Robert Downey Jr. and Benedict Cumberbatch to The House of Silk. TV series such as Elementary, Sherlock and the explosion of interest in Holmes on the Internet, the twitter-sphere, tumblr and other online destinations have also renewed my interest and not just as a Sherlockian who spends too much time reading into the minutaie of each story but a follower who enjoys the fan fiction and playful T- shirts as much as the scholarly articles. In fact, you can now follow @CanadianHolmes on Twitter. Fans today come in all varieties. From cosplay fans, who have costumes that would make most theatre productions envious, to those who have original letters and manuscripts from the hand of Conan Doyle, we are all of the same ilk. For today’s fan, it is all good, it is all fun and all worthy of our time. With this current edition in your hand, sit back, relax and enjoy our wide world of Sherlock. This issue plays the great game of Holmes being a real person with our Mrs. Hudson column and Dana Richard’s article on Science and Sherlock Holmes. We also feature an article from Cliff Goldfarb and Hartley Nathan as they look into anti-Semitism in the Canon and in literature, in the time when Doyle was spinning the yarns we all know and love so well.

Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 1 From Mrs. Hudson’s Kitchen

This column is by Mrs. Hudson herself and dictated to Wendy Heyman-Marsaw, a Sherlockian living in Halifax. Mrs. Hudson provided this photograph of herself at age 24, taken on the occasion of her betrothal to Mr. Hudson.

Illness, Medicine, Poison and Mrs. Hudson

…a telegram from Lyons which informed me that Holmes was lying ill… Within 24 hours I was in his sickroom…even his iron constitution, however, had broken down under the strain of an investigation. — Dr. Watson (REIG)

Drink this. I dashed some brandy into the water, and the colour began to come back to his bloodless checks….I sponged the wound, cleaned it, dressed it and finally covered it over with cotton wadding and carbolized bandages. – Dr. Watson (ENGR)

We were very fortunate to live during a time of great advances in medicine. The following is a list of the most important: nitrous oxide, the stethoscope and thermometer were invented and carbolic acid disinfectant. As well, The Lancet was first published (Dr. Watson is an avid reader of this publication), the use of chloroform for surgery was developed, and germ theory led to diagnoses for scarlet fever, croup, syphilis, gonorrhea, typhoid and typhus. Great advances were made but there were great threats as well. It was not until 1850 that it was recognized that both cholera and typhoid were transmitted through drinking water that was contaminated with faeces. Legislation to improve London’s water supply was passed in 1855. In 1872 the Food, Drink and Drugs Act protected the poor by eliminating adulterated foods such as plaster of Paris in bread, rotten food and strychnine in beer. Fog caused respiratory diseases that led to pneumonia and pleurisy, resulting in thousands of deaths. Tuberculosis accounted for more than 20 million deaths during the 19th century. Although the poor were most affected, Queen Victoria’s beloved husband Prince Albert was among those who succumbed. Physicians were exalted over surgeons for many years. Doctors attended medical school for three or four years or more, whereas surgeons merely apprenticed for a year. The surgeons were considered glorified butchers. The best of the lot were those who could amputate in the shortest length of time. 2 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 Thus, they held the title of simply “Mr.” which continues to the present day. Doctors were expensive and ministered predominantly to the middle and upper classes. A Harley Street address was highly desirable, as it is today. Medical school graduates could become Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP). Dear Dr. Watson had to take special instruction in surgery before he went out to Afghanistan and thus is very qualified both as a physician and surgeon. Most doctors perceived their role simply as observing the patient’s symptoms, deciding upon a diagnosis, and prescribing medications and diet. Hands-on ministering such as palpating, and use of the recently-invented stethoscope were avoided until other physicians had success with these new methods. The poor could not afford the luxury of doctors. They relied on apothecaries, chemists and druggists. In dire straights, the poor resorted to overcrowded and filthy hospitals. The nurses were often inebriated and simply changed the slops and delivered watery gruel for meals. When Florence Nightingale returned from Scutari in the Crimea, she was horrified at the conditions and nursing staff. She founded the Nightingale School of Nursing at St. Thomas Hospital. The first students were admitted in 1860. Her graduates were considered to be “true professional women.” Miss Nightingale had more medical skills than many Harley Street physicians. In 1907 she became the first woman to receive The Order of Merit. Miss Nightingale, ill and weak, worked well into her 90s. The century also produced a plethora of so-called patent medicines (which did not have patents at all). Apothecaries, chemists, druggists and pharmacists enjoyed a surge in business from the poor and middle class, who sought cures for every ailment. Jesse Boots took over the family chemist shop in 1877. By 1931 there were more than 1,000 Boots the Chemist outlets in Great Britain. Druggists, chemists and pharmacists developed numerous remedies. These were often poisonous, habit forming or ineffective products. They contained ingredients, including laudanum, opium, morphine, cocaine and arsenic, high concentrations of alcohol, lead, zinc, mercury and digitalis.

Nourishing Meals for the Invalid (Approved by Florence Nightingale) These are rules to be observed in cooking for invalids: Let all the kitchen utensils be delicately and scrupulously clean. Never make a large quantity of one thing and it is desirable that variety be provided for them. Always have something in readiness should the invalid desire sustenance. If obliged to wait too long, the patient loses his or her desire to eat. In sending food to the invalid, let everything look as tempting as possible. Have a clean tray cloth; let the spoons, tumblers, cups and saucers be very clean and bright. Gruel is more appetizing when served in a tumbler. As milk is an important food for the sick, in warm weather let it be kept on ice. Many other delicacies may be preserved in this manner for a little time. If the invalid is allowed to eat vegetables, never send them undercooked or raw. Let a small quantity be cut into small pieces and temptingly arranged on the

Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 3 dish. This rule applies to every preparation, as the invalid will enjoy smaller pieces. Never leave food in a sickroom. If the patient cannot eat it, take it away and bring it back in an hour or two. Miss Nightingale says, “To leave the patient’s food by his side, from meal to meal, in hope he will eat it in the interval, is simply to prevent him from taking food at all.” I have given just half of the rules and suggestions, due to limited space, regarding how to prepare food for invalids. I would be pleased to provide the remainder to you, Dear Readers, upon request.

Nutritious Coffee Ingredients: ½ oz. ground coffee, 1 pt. milk. Mode: Put coffee into a saucepan, with the milk, which should be made nearly boiling before the coffee is put in, and boil both together for 3 minute. Clear it by pouring some of it into a cup, and then back again, and leave it on the hob for a few minutes to settle thoroughly. This coffee is made still more nutritious by the addition of an egg, well beaten and put into the coffee cup.

Egg Wine Ingredients: 1 egg, 1 tbs. and ½ glass cold water, 1 glass sherry, sugar and grated nutmeg to taste. Mode: Beat the egg, mixing it with 1 tbs. of cold water; make the wine and water hot but not boiling; pour it on the egg, stirring all the time. Add sufficient lump sugar to sweeten the mixture, and a little grated nutmeg. Put all into a very clean saucepan, set it on a gentle fire and stir the contents one way until it thickens but do not allow them to boil. Serve in a glass with snippets of toasted bread or plain crisp biscuits. When the egg is not warmed, the mixture will be found easier of digestion but it is not so pleasant a drink.

Revolutionary Products Three inventions made caring for the ill much easier. Bovril was created in 1870 by John Lawson Johnston as a simpler beef tea. Alfred Bird was a qualified chemist, druggist and registered pharmacist. His wife was unable to digest eggs, bread or yeast but was very partial to custard. After six years of work, he formulated Bird’s Custard Powder in 1837. There was a large demand for a way to improve the taste of meat that was not always fresh and a desire to enhance bland foods. Mr. Lea, a pharmacist from Worcester, and his assistant Mr. Perrins introduced Worcestershire Sauce, to great acclaim. The formula was a closely-held secret until it was uncovered in 1980.

As I reflect upon the sad and dangerous items about which I have just written, I thank heaven I have as lodgers dear Mr. Holmes who is a superb chemist and knowledgeable about all manner of poisons, and Dr. Watson, who is an experienced modern physician and surgeon with his wits about him.

4 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 Sherlock Holmes in ‘The Hands of the Jews:’Jewish Stereotypes in the Canon

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part article. The second half will appear in the Winter 2013/2014 issue. It is also the sixth in a series based around the Jewish connection in the Canon.

By Clifford S. Goldfarb and Hartley R. Nathan[1]

Clifford Goldfarb and Hartley Nathan are long-time Bootmakers and frequent contributors to Canadian Holmes. Hartley is one of the founders of the Bootmakers of Toronto and has twice been Meyers. Cliff is Chair of the Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the Toronto Reference Library.

artley and I believe we have almost exhausted all references to real or fictional Jewish characters in the Canon in our five previous Jewish connection papers.[2] However, while we may have dealt with most of the clearly identifiable Jews mentioned by Conan Doyle, there are five canonical phrases which on the surface appear to be references to Jews and which appear from today’s viewpoint to be derogatory. These were contained in the following stories published between the years 1887 – 1927:

STUD: “The same afternoon brought a grey-headed, seedy visitor, looking like a Jew pedlar….” — 1887

CARD: “We had a pleasant meeting together, during which Holmes would talk about nothing but violins, narrating with great exultation how he had purchased his own Stradivarius, which was worth at least five hundred guineas, at a “Jew broker’s” in Tottenham Court Road for fifty-five shillings” — 1893.

STOC: “A touch of the Sheeny” — 1893. [4]

SHOS: “He’s holding off the Jews till then” “For myself, I am deeply in the hands of the Jews” — 1927.

Background — Jewish Immigration to Britain

The following is a summary of the article on England in volume 6 of Encyclopaedia Judaica: Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 5 There were Jews in England from Roman times, but there was a mass expulsion in 1290 under Edward I. Small numbers of Jews, most of them transient, came in through the next few centuries. There was a small semi-overt Marrano community of approximately 100 in London until 1609.[4] After the re-admission of Sephardic Jews during the 1650s under Cromwell, there were various improvements in the status of Jews. The practice of Judaism finally received indirect Parliamentary recognition in the Act for Suppressing Blasphemy of 1698. The number of “Jew Brokers” in the City of London was limited to 12. After 1750, the Ashkenazi community was also established, lower in social and commercial status, many occupied in itinerant trading in country areas where the Jewish pedlar became a familiar figure. Emancipation continued throughout the 19th century as various legal disabilities were removed, culminating in 1890. Nathaniel de Rothschild was the first Jew raised to the peerage, in 1885; Sir George Jessel was Solicitor General from 1871; Benjamin Disraeli, a convert to Christianity, was Prime Minister in 1868 and again from 1872-1880. Persecution in Russia from 1881 led to a huge increase in immigration from Eastern Europe. Jews gravitated to one or two trades, creating the ready-made clothing industry. Social and economic pressures, as well as legal impediments, led to many Jews becoming moneylenders and brokers, as well as street pedlars. The Aliens Immigration Act of 1905, passed after long, often anti-Semitic agitation, stemmed the tide of immigration. The Jewish population of 65,000 in 1880 increased to 300,000 by 1914. Immigrants formed compact, overcrowded ghettos in East London, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Glasgow. In 1901, about 40 per cent of employed Russian-Polish immigrants were tailors, 12-13 per cent were in the boot trade and 10 per cent in the furniture trade, mainly as cabinet makers. The non-Jewish working classes objected, charging that aliens working for low wages on piecework in small workshops would depress wages generally and cause unemployment, put pressure on housing, raise rents and bring disease and crime. Although this was generally found to be untrue, it led to the 1905 Aliens Act. This was the milieu in which the Canon was written and in which references to Jews must be understood. Conan Doyle’s reference in SHOS to Norberton being in the “hands of the Jews” was a stereotypical description of a man deeply in debt and having to fend off his creditors before they could seize his assets.

A brief summary of anti-Semitic references to Jews in English literature

It is not possible in a brief summary to set out all of the references to Jews or to Jewish characters in modern English literature. For our review, we have chosen the period from the publication of Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott in 1819 to Lord Alfred Douglas in 1926. Here are some comments to consider before we turn to Conan Doyle’s writings. Stereotyping can, in the view of some commentators, constitute virulent anti- Semitism:[5] 6 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013

Barbara Rusch writes:

‘Shoscombe Old Place,’ published in 1927, ... is the tale of Sir Robert Norberton who, on account of his debts, takes drastic measures to conceal the death of his sister and benefactor. Because he has “fallen into the hands of the Jews,” he finds himself “compelled” to horsewhip Sam Brewer, a well-known Curzon Street moneylender, according to Norberton, a “rascally fellow,” on Newmarket Heath. This raises some troubling questions. If his creditor had been Mr. John Bull, socially prominent bank manager at the Curzon Street Bank, instead of a Jewish moneylender, would he have felt the same compulsion to horsewhip him in public when he attempted to collect on his debt? And would he have gotten away with it? I'm not sure Conan Doyle or his readers ever bothered to ask themselves these questions, so desensitized had they become to such invective, both within the print culture and in real life, especially when it came to attacks on Jewish moneylenders and pawnbrokers. Nor does the fact that it is generally the non-Jew in these cases who has borrowed the money in the first place and is not keeping to his end of the bargain ever seem to enter into the equation. However, given their profound influence and ability to rally public opinion, it is indeed disappointing that Charles Dickens and Conan Doyle succumbed to the powerful cultural mythologies of their day, content to perpetuate existing racial stereotypes rather than rally against them. That many of these great writers, notably Dickens, Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, whose undisputed brilliance has been immortalized, shared a utopian vision of a world characterized by social justice and harmony makes their racist attitudes and vitriolic pronouncements all the more disappointing and somewhat mystifying. These authors belonged to a literary cabal whose vicious portrayals and peculiar brand of racial profiling which pervades their much-loved and critically acclaimed classics are also a potent form of hate literature, helping to define the public’s conception of the Jewish persona and laying the foundations for really professional purveyors of hate, like Joseph Goebbels, on which to build.

We will now refer to a few prominent authors of the period and their publications:

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) [6] Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott’s historical novel, was published in 1819 and was a favourite of Conan Doyle’s. Set in 1194, two of the characters include a Jewish moneylender, Isaac of York, and his daughter, Rebecca, who suffer frequent injustices. The book was written and published during a period of increasing struggle for emancipation of the Jews in Britain. There are frequent references to injustices against them. Most believe Isaac is Shylock’s historical ancestor.[7] The chapter in which Isaac is introduced is headed by a quotation from The Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 7 Merchant of Venice “Hath not a Jew eyes?” Gross, in Shylock: A Legend and Its Legacy, writes: “Scott’s own day-to-day attitude toward Jews was one of tolerance tempered by distance (or perhaps the other way round).” Scott summed up his views in a letter to a friend:

I think Miss Edgeworth’s last work delightful, though Jews will always be to me Jews. One does not naturally or easily combine with their habits and pursuits any great liberality of principle, although certainly it may and I believe does exist in many individual instances. They are money-makers and money-brokers by profession and it is a trade which narrows the mind.

Scott portrays Isaac as unprincipled, grasping and cowardly. He is much more kindly disposed toward Rebecca, who is a Jewish paragon in word and deed. He creates a strong positive image of Rebecca, Isaac’s daughter.

Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray appeared in 1890. His Jewish stage manager, Isaacs, is a minor character who runs the theatre in which Sibyl Vane acts.[8] His Jewishness is stressed so much and he is so unsympathetically presented that the reader cannot help feeling a bit surprised and even startled. We first meet Isaacs in chapter 4, when Gray says to Lord Henry:

A hideous Jew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was standing at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar. He had greasy ringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of a soiled shirt. ‘Have a box, my Lord?’ he said, when he saw me, and he took off his hat with an air of gorgeous servility. There was something about him, Harry, that amused me. He was such a monster.

Gray’s dislike of Isaacs is not simply personal. It has strong anti-Semitic overtones. Nor does it seem to have any limits. Gray attacks him again and again. A few pages later, for instance, he says:

On the first night I was at the theatre, the horrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over, and offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to [Sybil Vane]… He was a most offensive brute, though he had an extraordinary passion for Shakespeare.

Does this passage do nothing more than unselfconsciously give voice to a sentiment that the majority of the novel’s Christian readers would endorse — a bodily, as well as moral, loathing echoed by Wilde’s narrator, and was this a feeling that Wilde himself shared? In Gentile circles and in Wilde’s own social milieu, close relations with particular Jews (and with Jewish women, in particular)[9] did not guarantee an

8 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 absence of the kind of negative stereotyping of Jews in general so common in late 19th-century Britain.

George du Maurier (1834-1896) George du Maurier, primarily an illustrator, wrote three novels, the most famous of which is Trilby (1894). Edgar Rosenberg, in From Shylock to Svengali[10], compares Fagin to du Maurier’s Svengali in Trilby, as follows:

One may conveniently compare Cruikshank’s drawing of Fagin in his condemned cell in Oliver Twist with du Maurier’s drawing of Svengali in the act of hypnotizing Trilby. Detail for detail of two Jews run equally true to type: the same unkempt hair, the same bushy eyebrows and penetrating stare, the same protruding Hapsburg lip. The noses are beaked in the same way, not so much jutting outward as resting flat against the mustaches, so that the characters may be imagined sniffing into their beards as they converse; the beards, too, are of identical cut, straggling Vandykes. The fingers which Fagin strikes cunningly against the side of his nose and those with which Svengali beckons toward Trilby are the same long, bony, by no means unbeautiful fingers. The shabby clothes, too, are shabby in the same way. The only difference is that Fagin still wears the broad-brimmed hat and the long black kaftan perpetuated by orthodox Jews, whereas Svengali is done up indifferently in the garb of the Parisian bohemian. And their sleeves are a world too wide for their shrunken wrists.

He could well have also compared Fagin to the stage manager, Isaacs, in The Picture of Dorian Gray.[11]

On the left is Svengali the hypnotist with the well-caricatured Jewish look; on the right is Dickens’ Fagin.

Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 9 G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) G.K. Chesterton faced accusations of anti-Semitism during his lifetime and subsequently. In a 1917 work, titled A Short History of England, Chesterton writes that Edward I was “just and conscientious,” a monarch never more truly representative of his people than when in 1290 he expelled the Jews, “as powerful as they are unpopular.” Chesterton writes that Jews were “capitalists of their age” so that when Edward “flung the alien financiers out of the land,” he acted as “both ‘knight errant’ and ‘tender father of his people’.” [12] In The New Jerusalem (1920), an account of his travels in Palestine, Chesterton made it clear that he believed that there was a “Jewish Problem” in Europe, in the sense that he believed that Jewish culture (not Jewish ethnicity) separated itself from the nationalists of Europe. He suggested the formation of a Jewish homeland as a solution, and was later invited to Palestine by Jewish Zionists, who saw him as an ally in their cause. The Wiener Library, London’s archive on anti-Semitism and Holocaust history, has defended Chesterton against the charge of anti-Semitism: “He was not an enemy, and when the real testing time came along he showed what side he was on.” Chesterton, like his friend Hillaire Belloc, openly expressed his abhorrence of Hitler’s rule almost as soon as it started.[13]

Hillaire Belloc (1870-1953) Hillaire Belloc was preoccupied with Jews and would tell anyone ready to listen to him what he thought of them. They provoked him. He saw Jewish conspiracies everywhere. According to him, the Russian Revolution was a Jewish experiment. He wrote a series of novels about I.Z. Barnett, a fictional Jewish swindler, who becomes a press magnate and is ultimately elevated to the peerage as Lord Lambeth.[14]

H.G. Wells (1866-1946) Michael Coren, in his biography of H.G. Wells[15], says:

In his fictional writings, Jewish characters occur in surprisingly large numbers, and are invariably stereotypical villains or base caricatures. The first such depiction is in The Invisible Man, published as early as 1897. Here we encounter the Jew as landlord, man of property. He is ‘an old Polish Jew in H.G. Wells in 1939 a long grey coat and greasy slippers;’ one of his two Yiddish speaking stepsons possesses ‘staring eyes and thick-lipped bearded face.’

10 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) T.S. Eliot’s well-known nonsensical poem “Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar” (1919/20)[16] reflects the casual anti-Semitism that was popular at the time and explains why Conan Doyle could use a derogatory term so casually in SHOS without raising any protests.[17] The poem reads, in part:

A lustreless protrusive eye Stares from the protozoic slime At a perspective of Canaletto. The smoky candle end of time Declines. On the Rialto once. The rats are underneath the piles. The Jew is underneath the lot. Money in furs.

Lord Alfred Douglas (1870-1945) Lord Alfred Douglas was convinced by the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion that the Jews took positions of power and corrupted the British system.[18] In 1923, Douglas issued a pamphlet titled “The Murder of Lord Kitchener – The Truth About the Battle of Jutland and the Jews,” claiming that Churchill had been part of a Jewish conspiracy to kill Lord Kitchener. For this he was found guilty of criminally libelling Churchill and was sentenced to six months in prison. Kitchener had died on June 5, 1916, while on a diplomatic mission to Russia. The ship in which he was travelling, the armoured cruiser HMS Hampshire, struck a German naval mine and sank west of the Orkney Islands.[19] In 1924, while in prison, Douglas, in an ironic echo of Wilde’s composition of De Profundis (Latin for “from the depths”), wrote his last major poetic work, In Excelsis (literally, “in the highest”), which contains 17 cantos. The sonnet, which has serious anti-Semitic overtones, opens:

The leprous spawn of scattered Israel Spreads its contagion in your English blood;

and it ends:

In hidden holds they stew the mandrake mess That kills the soul and turns the blood to fire, They weave the spell that turns desire to dust And postulates the abyss of nothingness.

Douglas Murray in Bosie[20] tells us:

Though the editing of two newspapers, Plain English and Plain Speech, had not been a great success, it had at least given Douglas the opportunity to do sustained work. The pitfall was that the papers made Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 11 him more enemies than friends. Their anti-Semitic content had put many people’s opinions firmly against him. Although one of the few specific attacks on Jews came when the famous quatrain was published for the first time by Douglas in Plain English in 1926:

How odd Of God To choose The Jews. The frequent implications that Jewish conspiracies were being worked at high levels in society made many indignant.

Contemporary genre writers

During the late 19th and early years of the 20th century, a number of crime genre writers became popular. Most of these were considered second-rate novelists but their popularity has survived many more accomplished authors. We cite three of the more prominent to show how readily their casual anti- Semitism passed without comment.

Baroness Emmuska Orczy (1865-1947) The Scarlet Pimpernel, the most famous of her numerous novels, published in 1905, was set in 1792 Paris during the French Revolution. In Chapter XXVI, titled “The Jew,” the search is on for Reuben Goldstein, last seen with the Scarlet Pimpernel: Desgas returned, followed by an elderly Jew in a dirty, threadbare, gaberdine, worn greasy across the shoulders. His red hair, which he wore after the fashion of the Polish Jews, with the corkscrew curls each side of his face, was plentifully sprinkled with grey — a general coating of grime about his cheeks and his chin gave him a peculiarly dirty and loathsome appearance. He had the habitual stoop those of his race affected in mock humility in past centuries, before the dawn of equality and freedom in matters of faith, and he walked behind Desgas with the peculiar shuffling gait which has remained the characteristic of the Jew trader in continental Europe to this day. Chauvelin, who had all the Frenchman’s prejudice against the despised race, motioned to the fellow to keep at a respectful distance. The Jew, with characteristic patience, stood humbly on the side, leaning on a thick knotted staff, his greasy, broad-brimmed hat casting a deep shadow over his grimy face, waiting for the noble Excellency to deign to put some questions to him.

“The Jew” is never identified by name, but is referred to this way no less than 15 times in the chapter. He is paid to reveal information as to the direction in

12 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 which Reuben Goldstein had driven the Scarlet Pimpernel. Orczy was a noted anti-Semite. Her depiction of 18th-century anti-Semitism is an accurate statement about the era; what offends today is her certainty that this was correct.

John Buchan (1875-1940) As Lord Tweedsmuir, Buchan was Governor General of Canada from 1935-1940. In The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), Richard Hannay learns from a mysterious American of an international conspiracy of Jewish anarchists and capitalists, at the bottom of which is ‘a little white-faced Jew in a bath-chair with an eye like a rattlesnake.’ In Greenmantle (1916), Hannay continues his Jewish conspiracy theory in describing the German people:

He may have plenty of brains, as Stumm had, but he has the poorest notion of psychology of any of God’s creatures. In John Buchan on the cover Germany, only the Jew can get outside of Time, Oct. 21, 1935 himself, and that is why, if you look into the matter, you will find that the Jew is at the back of most German enterprises.[21]

Christopher Hitchens has written of him:[22]

Like Greene and Evelyn Waugh and many others of the period, Buchan has been accused of anti-Semitism. Two defences have frequently been offered in these cases: that the alleged anti-Semite harbored a prejudice no greater than was commonplace at the time, and that he had many Jewish friends. A third possibility—that the offending words are uttered by fictional characters and not by the author—is sometimes canvassed. None of these will quite do in Buchan's case. It’s not merely that anti-Jewish clichés occur in his books; it’s that they occur so frequently. The usual form they take is a reference to Judeo- Bolshevism—the sympathy of Jews, even rich ones, for the Russian Revolution. That, however, might be described as political anti- Semitism, just as Buchan’s energetic support for the early Zionist movement might be called political philo-Semitism. Paradoxically, perhaps, Buchan greatly disliked as a person the most anti-Jewish and pro-Zionist figure of his day, Arthur Balfour.

Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 13 Agatha Christie (1890-1976) As commentator Christine Odone has recently written of Christie’s anti- Semitism:[23]

Jews are “little” or “avid,” their lips are “thick and Semitic,” and their eyes light up with greed at the mention of money. From And Then There Were None (the original title was Ten Little Niggers) to Lord Edgware Dies, Jews are figures of comedy and contempt, caricatured mercilessly as money-grubbing social climbers. But would I erase [the stereotyping]? Never: to see anti-Semitism so endemic in the works of a highly respected and bestselling author is to understand a period of history – and its horrific consequences. Read these detective novels, and you understand how pogroms could go on in Russia and Eastern Europe as late as the 1920s without a squeak from western European governments. Take in Christie’s casual anti-Semitism and you see why Jews in Britain clung to ghettos and were suspicious of assimilation. From Oswald Mosley’s popularity, through Neville Chamberlain’s ambivalence to saving European Jewry, to the “no Jews” admission policy of London gentlemen’s clubs: reading the unexpurgated Christie makes sense of what, to contemporary eyes, seems impossible.

We could cite many other contemporaries of Conan Doyle, whose casual use of anti-Semitic stereotypes are far more vicious than the essentially benign ones of SHOS or his other works.[24] Notes [1] A shorter version of this paper was delivered to The Bootmakers of Toronto at the Toronto Reference Library on Dec. 8, 2012. [2] See: ‘Who Was That Hebrew Rabbi?’ (2011) Vol. 33, No. 4, Canadian Holmes at p. 11. ‘Sherlock Holmes in Jerusalem’ (with Joseph Kessel) (2011) Vol. 34, No. 1 Canadian Holmes at p. 5. ‘Who Was Ikey Sanders?’ (2012) Vol. 34, No. 2 Canadian Holmes at p. 10. ‘Who Was Old Abrahams?’ (2012) Vol. 34, No. 3, Canadian Holmes at p. 4. ‘Oh Sinner Man – Where You Gonna Run to?: Sir Arthur and Sir George,’ [first part] (2012) Vol. 34, No.4, Canadian. Holmes, at p.6; [second part] (2012), Vol. 35, No.1, at p. 8. [3] Here is all that the OED has to say about “sheeny.” It is also used to refer to a shininess of cloth, but clearly that’s not the context in which ACD was using it. He could only have meant that Beddington, aka Pinner, had what people would consider to be a Jewish nose. OED: Sheeny — slang — also “sheenie”, “sheeney,” “shen(e)y” [of obscure origin : cf. Russ. [characters spelling zhid], Pol., Czech “zid” with semi-circle over z (pronounced zid) A Jew.] A Jew. 1824 in Spirit Publ. Jrnls. (1825) 85. Orange Battery among the Sheenes [read Sheenies]. Sketches at Bow Street. — No. V. 1828 Egan Boxiana Ser. II. I.632. A good day’s play among the

14 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 Sheenies. 1893 Foreman Trip to Spain 34. A Portuguese Jew (A ‘sheeny’ as he is termed by the sailors). attrib. 1888 Kipling’s Soldiers Three, In Matter of a Private, You lie, you man- sticker. You sneakin’ Sheeny butcher. You lie. Klinger, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes Reference Library, n. 31, p.74, says “A pejorative term for a Jew...Cf. Thackeray, 1847: “Sheeney and Moses are ... smoking their pipes before their lazy shutters in Seven Dials.” JONES, (p.113). In Volume I of the New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, n. 21, p. 481, he expands on this: A pejorative term for a Jew. Although the precise origin of the word is unknown, some suggest that it comes from the Yiddish expression “miesse meshina” a curse; other sources, such as Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang, point to the Yiddish “shayner,” which literally means “beautiful” but is more familiarly used to signify a pious person or a traditional Jew (often wearing a full beard). Assimilated Jews, such as those who had emigrated from Germany to England in the early part of the 19th century, would use the term to mock those who followed for being old-fashioned and tied to the ways of the old country. [4] Contrary to some claims that Shakespeare could not have written The Merchant of Venice, because he had never met Jews, there were opportunities for him to do so in London. See James Shapiro, Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? New York: Simon & Shuster, 2010, p.5. [5] ‘Fagin & Friends: The Image of the Jew In Victorian Literature and Popular Culture,’ unpublished talk by Barbara Rusch given on Feb. 3, 2013. Reproduced with Barbara’s kind permission. [6] Shylock: A Legend and its Legacy, New York: Simon and Schuster. For further and more comprehensive reading, see Edgar Rosenberg: From Shylock to Svengali, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1960 at pp. 234 et seq. Anthony Julius: Trials of the Diaspora, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Much of the following commentary about Conan Doyle’s literary contemporaries relies on this book. See also John Gross, Shylock: A Legend and Its Legacy, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992. [7] Rosenberg, ibid note 6 at pp. 74 et seq. and Gross, ibid note 6 at pp. 211 et seq. [8] Christopher S. Nassaar: ‘The Problem of the Jewish Manager,’ Vol. 22 The Wildean, January 2003, pp, 29 et seq. According to Nassaar, Isaacs is Wilde’s response to Daniel Deronda by George Eliot, a towering example of the portrayal of the Jewish community in the late 19th century. See also Margaret D. Stetz ‘To defend the undefendable’: “Oscar Wilde and the Davis Family.’ Scholars Special Issue: Oscar Wilde, Jews & the Fin-de-Siècle, summer 2010. [9 ] Wilde’s female Jewish friends included Sarah Bernhardt and Ida Leverson. [10] Rosenberg, supra note 6 at pp. 234 et seq. [11] It is interesting to note that in Oliver Twist, Dickens refers to Fagin as “the Jew” 257 times in 38 chapters. Compare this with Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel infra [12] See Julius, supra note 6 at p. 422.

Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 15 [13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.K.Chesterton. See also Michael Coren, Gilbert: The Man Who Was G. K. Chesterton, London: Vintage, 1990, p.203 [14] See Julius, supra note 6 at p. 403 [15] Michael Coren: The Invisible Man; Toronto: Vintage Books, 1993 at p. 214. Coren quotes from other Wells’ writings such as Tono-Bungay (1909), The New Machiavelli (1911) and The Marriage (1912), all of which can clearly be viewed as anti-Semitic. Coren has tried hard to establish his hypothesis that G.K. Chesterton was not himself an anti-Semite, while Chesterton’s brother Cecil and Hillaire Belloc, all of whom moved in the same circles, clearly were acknowledged anti-Semites. We do not find this convincing. The issue is not whether Chesterton was anti-Semitic but merely how virulent. [16] http://www.bartleby.com/199/14.html. There was another egregious instance in his reference to the undesirability of a large number of “free-thinking Jews” in “After Strange Gods” (1933). Peter Ackroyd gives more details of what appear to be anti-Semitic remarks in unpublished letters between 1917 and 1929. He states in T. S. Elliot, London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1993 at pp. 303-4: “All the available evidence suggests then, that on occasion he made what were then fashionably anti-Semitic remarks to his close friends. Leonard Woolf, himself a Jew, has said: “I think T. S. Eliot was slightly anti-Semitic in the sort of vague way which is not uncommon.” [17] Emmanuel Litvinoff, the English poet, would have forgiven Eliot this casual anti-Semitism in 1920, but when the poem was reprinted in a 1948 anthology, he became very upset and wrote a poem critical of Eliot, which he read to a session attended by Eliot. This incident was reported in the press. This caused Eliot’s secretary to deny any suggestion Eliot that was anti-Semitic. See Peter Ackroyd: Eliot; ibid., at p. 303. [18] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Alfred_Douglas. The Protocols was a notorious forgery concocted in the late 19th century, likely by agents of the Tsar describing a Jewish plot to control the world. For a history of The Protocols and its publication in England, see Hadassa Ben-Itto: The Lie That Wouldn’t Die, London — Portland, Oregon: Vallantine-Mitchell, 2005. [19] Conan Doyle wrote a sympathetic letter to Churchill after the conviction (now in the Churchill Archives at Cambridge), referring to his own exchange of letters with Douglas (now in the Conan Doyle Collection in Toronto). In spite of this libel claim, Douglas wrote a sonnet in praise of Churchill that appeared in The Daily Mail on July 4, 1941. It is reproduced in Douglas Murray: Bosie, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2000 at p. 317. [20] Ibid. at p. 233. [21] Greenmantle is the second of the five novels featuring Richard Hannay [22] The Atlantic Monthly, March 2004 [23] Christine Odone, The Telegraph, December 25, 2012: http://blogs. telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100070883/in-terms-of-literary-racism- agatha-christie-is-truly-the-queen-of-crime/ [24] These include Dorothy Sayers, E. Phillips Oppenheim and R. Austin Freeman, all of whom were bestselling authors in their time.

16 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 Strictly Personal

Canadian Holmes puts a prominent Canadian Sherlockian under the microscope.

Name: Thelma Beam Age, birthplace: I was born in Athens, Greece, exactly one year after Sputnik. Occupation: Psychotherapist and marketing guru Current city of residence: Toronto and Port Sydney, Ontario In school I excelled at: Unauthorized field trips A great evening for me is: Going to a party where there is lots of dancing! Goal in life: I want what I do to be either important or fun, and preferably both. I hope that becoming Meyers in 2014 will fulfill this goal! Other hobbies and interests: I love music of many kinds and I spend a lot of time working on my song collection. Favourite dining experience: Asian fusion First Sherlockian memory: At one of the first Bootmaker meetings I ever attended, there was a demonstration of baritsu, and I learned to break a block of wood using just my hand! Still one of my great accomplishments. Three favourite Canonical tales: ‘Musgrave Ritual,’ Hound of the Baskervilles, ‘The Copper Beeches.’ Least favorite Canonical tale: ‘Mazarin Stone.’ It just seems really lazy to me. Holmes never leaves the premises. Favourite Non-Sherlockian reading: Victorian and Pre-Victorian novels by Anthony Trollope, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, H. Rider Haggard, M.E. Braddon and others Favourite Sherlockian movie: I am much fonder of the TV series: the Jeremy Brett series and, against my expectations, I have become a fan of Elementary. Most-prized item in my Sherlockian collection: I was given the Royal Doulton figurine ‘The Detective’ for my birthday one year and have loved it ever since. If I could live anywhere in the world it would be: I cannot think of anywhere else I would rather live than in Canada, especially now. If I could live at any time in history, it would be: In the Star Trek universe of the future, when people have figured out how to make the world a better place. If I could ask Holmes, Watson and Doyle each one question, they would be: Holmes: Tell me about your mother. Watson: What does your medical training tell you about Holmes’ personality disorder, in light of modern psychological theory? Doyle: Tell me about your mother.

Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 17 Sherlockian Thoughts on the Danforth: A Tale of Two Multicultural Cities

By Chris Redmond Chris Redmond is a long-time Bootmaker, frequent contributor to Canadian Holmes and author of A Sherlock Holmes Handbook. Editor’s Note: This article was created from excerpts of a talk given to The Bootmakers of Toronto, 15 September 2012.

t all started on an early summer evening as I was sitting at a sidewalk table at a Greek restaurant a couple of blocks from Chester subway station. There wasn’t a Greek interpreter in sight, just a waiter who brought me roast lamb with potatoes and rice. I was dining alone, and so I sat watching the passers-by on the Danforth and remembering a song from several decades ago: “Brother, you don’t know a nicer occupation; matter of fact, neither do I.” The song continues: “Brother, they can’t put you in jail for what you’re thinking.” Well, I thought a number of things as the Friday evening crowds strolled past, but the most important thought that entered my mind was this: “Wow, there certainly aren’t many redheads around here.” I have always rather liked redheads, Sherlockian redheads in particular — our beloved Barbara Rusch, as well as the late Mary Campbell, a mainstay of the Bootmakers for many years, and the up-and-coming Kristina Manente, who visited Toronto last year for our Study in Scandal conference, and who blogs under the title Life with Big Ginger Hair. No doubt I have this kind of taste because I was once a redhead myself. When I was 18 I was as red-haired as Thaddeus and Bartholomew Sholto of The Sign of the Four, and incidentally, so was my girlfriend at the time. We looked so much alike that strangers occasionally thought we were brother and sister, which just shows how people are inclined to see but not to observe. We occasionally hear that redheads in general are on their way to extinction. There was a flurry of publicity around this idea in 2007, when National Geographic magazine published a brief piece on red-headedness and mentioned claims that the gene for this glorious characteristic, shared by Thomas Jefferson, Elizabeth I and Lucille Ball, was on its way to dying out. The recessive gene that causes red-headedness is important to Sherlockians because without it we wouldn’t have the whole story of ‘The Red-Headed League,’ as well as the Sholto brothers, Violet Hunter of ‘The Copper Beeches’ and others. We could, 18 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 of course, still have one spectacular Canonical redhead, the beggar Hugh Boone in ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip,’ whose carroty locks were dyed, not natural. According to Wikipedia, which is where I get most of my information these days, “Red hair appears in people with two copies of a recessive gene on chromosome 16 which causes a mutation in the MC1R protein.” Another source, howstuffworks.com, explains that redheadedness is “a recessive trait, so it takes both parents passing on a mutated version of the MC1R gene to produce a redheaded child. Because it’s a recessive trait, red hair can easily skip a generation. It can then reappear after skipping one or more generations if both parents, no matter their hair color, carry the red hair gene.” The phenomenon of redheadness reappearing after a couple of generations has led to many misunderstandings and jokes. Traditionally, redheads born into a family that hasn’t seen such a thing in recent times are attributed to the milkman. And that may be the real explanation of why redheads are dying out (if they are: when did you last see a milkman?) Consider ‘The Red-Headed League’ and remember what Duncan Ross — otherwise known as John Clay — tells poor Jabez Wilson when Wilson is applying for a position in the League: “The fund was for the propagation and spread of the red-heads as well as for their maintenance.” Wilson momentarily worries that he is not going to get the position, and feels a little guilty that he is doing nothing to spread his red-headed genes around, since he is a bachelor and not even a milkman. You will be much relieved — and Jabez Wilson also would have been relieved — to hear that scientists who understand the mechanism of recessive genes do not think we are going to run out of redheads any time soon. Most modern references to such a possibility can be traced back to speculation from the Oxford Hair Foundation, which sounds authoritative (a powerhouse of eggheads, if not redheads) but in fact turns out to be an arm of Procter & Gamble, the consumer products conglomerate whose hair-related brands include Pantene, Max Factor and Vidal Sassoon. ‘The Red-Headed League’ is not by any means the only story in which Sherlock Holmes encounters issues of heredity. You might think immediately of The Hound of the Baskervilles, in which Jack Stapleton, a bastard Baskerville in two senses, bears an astonishing physical resemblance to one of his distant ancestors. The mechanism of a gene working its magic when two parents both carry it, whether or not they are aware of it, is also of great importance for the light it sheds on one of the less prominent stories, ‘The Yellow Face.’ At the denouement of this story, Grant Munro’s wife, Effie, reveals that she has a daughter by her previous marriage. Her first husband was a black man, John Hebron of Atlanta, and, as the lady says, “It was our misfortune that our only child took after his people rather than mine. It is often so in such matches, and little Lucy is darker far than ever her father was.” There has been a great deal of agitated Sherlockian talk and writing about this incident. Four-fifths of what has been written is nonsense, but unfortunately I am not equipped to tell which one-fifth is worth paying attention to. Even the Internet fails me here. A lot of what’s online about the genetics of skin

Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 19 pigmentation turns out to be provided by white supremacist brotherhoods and other organizations whose opinions I don’t much value. And much of the rest is too technical for me, although it does seem to be clear that skin colour is much more complicated than eye colour and is not controlled by a single gene, either dominant or recessive. Various writings about ‘The Yellow Face’ have referred to Mendel’s Law, formulated in the 1860s, based on Gregor Mendel’s work with dominant and recessive genes in pea plants. However, it may not have escaped your notice that John Hebron and Effie Munro who were human beings, which are more complicated than pea plants. In addition, most speculation about the Atlanta case assumes that John was “pure black,” whatever that means, and Effie was “pure white,” whatever that means. Neither of those assumptions may be correct. There was not a lot of interracial marriage and reproduction in Georgia in the 19th century but there was certainly some, as we have been reminded by a recent book about the complicated ancestry of Michelle Obama. There is a good deal more interracial marriage in Toronto a 130 years later and that brings us back to a consideration of the passers-by whom I watched on Danforth Avenue that evening. I began by mentioning that I didn’t see many redheads. Most of the pedestrians were moving too fast for me to see their eye colour but I would wager that there were very few blue-eyed girls and boys among them. A generation ago that would not have been the case; I know someone who moved from the United States to Canada 30 years ago and was stunned by two big differences between the countries: you couldn’t buy beer in the grocery stores here, and half the people had blue eyes. Well, maybe it wasn’t really half but it seemed that way to my friend, and of course a major reason was that a large percentage of the population, at least in English-speaking Canada, could trace its ancestry to immigrants from England, northern Ireland and (especially) Scotland. The population pool has changed somewhat in Canada as a whole and here in Toronto it has changed, literally, out of all recognition. Almost exactly half of of the people of Toronto, and almost as many in the 905 area surrounding it, now are non-whites, paradoxically described as “minorities.” Nearly 50 per cent were born outside Canada. Very few of those recent arrivals have blue eyes or, for that matter, red hair. Today’s Toronto is, in fact, an extraordinary place. You know as well as I do the claims that are made about it: the most multicultural city in the world, the city where the students in a typical classroom come from 30 or more mother tongues, the city with Somali neighbourhoods and Korean grocery stores and Tamil gangs and, of course, Greek restaurants. We may think that there has never been a place like it, not even New York in the 1920s, but the city of which modern Toronto most reminds me is actually the London of Sherlock Holmes, the London of the 1890s. Jack Tracy’s Encyclopaedia Sherlockiana describes Victorian London as “the largest city in the world, the capital of England and the British Empire.” Today’s Toronto is not the largest city in the world but it is as big now as London was

20 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 then. According to the 1891 census, London itself had 4.2 million people, with a total of 5.6 million in the so-called Greater London. Watson is not exaggerating when he writes that Holmes “loved to lie in the very centre of five millions of people, with his filaments stretching out and running through them.” Today there are the same number of people, 5.6 million, in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area, including 2.6 million in the city itself. It’s not just the vast number of people, or the way, in Victorian London and contemporary Toronto, they spread far beyond the historic core of the city into burgeoning suburbs. Just as Toronto is beyond question a Canadian city, yet populated by large numbers of people whose origins are in countries other than Canada, so London of the 1890s was an English city — or a British one, which is not quite the same thing — but also remarkably cosmopolitan. In the early paragraphs of A Study in Scarlet, Watson speaks of coming to London to recover from his war wound and to live on a modest pension. He describes the city as “that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.” Because of the scope and diversity of that Empire, those loungers and idlers were of all races and hues, all religions and practically all nationalities. And here we touch on a vital point in the background to the stories of Sherlock Holmes. Leave aside Doyle’s mountain of non-Sherlockian writings and just think about the 60 Canonical tales. Look how many of them reach beyond England to involve characters and incidents associated with faraway parts of the Empire. To begin with, there are four or five references to Canada: Toronto itself (home of Meyers the bootmaker), Niagara Falls, and the Canadian Pacific Railway. Arrivals from Australia figure in ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’ and ‘The Abbey Grange.’ Hall Pycroft in ‘The Stock-Broker’s Clerk’ follows Australian and New Zealand stocks. Young Gilchrist of ‘The Three Students’ goes out to Rhodesia, known in our day as Zimbabwe. ‘The Blanched Soldier’ and ‘The Solitary Cyclist’ draw on South African backgrounds. There are a couple of Newfoundland dogs in the Canon — remember, Newfoundland was not part of Canada until 1949 — and there are casual references to Egypt, Mauritius, Sierra Leone, Singapore and goodness knows how many other places that were, in whole or in part, British-affiliated and part of Victoria’s Empire. And then, of course, there’s India. It forms the background of one novel, The Sign of the Four, and one short story, ‘The Crooked Man,’ and many other Canonical characters have Indian connections, including Colonel Moran, Grimesby Roylott and Watson himself. Whole articles and chapters have been written about India’s connections with Britain during the late Victorian period, from comparative religion to the tea trade and the taste for Indian cigars, and how familiar such matters are to Holmes and Watson and the circles in which they move. Remember that the broad term “India” was used for territories that have since become many separate nations, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka so that when Watson mentions Holmes’s involvement in “the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee,” it is still British India he’s talking about.

Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 21 Many of the people who came to London from these distant lands were British by birth and some even had red hair, although in many cases their attitudes had clearly been altered, their world-view expanded by experiences in other climates. At the same time, many natives of those faraway parts of the Empire also came to London and the rest of Britain and made it their home. Many were prosperous and successful in various ways: In 1892, voters in one London district elected Dadabhai Naoroji, an Indian scholar and political leader, as their Member of Parliament, the first non-white MP. Another such person, one who crossed the path of Arthur Conan Doyle, was George Edalji, whom he defended against trumped-up criminal charges in Staffordshire in 1907. Edalji’s father was a Church of England vicar but was ethnically a Parsee, a member of a small ethnic group from the Bombay area of India which follows the Zoroastrian religion. The great majority of people we meet in the Canon are apparently white and British. But consider a few of the ones who are not. Consider Daulat Ras, the “quiet, inscrutable” Indian student who lived on the second floor at St. Luke’s College in ‘The Three Students.’ Consider the servant at Thaddeus Sholto’s house in The Sign of the Four. Watson describes him as “a Hindoo servant, clad in a yellow turban, white loose-fitting clothes, and a yellow sash.” He comments that: ‘There was something strangely incongruous in this Oriental figure framed in the commonplace doorway of a third-rate suburban dwelling-house,” but he is not so incongruous that Watson cannot place his ethnic origin and notice the details of his clothing. Consider the mulatto cook at Wisteria Lodge; the lascar, or Indian sailor, who figures in ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip;’ Steve Dixie in ‘The Three Gables;’ the Chinese coolies who are referred to in ‘The Dying Detective;’ and Tonga, a stranger figure than anybody you are likely to see strolling along Danforth Avenue. And in addition to these unambiguous members of visible minorities, think of the ethnic and visual differences among such figures as the brown-skinned Jonathan Small, the olive-faced Mr. Melas in ‘The Greek Interpreter,’ who boasted that “I interpret all languages — or nearly all,” Beppo of ‘The Six Napoleons,’ with his “hideous, sallow face,” Black Gorgiano who is described as “swarthy”, and so on, from the fairest of the fair to the darkest of the dark. With such a cast of characters, London was a multiracial and polyglot place, the crossroads of the world. It is a pleasure to think that today’s Toronto emulates it. I do not find it hard to imagine a Sherlock Holmes at work today in Toronto, “in the very centre of five millions of people, with his filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to every little rumour or suspicion.” It is even easier to suppose that Toronto may have its own Moriarty, sitting “motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web,” with radiations that may extend all the way to the corner of Danforth and Chester. There’s only one change that I can suggest in this regard: London had more than a few redheads, and I think Toronto would benefit from some of the same.

22 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 Science and Sherlock Holmes

By Dana Richards

Dana Richards is a professor of computer science at George Mason University. Dana has been active in many Sherlockian societies for 35 years, including the BSI and ASH. He has published in a variety of society publications and issued four pamphlets. This article first appeared in The Shoso-in Bulletin in 1999 and was invited to be reprinted here.

here is an undercurrent of science that runs in the Canon. While it would be a mistake to say that Holmes was a scientist, per se, it is interesting to see how Holmes figured as an exemplar of the Victorian ideal of science. From the first mention of Holmes the die is cast; Stamford describes Holmes to Watson as:

“...an enthusiast in some branches of science...I believe he is well up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist. Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes...He seems to have a passion for definite and exact knowledge.” (STUD)

In this article I will argue that not only was Holmes an icon of Victorian science, he was also a more modern figure. By avoiding a single conclusion I have the luxury of exploring why Holmes attracts attention in different ways.

Holmes as Scientist Holmes never calls himself a scientist but he clearly regards his work as a scientific enterprise: “Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner.” (SIGN) It is therefore striking that none of the 60 cases Watson recorded were solved by appeals to traditional science (though some unrecorded cases seem to have been). Hudson [8] puts forward the interesting hypothesis that this is due, in part, to Holmes feeling that the public could not appreciate such cases: “Pshaw, my dear fellow, what do the

Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 23 public, the great unobservant public...care about the finer shades of analysis and deduction? (COPP) However, the Canon is rife with examples of Holmes thinking like a scientist, applying scientific methodologies in nearly every case. Holmes’ knowledge of science was first detailed in Watson’s list “Sherlock Holmes — his limits,” which records that Holmes’ knowledge of astronomy was “nil,” botany was “variable,” geology was “practical but limited,” chemistry was “profound,” and anatomy was “accurate but unsystematic.” Much ink has been spilled over the years by Sherlockian scholars arguing that Holmes was well up on X or that he was inexcusably ignorant of Y.[1] The core question here is not whether he was a scientist but did he act like a scientist? It must be noted that scientific knowledge in Victorian times was based on some principles that today we regard as wrong. When Holmes deduces that Henry Baker is intelligent since “a man with so large a brain must have something in it” (BLUE), he is accurately reflecting the prevalent wisdom of the time. The widely respected work of Broca and others argued that intelligence could be determined via craniometry, and Lombroso had extended the hypothesis to include a correlation between criminal tendencies and atavistic skulls, though this was more controversial. Further, Holmes’ opinions on hereditary tendencies was coloured by a relatively naive Victorian view of Darwinian theory. While Holmes may not have been a chemist or a biologist, he does have the distinction of helping to start the new field of forensic science. Alphonse Bertillon, one of the first and most influential criminologists, was held in low regard by Holmes at one point (HOUN) but later Holmes admired him (NAVA). Bertillon later stated, “Sherlock Holmes sometimes confuses certainty with presumption, but there is analytic genius there, and a vision of the future of the scientific police.”[12] Sir Sidney Smith, the famous British forensic pathologist, said, “Today criminal investigation is a science...This was not always so and the change owes much to the influence of Sherlock Holmes.” [12] So with hindsight we can say that Holmes was a scientist after all — a forensic scientist.

Victorian Science What is a scientist? That is not an easy question to reach agreement on today and it is even more difficult when we harken back to Victorian times. The reign of Victoria saw many social and political changes; it also saw dramatic changes in the intellectual life of England. Therefore, when Sherlock Holmes was at his zenith, there were competing views of science and intellectual pursuits, and all of these can be found in the Canon. This change was discussed at length by T.W. Heyck[6], who sees the transformation as being driven by many forces. A principal force was the desire for intellectuals to become professionals. The way was led by scientists and soon other scholars (such as historians) followed, often explicitly emulating scientists. Professionalism was previously an avenue to gentrification that was open to only a few (namely the clergy, lawyers and doctors). As the middle class

24 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 grew it was clear to some that other scholastic pursuits should be regarded as professions, and therefore, above the increasingly common middle class. The term “scientist” was coined in 1840 to help give the emerging professionals an identity. The pursuit of science was not new but it had nearly always been done by men in other professions. English science was dominated by devoted amateurs. Before 1850 essentially no science was done in academia in England; there were fewer than 10 professors of science at Oxford and Cambridge, the only two true universities in England at the time. However, the many amateur scientists met regularly at so-called “Literary and Philosophical” societies that thrived in various provincial cities. There are several such amateur scientists in the Canon. Nathan Garrideb’s home reflected the fact that he was an amateur scientist; he had flint instruments, fossil bones, prehistoric skulls and butterflies. Sir Charles Baskerville, James Mortimer, Mr. Frankland and Jack Stapleton often would meet together. We are told of their “community of interests in science,” which led to “many a charming evening...spent together discussing the comparative anatomy of the Bushman and the Hottentot.” Sir Charles was the collector of South African skulls. Mortimer describes himself as “a dabbler in science...a picker-up of shells on the shores of the great unknown ocean.” He personally excavated a prehistoric skull at Long Down. Mr. Frankland was “an amateur astronomer” and Stapleton was a lepidopterist. Another change in Victorian science could be found in academia. The Oxbridge universities were slow to respond to the changing times. They were grounded in an education in the classics, and orthodoxy prevailed. What about other universities? Around 1830, University College and King’s College opened their doors in London using the Continental model, discussed below, and in 1836 were joined into the University of London. Before the transformation of Oxbridge occurred, other institutions began to spring up to take advantage of the interest in science, especially the practical research sciences. They followed the example of Owens College, founded in Manchester in 1851. “In the latter half of the century the ‘red brick’ universities replaced the old literary and philosophical societies as the principal locations of professional science and scientists in the provinces…the [societies] were left to amateurs.”[6] Due to the pressures of other universities and internal pressure from the growing number of scientists, by the end of Victoria’s reign, the Oxbridge universities had become more research oriented. Yet another change resulted from the acceptance of the Continental model of scholarship. Victorian science was originally grounded in natural theology, whereby both applied and theoretical sciences were seen as important efforts to understand the divine plan of nature. Whether it was the collecting of specimens or chemical research to support industry, science was always given a moral base. The Continental model, principally from Germany, saw scholarship as an end unto itself. Research was not meant to advance an agenda and so would be unbiased and hence reliable; it would work from original sources, not hearsay, and would be, in sum, “disinterested.” This style of scholarship applied to

Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 25 history and other scholarly pursuits but it had a clarifying effect on science. It first was accepted in Scotland in the early 1800s, then later at the red-brick universities and only later at the Oxbridge universities. That the Continental model was regarded as the ideal can be seen in the Canon. Dr. Leslie Armstrong, of Cambridge, was clearly a scholar; “he [was] not only one of the heads of the medical school at the University, but a thinker of European reputation in more than one branch of science.” (MISS) Holmes thought him to be the intellectual equal of Moriarty. The other Oxbridge professor in the Canon was Professor Presbury, the famous physiologist. Presbury, we are told, was also “a man of European reputation.” (CREE) As another indication that the European yardstick was the best measure of scholarship, recall that Moriarty’s treatise was considered impressive as it “enjoyed a European vogue.” The popular conception of science became identified with the impartial following of facts.

Holmes and Victorian Science In some ways, Holmes was the classic amateur scientist/scholar. He pursued many inquiries as an amateur and was intent on sharing his findings through his monographs (and perhaps reading them to some of the societies). The subjects of the monographs include: early English charters, the polyphonic motets of Lassus, the dating of documents, the Chaldean roots in the ancient Cornish language, and observations on the segregation of the queen bee. However, on the subject of detection we get a different perspective. He was described as an “amateur” detective but this was merely a reflection of his distance from the official police force. In fact, Holmes’ actions can best be understood as a parallel to the professionalization of science. He was not a dilettante when it came to criminology; his goal was to put detection on a firm scientific basis. He himself collected and sorted a vast array of original sources. Further, he wrote several monographs intended to initiate a new sense of scholarship, which was successful to the extent that we know they were translated into French. At least one of his efforts was found in the more widely read Anthropological Journal. His efforts included monographs on: the human ear; tracing of footsteps; malingering; secret writings, including 160 ciphers; tattoo marks; influence of a trade upon the form of a hand; the typewriter and its relation to crime; uses of dogs in detection; and the distinction between the ashes of various tobaccos. With respect to the change in academia, Holmes’ actions are clear. He only spent a couple of years at university. Clearly he did not find the Oxbridge atmosphere of the 1870s, when it was still in transition into research-oriented times, to be conducive to the practical scholarship he yearned for. Holmes came to London where there were many learned societies and, of course, the reading room at the British Museum, around the corner from where he first took rooms.

26 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 Finally, with respect to the change from natural theology to the Continental model, we find Holmes solidly behind the latter. The only nod to the former approach can be found in his remarks on the spirituality of a moss rose. He was attracted by knowledge for its own sake, “disinterested” research. He felt one must study original sources, one must report the facts as they are, in a “cold and unemotional manner,” and one must follow the scientific model in all intellectual pursuits. Part of Holmes’ appeal was that he was a specialist and a generalist. He was an amateur even while creating his own profession, and his views were permeated by the disinterested ideal of a scientist.

Conan Doyle and Science Arthur Conan Doyle is often accused of harboring unscientific views, especially in his final years when promoting the spiritualist cause. As a result, it is felt that his creation of a scientific hero is inexplicable. The obvious response is that his views changed after he created Holmes but I contend that Doyle’s views of science were always supportive of science and were unaltered. Clearly, Conan Doyle’s medical education exposed him to the details of various sciences, principally chemistry. While Victorian medicine was based on anecdotal evidence, rather than on the scientific method, it seems clear that his education was somewhat different. Firstly, since Scotland had embraced the Continental model at least 50 years earlier, an education at the University of Edinburgh would have inculcated him with the advantages of objective and disinterested inquiry. Secondly, his teacher and mentor, Dr. Joseph Bell, possessed a nearly legendary power of observation and inference; there are striking parallels between a diagnostician and the scientist who creates and tests theories. In any event, Conan Doyle, like most Victorians — both intellectuals and the general public — was deeply impressed by the success of science. Science not only provided the underpinnings of the technology that was revolutionizing their lives but it also was increasingly called upon to explain the world around them. (As an example, the wild theories of Lombroso were readily embraced because they were viewed as scientific.) Perhaps the most striking example of this can be found in the paradoxical outlook of the spiritualism movement. Even though it seems that a movement that was centred on the supernatural would abandon

Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 27 science, the opposite was true. So great was the Victorian admiration of science that it became the cornerstone of the movement that it should be believed solely because it was proven scientifically! In 1883, Conan Doyle wrote a letter to the British Journal of Photography [5] in which he attacked the fanciful theory that “Odic” forces could impart colour onto black and white photographs. The key point is that the acerbic letter was not an attack on pseudo-scientific beliefs, as much as it was an expression of his outrage when “scientific errors appear in an eminent scientific journal.” He was to hold this view throughout his life and felt that his decisions would be found tenable by scientific minds. In his famous 1887 letter to the psychic journal Light, Conan Doyle stated, “the humble enquirer...yearns for some proof...which shall be decided enough to convince his reason? And in the appendix to The Land of the Mist, he lauded a spiritualist: “With rare judgment he never went further than the facts carried, and never flinched from the furthest point which reason and the evidence would justify.” In short, he never abandoned his faith in the explanatory power of science, even while losing the objectivity he needed to exercise it.

The Logic of Science Sherlock Holmes did not regard the use of logic in science and detection to be an overly mathematical enterprise, as it is often presented today. Holmes once stated: “And here it is that I miss my Watson. By cunning questions and ejaculations of wonder he could elevate my simple art, which is but systematized common sense, into a prodigy.” (BLAN) This was a prevalent attitude and was explicitly championed by T. H. Huxley [15], who drew parallels between systematized common sense as used in science and in detection. The popular view is that science proceeds by the unbiased collection of facts followed by the logical deduction of the basic truths of nature. This was universally accepted in Victorian times and by most people today. However the expected end of science is not truth but knowledge. Martin Gardner, a philosopher of science, stated: “lt’s a naive notion that science eliminates mystery. All science does is push the frontiers of mystery back a little further.” Stephen Jay Gould, a natural historian, writes: “In the conventional model of scientific ‘progress,’ we begin in superstitious ignorance and move toward final truth by successive accumulation of facts…Historians of science have utterly discredited this model…It is a creative human activity, its geniuses acting more as artists than as information processors.” So there is a dilemma — should Holmes be judged by the Victorian ideal of how a scientist thinks or by the more realistic modern view? The dilemma is highlighted by our expectation of the detective in fiction. The detective novel traditionally follows the Victorian ideal and is often depicted as a mirror of the scientific method. The expected end of detective work in fiction is truth. As philosopher Roger Holmes points out: “When we finish the novel we

28 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 know with finality the solution of the mystery, while the flesh-and-blood detective can never know whether or not he has found the correct answer.” In other words, the picture of science as a deductive activity is misleading. Countless papers (and several books on logic) have considered whether Holmes used deductive reasoning, “inductive” reasoning or something else entirely. (The term deductive is used at least 50 times in the Canon and inductive is used once.) However, at that time, as today, deduction was associated with common sense reasoning. Abduction, a coinage by the philosopher C. S. Pierce, refers to the creative process of inventing an explanation that covers some observed facts. Pierce offered abduction as a “theory of why it is that people so often guess right.” It is clear that most of Holmes’ theories were the result of abduction rather than deduction or even induction. While this may be a retreat from the Victorian ideal, it is reassuring that Holmes operated in a way that is consistent with our understanding of how scientists expand our knowledge. Deduction is only half of the story. Scientific method is based on the unbiased collection of data. Holmes says, “It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.” (STUD) This sort of statement is made repeatedly and is a hallmark of Holmes’ method. However it is paradoxical that productive observation is often predicated on a preliminary theory. As Darwin said, “No one can be a good observer unless he is a good theorizier.” Holmes agrees: “It is of the highest importance...to be able to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which are vital.” (REIG) The most famous example occurs when he finds a half-burned wax vesta buried in the mud because he “thought it not unlikely.” (SILV) Holmes backs further away from this mythic view when he argues that understanding the assumptions surrounding facts is more important than the raw data itself: “...the art of the reasoner should be used rather for the sifting of details than for the acquisition of fresh evidence...we are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture, and hypothesis. The difficulty is to detach the framework of fact — of absolute undeniable fact — from the embellishments of theorists and reporters.” (SILV) A scientist must not avoid assumptions (they are unavoidable) but must be always vigilant, willing to test the assumptions against the “undeniable facts.” The stereotypic scientific Holmes often says, “I make it a point of never having any prejudices, and of following docilely wherever fact may lead me.” (REIG) But more often, his actions are different, as he admits: “...one forms provisional theories and waits for time or fuller knowledge to explore them. A bad habit...but human nature is weak. I fear that your old friend here has given an exaggerated view of my scientific methods.”(SUSS)

Conclusion The point of this paper is not to defend a particular view of Holmes and science. Instead, the thesis is that many contradictory views can be held and all

Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 29 are supported within the Canon. Perhaps this is one reason the stories are so popular; everyone can find what they are looking for! We find Holmes is a quintessential amateur scientist and is also modelled after the rising ranks of professional scientists. He is portrayed as a paragon of logical thinking, while relying on common sense. And he is a nearly mythic exemplar of the Victorian ideal of the scientific method, while actually conducting his investigations as a modern scientist would.

Editor’s note: Rather than footnotes, this article contains numbered references at the end. Bracketed numbers refer to the sequence text being used and do not appear in numerical order.

References Consulted: 1. Isaac Asimov, ‘The Case of the Blundering Chemist,’ Science Digest, (August 1980) pp. 8-17. 2. Ann Byerly, ‘It is the Scientific Use of Imagination,’ Baker Street Miscellanea, no 36 (Winter 1983) pp. 32-34. 3. Stephen W. Dalton, ‘SherIock Holmes and the Age of Empiricism,’ Devonshire Chronicle, vol 3, no 1 (January 1990), pp. 8-13. 4. William S. Dorn, The Parlour Games of Sherlock Holmes, Shelburne, Ontario: The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 1996. 5. A. Conan Doyle, Essays in Photography, Secker and Warburg, 1982. 6. T. W. Heyck, The Transformation of Intellectual Life in Victorian England, Lyceum, (1982). 7. J. L. Hitchings, ‘Sherlock Holmes the Logician,’ Baker Street Journal (Old series), vol 1, no 2 (1946) pp. 113-117. 8. S. Reggie L. Hudson, ‘Theory, Hypothesis, and Sherlock Holmes,’ Baker Street Journal, vol 41, no 2 (June 1991) pp. 86-92. 9. Karl Krejci-Graff, ‘SherIock Holmes, Scientist,’ Sherlock Holmes Journal, vol 8, no 3 (1967) pp. 72-78. 10. Earl C. Kubicek, ‘Mr. Sherlock Holmes: Scholar and Scientist,’ The Saint Mystery Magazine, vol 30, no 6 (June 1960) pp. 47-53. 11. Donald K. Pollack, ‘The Anthropological Journal,’ Baker Street Journal, vol 42, no 4 (December 1992) pp. 227-229. 12. Alvin Rodin and Jack Key, ‘The Scientific Holmes,’ Sherlock Holmes Review, vol 1, nos 3/4 (1987) pp. 88-86, 116-122. 13. Lionel Ruby, The Art of Making Sense, Lippincott, 1968, pp. 220-233. 14. T. A. Sebeok and J. Umiker-Sebeok, ‘ “You Know My Method?” A Juxtaposition of Charles S. Pierce and Sherlock Holmes,” in The Sign of Three, edited by Umberto Eco and T. A. Sebeok, Indiana University Press, 1983, pp. ll- 54. 15. J. K. Van Dover, ‘Huxley, Holmes, and the Scientific Detective,’ Baker Street Journal, vol 38, no 4 (December 1988) pp. 240-241.

30 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 From the Editors’ Bookshelf

The Best of the Strand Magazine – Endeavour Press (Digital book (£2.99/$3.99). The essay titled ‘The Story of the Strand’ (the street, rather than the magazine) is worth the price alone – well almost. Along with this very informative essay, you get the text (without illustrations) of a dozen articles and stories, including ‘Silver Blaze.’ Among the other gems are ‘Author! Author!’ by E.W. Hornung and ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ by James Lamb. This 149 pager isn’t perfect and some images would be nice but for the price, it’s a good, fun read.

The Autobiography of Sherlock Holmes edited by Don Libey. Campbell and Lewis. $15 Emulating Watson’s prose is, alas, commonplace and usually yields mediocre results. To emulate the prose of Holmes, however, is a far greater challenge. Holmes supposedly wrote much – monographs, The Practical Handbook of Bee Culture and, possibly, The Science of Deduction and Detection. But only two examples of his writing style are extant, BLAN and LION, and neither provide a suitable template for autobiography. Despite this, the vocabulary, sentence structure and figures of speech in Don Libey’s book all have an authentic Sherlockian ring. Even more impressive, however, are the inventive canonical revelations. Avoiding spoilers, I can propose that no one who reads The Autobiography of Sherlock Holmes will ever again think the same way about 221B Baker Street, Mary Morstan, Langdale Pike, that Jezail bullet, the curious incident of the dog in the night-time and much else. The reader’s appetite is whetted for yet more outré unpublished adventures, such as ‘The Case of the Moonlit Apple’ and ‘Lord Sedley’s Kidnapped Albino Macaw.’ And after visiting known Sherlockian sites such as St. Barts Hospital and the Criterion Restaurant, head for the Tempus bar at the Hotel Russell and look for a brass plate on the far bar stool. A few times, Libey’s playfulness is over the top, to wit Fred Porlock as Peter Steiler the Elder, and Holmes as a “nose” in a perfumery. As well, he is mistaken in his identification of Holmes’ wine merchants. As shown by Michael Harrison (In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes, p. 98) that honour goes to Dolamore in Paddington, from which I could still purchase cases of College Claret in the early 1970s. But if you yearn to know Holmes’ view on social justice, his annual income or why he considered Reichenbach the nadir of his career, read this book. (And Holmes says he didn’t write BLAN. It was a Watsonian send-up.) – Peter Calamai Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 31 Benedict Cumberbatch in Transition: An Unauthorized Performance Biography by Lynette Porter – MX Publishing, 2013 (£12.99) This biography only contains a very brief section concerning Cumberbatch’s youth and private life. It is mainly concerned with exploring Cumberbatch’s career: his choices of roles, how he has approached them and how he has reacted to the positive and negative aspects of stardom. Porter goes into great detail regarding how Cumberbatch prepares for roles, both physically and mentally. She notes that the actor likes to choose unusual roles and he tries to discover as much as he can about the background of the character as he builds his portrayal. Porter covers Cumberbatch’s major roles in such films as Altamont, War Horse and Star Trek: Into Darkness, as well as stage productions such as Frankenstein, in which Cumberbatch played the dual roles of Viktor Frankenstein and the Creature. Porter seems to have some Sherlockian background herself, as she describes and analyzes the episodes of Sherlock in great detail. However, her analyses can be enjoyed by both Sherlockians and non-Sherlockians alike. – Karen Campbell

Benedict Cumberbatch: Behind the Scenes. E-book by Neil Simpson, 2013 — Endeavour Press Ltd. ($2.88 Kindle edition) This biography is written as a narrative, almost like a novel, in a zippy, engaging style. The section on Cumberbatch’s childhood and youth is fairly extensive, describing the events and people who had strong influences on the young man. Later, there is also a fairly in-depth look at his personal life as an adult, including the ups-and-downs of his relationships, as well as his career. This really is a book about Cumberbatch the man, as opposed to Cumberbatch the actor. Nevertheless, this biography, like Porter’s, goes into great detail regarding Cumberbatch’s early theatre and film work. Cumberbatch speaks about his acting choices and favourite roles, including that of the voice of Smaug the dragon in The Hobbit. This biography also contains an extensive section on the TV series Sherlock. Mark Gattiss and Steven Moffat, the creators of Sherlock, comment on why they chose Cumberbatch for their leading role, and Cumberbatch himself provides his insights into the experience of playing the modern detective, including what it was like to work with costar Martin Freeman, who plays Dr. Watson. This bio is a fun read and sounds as though it is written by a friend, rather than a biographer. Its greatest strength is the myriad of comments by Cumberbatch himself. – Karen Campbell

32 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 Letters From Lomax

Musing and comments from Peggy Perdue, Curator of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection of the Toronto Reference Library.

his summer many fans were happy to see Benedict Cumberbatch take on the role of the villainous Khan in the movie Star Trek: Into Darkness. Lately, we hear of genre-bender Cumberbatch everywhere. He has appeared in Sherlock (crime fiction/TV), Star Trek (sci-fi/film) The Hobbit (fantasy/film) and Frankenstein (horror/theatre). In this versatility, he brings to mind the real star of the Letters from Lomax column: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. ACD is so closely associated with the mystery genre that it’s easy to forget that he had an important role to play in developing several of the realms of fiction that are popular today. ACD’s main contribution to the science fiction genre is his Professor Challenger series but you really are missing something if you haven’t read some of his lesser-known short stories, such as ‘The Great Keinplatz Experiment’ and ‘The Horror of the Heights.’ You can find copies of all these works in the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection. The Lost World, in particular, is available in numerous fine editions and foreign translations. There are also a few related works, such as Roy Pilot and Al Rodin’s Annotated Lost World (Wessex Press, 1996) and Brian Blessed’s Quest for the Lost World (Boxtree, 1999.) Challenger buffs may also like to read Return to the Lost World by Nicholas Nye, a pastiche which tells the story of Challenger, Edward Malone, Lord John Roxton, and Professor Summerlee on a second trip to the lost world of dinosaurs (Nicholas Nye, 1991) . Few of you will be surprised to hear that, for the most part, writers of science fiction pastiches have bypassed Challenger and his associates and made a beeline for Sherlock Holmes. There is a canonical precedent for Holmes in a sci- fi environment: ‘The Adventure of the Creeping Man,’ for example, is pure sci- fi. In the wide range of stories by other authors that are available, Holmes is sometimes close to Conan Doyle’s original but in others he is as transformed and unrecognizable as the creeping man himself. To begin with, Holmes’ dispassionate, logical mind makes “Robot-Sherlock” low-hanging fruit for writers wanting to put a sci-fi spin on the Canon. In ‘Voiceover,’ one of the stories collected in the Asimov-edited anthology Tin Stars, Edward Wellen envisions a robotic Sherlock with a cockney robot dog. Many CH readers will also remember the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode in which the android Lieutenant Commander Data dons a deerstalker to play Holmes. Data was the TNG sequel’s answer to the original Star Trek series’ Spock. Observant Sherlockians/Trekkies are aware that in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the character Spock obliquely suggests that he is a descendant of Holmes, and they will also know that actor Leonard Nimoy portrayed Sherlock Holmes on stage in a 1976 production of the Gillette play. Add to all this the Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 33 eccentric journal The Holmesian Federation (1978-1991) and you see that the Holmes-Star Trek connections go boldly on and on. Gosh, this is tiring. I think I need a cup of tea. Earl Grey. Hot. Must…stop…making…Star Trek references. Okay, let’s move on. If you don’t like the idea of Holmes as a robot, how about Holmes as a cuddly alien teddy bear? You’ll find one in Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson’s series of stories about the ‘Hokas.’ Hoka Sherlock Holmes appears in ‘The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound’ in Earthman’s Burden and other collections of the Hoka tales. Apparently a confirmed fan of Sherlock Holmes, Poul Anderson created yet another alien Holmes for the story ‘The Martian Crown Jewels.’ When considering prominent sci-fi authors in conjunction with Sherlock Holmes, one must also think of Isaac Asimov. Still one of the most famous invested members of the Baker Street Irregulars, Asimov (1920-1992) was an avid Sherlockian. His best-known contribution in the context of this article is having edited the anthology Sherlock Holmes through Time and Space (Bluejay Books, 1984). Other specialized anthologies include The Science-Fictional Sherlock Holmes (Council of Four, 1960) and Sherlock Holmes in Orbit (Daw Books, 1995). The latter is not limited to science fiction stories, in spite of the cyborg Holmes that adorns the cover. In addition to all these short stories, there have been a couple of sci-fi novels featuring Holmes as well. Sherlock Holmes’s War of the Worlds by Manly W. Wellman and Wade Wellman (Warner Books, 1975) gives a Doylean twist to H.G. Wells’ 1897 novel by adding both Holmes and Challenger to the story. George H. Smith’s The Second War of the Worlds (Daw, 1976) also offers a new take on Wells’ classic. The Holmes connection is less explicit in this one but the novel does feature two gentlemen named Mr H. and Dr W. There are also some titles worth mentioning that are more science fact than science fiction. Colin Bruce’s The Einstein Paradox is a collection of stories that explain scientific concepts in the context of Holmes and Challenger pastiches. They are informative and enjoyable (Helix, 1997; also available as The Strange Case of Mrs Hudson’s Cat, Vintage, 1998.). Nonfiction titles in the Collection include Dreams of Future Past: The Science Fiction Worlds of Arthur Conan Doyle and H. G. Wells by Dana Martin Batory (Wessex, 2010) and Science Fiction: the Illustrated Encyclopedia (Macmillan, 1995.) There are so many ways in which Conan Doyle and his works have contributed to and influenced the science fiction genre. To make an exhaustive list of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection’s holdings in this area would be beyond the scope of this article, but I hope I haven’t left out anyone’s favourite example. I leave one of my own favourites for last. S.M. Stirling’s post- apocalyptic series Emberverse features characters named after Sam Aylward, Sir Nigel Loring, John Hordle and several other figures in ACD’s historical novel The White Company. This literary nod to Sir Arthur crosses two genres, six fictional centuries and one real-time century. What better evidence for the length of Conan Doyle’s reach?

34 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013

EWS

NOTES

Vancouver — The Stormy Petrels have been busy meeting since the last time they appeared in News Notes. Most recently, the society met twice in July. On the 13th the Petrels met at Shannon Falls Park, their very own Reichenbach. President Fran Martin threw a wreath of roses into the water. After lunch the group went to the Capilan View Cemetery to tidy up the gravestone of Vincent Starrett’s mother. It was then onto the home of Len and Elsa Haffenden. On the 26th, the club assembled again, this time to watch two episodes from the series featuring Ronald Howard as Sherlock Holmes. The west coast society even has a new website to help inform old and new members alike: http://thestormypetrels.com/ The Petrels put out a newsletter called The Petrel Flyer. Subscription rate is $25.00 per year within Canada.

Montreal — Fifteen enthusiastic Bimetallic Question members and guests gathered at the Westmount Public Library on Thursday, August 1st, 2013, for our last regular Society meeting of the summer. Society co-founder David Dowse surprised and amazed those assembled with the announcement that he has decided to sell or donate most of his large collection of Sherlockian ephemera, including fascinating games and puzzle books, in order to make the rare items available to a wider audience. David will offer Bimetallic Question members first opportunity to purchase at our next meeting in October and following this, perhaps move the remainder of the collection to an online sale venue. Rachel Alkallay explained how she had prepared an exquisitely difficult quiz for us based on ‘The Adventure of Shoshcombe Old Place’ but was foiled in her attempt to put the finishing touches on it and print up copies on her computer, by a widespread and unexplained (Moriarty sabotaged?) power failure occurring that day in her Snowdon neighbourhood of Montreal. Somewhat grateful for the extra time in which to study up for this challenge, we agreed that Rachel's quiz will be rescheduled for the next meeting. The evening of surprises was capped with excited planning for a 90th birthday surprise party and barbeque honouring Bimetallic Question Sovereign Emeritus Patrick Campbell, to be held September 2nd, at Westmount's Le Centre Greene. — By Susan Fitch

Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 35 Photos from the 2nd Annual Can-Am BOT-BSI Silver Blaze Event Photos by Bruce Aikin and Peter Calamai

36 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013

OOTMAKERS’ DIARY

… it is a page from some private diary. - The Five Orange Pips

By Donny Zaldin, BOT Diarist. (Readers are encouraged to submit Diary entries to [email protected])

Saturday, July 13, 2013 The 2nd Annual Can-Am BOT-BSI Silver Blaze Event

Bootmakers of Toronto-Baker Street Irregulars Silver Blaze Race, at Woodbine Race Course, Toronto

On August 4-5, 2013, the Baker Street Irregulars and The Hudson Valley Sciontists marked the 60th anniversary of the BSI Silver Blaze Race by partnering with the Bootmakers of Toronto for the Inaugural Can-Am Silver Blaze Race at Saratoga Racetrack, Saratoga Springs, NY. Forty Irregulars, joined by five Bootmakers, attended the weekend events. The Bootmakers of Toronto follow up by hosting the Baker Street Irregulars at the Second Annual Can-Am BOT-BSI Silver Blaze Event, consisting of an afternoon race at Woodbine Race Course and an evening conference at the Toronto Reference Library. This year’s international sporting, social and culinary activity, now a 26-year year (and counting) Bootmaker tradition, is arranged by Donny Zaldin as Colonel Ross. Race participants total 60 Bootmakers, Baker Street Irregulars and guests (one for each story in the Sherlockian Canon). This year’s Silver Blaze Race, fifth on the 10-race card, is the five-furlong, $21,600 purse maiden claiming race of 12 three-year-olds and upward. Horse number 3, Moventothecountry; number 4, Sweet City Song; and number 8, Geisha’s Dance; take win, place and show. Following the race, Donny Zaldin and our American guests, Mike Whelan, Mary Ann Bradley, Lou Lewis, Candace Lewis, Roger Donway and Katherine Karlson, grace the

Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 37 winner’s circle to present the winning owner (J. Vlahos), trainer (P.M. Buttigieg) and jockey (J. Stein) with a handsome¸ engraved trophy from the BOTs-BSIs of a thoroughbred with jockey at full gallop. Following the race, bettors display the appropriate side of their reversible Sherlockian “I WON / I LOST” Silver Blaze badges, provided by Donny and Barbara, depending on their handicapping and the success of their wagers. Donny Zaldin and Barbara Rusch conduct their 16th annual Silver Blaze Event (Notional) Betting Contest, which is won by Bootmaker Sylvia Anstey, who picked the first and second place finishers, earning an inscribed trophy of a horse’s head. Runners-up Frank Yiadom, Katherine Karlson, John Linsenmeyer and Jean Paton each win a Sherlockian prize. Donny and Barbara also hold their 6th Annual ‘Sherlockian Link’ Contest for the best Canonical connection from one of the entered horses, jockeys, owners, trainers or colours. An inscribed trophy of a horse’s head is awarded [by random draw] to one of the five punters (Bob Cartlidge, John Linsenmeyer, Dayna Nuhn, Jean Paton and Christine Thomas), who each submit the identical entry, Moventothecountry, bringing to mind Holmes’ retirement to the Sussex Downs to keep bees. Honourable mentions include the following Sherlockian links: the number 2 horse Janbear (for its red and black racing colours, the same as those of ‘Silver Blaze’); the number 6 horse Town Vixen (suggesting “the woman,” Irene Adler in SCAN); the number 10 horse Whiskey Weather (descriptive of a spirit enjoyed by Dr. Watson); the number 5 horse Sepia (suggesting the colour of the infamous photograph of the King of Bohemia together with Irene Adler); Cavendish Investing Ltd., the breeder of Janbear, (suggesting the Cavendish cigarette tobacco found on Silver Blaze’s trainer, John Straker; and, a Doylean link, the number 1 horse, Wave on Ice (suggesting the whaling vessel, Hope, upon which a 20-year-old third-year medical student, Arthur Conan Doyle, served as ship’s surgeon in 1880).

‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze’; Special Story Meeting

More than 40 Bootmakers, BSIs and guests are greeted by Marilyn Penner at the Beeton Auditorium of the Toronto Reference Library for the evening conference/special story meeting on ‘The Adventure of Siler Blaze’ (SILV), organized by Donny Zaldin and Barbara Rusch. Donny introduces and welcomes our American guests, Mike Whelan, Wiggins of the Baker Street Irregulars, and Mary Ann Bradley, BSI and “The Woman” (1993); Lou Lewis, BSI, 25-year President of the Hudson Valley Sciontists (NY) and Donny’s counterpart as Colonel Ross of the triennial BSI Silver Blaze Race at Saratoga; Candace Lewis, “The Woman” (2007) of the

38 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 BSI and a longtime member of the HVS; Roger Donway, member of the HVS; and, Bootmaker-Americans Katherine Karlson, BSI, and Bruce Aikin. Doug Wrigglesworth introduces the story, which takes place in 1888 and was first published in December 1892 in The Strand Magazine. Sources of scholarship include Klinger, The Universal Sherlock Holmes, Dakin, the BSJ and CH Index. Highlighted topics of interest include Holmes’ calculations of the speed of the train, Paget’s illustration of the deerstalker, the famous horse, the infamous dog in the night-time and skulduggery on the turf. Donny Zaldin delivers an illustrated presentation on the history of horse racing in England, the Epsom Derby, gambling in 19th-century England and, the likely source of Conan Doyle’s use of the substitution manoeuvre and theme of “hiding [a person or horse] in plain sight.” Based on Conan Doyle’s research and the notoriety of the fraudulent 1844 (Epsom) Derby (in which a betting syndicate used a “ringer” [i.e. one horse substituted for another] with silver blazes on its legs, lay claim to the winner’s purse and a huge betting payoff at long odds), Donny deduces that this race is the source of the story. Unfortunately, the TRL’s ACD Room is still under renovation but Curator Peggy Perdue shows us some of its interesting Silver Blaze-related items: a special “Royal” single edition of the December 1892 Strand Magazine, ESL and foreign-language editions of the story, several children’s books and a non- Sherlockian Sidney Paget watercolour painting. Society songstress, Karen Campbell, now known as “Lassa” (or the artist formerly known as one-half of ‘A Duet with an Occasional Chorus’) is unable to be with us this evening but in her place, Barbara Rusch and Dayna Nuhn lead our group in one of Karen’s original songs titled “Bad, Bad Silas Brown,” which includes the following chorus: “And he’s bad, bad Silas Brown / The baddest man on the Devon Downs / Badder than old King Kong / And meaner than Sir Henry’s Dog.” Donny then traces the bloodlines of Silver Blaze through his sire, Isonomy, a very real and successful English thoroughbred in the last quarter of the 19th century. Isonomy’s progeny included a real older (by one or two years) half- brother to our story’s Wessex Cup winner, Gallinule, foaled in 1884, sporting a remarkably familiar and similar silver blaze on his forehead. Roger Donway, author and editor, takes the dais and traces the ancestry of Sherlock Holmes in his presentation, titled ‘The Search of Grandmother Vernet.’ In ‘The Greek Interpreter,’ Holmes remarks to Watson that his ancestors were country squires but that the turn toward observation and deduction in his veins may have come with his “grandmother, who was the sister of Vernet, the French artist.” The Vernet dynasty produced 12 artists (painters or sculptors) bearing that name in one form or another, who, between them had 11 sisters. From the birthdates of Sherlock and Mycroft, and the likely ages of their father and mother, Roger deduces the likeliest candidates for the Holmes brothers’ grandmother and her daughter, the boys’ mother. Roger’s genealogical journey, resulting in the identity of these two seminal relations of Holmes, appears in a collection of essays (with Roger’s 14-generation appendix of the Vernet family)

Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013 39 titled, Saratoga Studies, which may be ordered from the U.S. through the BSI website or in Canada through Donny Zaldin (email: [email protected]). Candace Lewis, Ph.D. in 19th–century European and American art, is up next as she examines the ancestry of Sherlock Holmes – from a Doylean perspective — in her presentation titled ‘Art in the Blood is Liable to Take the Strangest Forms: The Vernet Connection.’ The artistic propensities and careers of Conan Doyle’s grandfather (John), father (Charles) and three uncles (James, Henry and Dickie) and of France’s Vernet family (Joseph, Carle, Horace and Emilie), from whom Sherlock Holmes is descended, are reviewed, with illustrations in the form of magnificent paintings of the artists and their works. Katherine Karlson combines her knowledge of Candace Lewis pre- the Canon with her passion for thoroughbred horse senting on July 13, 2013 racing and uncovers a hitherto forgotten page of Canadian horse racing history. In her illustrated presentation, titled ‘Tails from Baker Street,’ Kate shares her research on a trio of thoroughbred horses named Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson and Inspector Lestrade. These three four-legged canonical characters were purchased by R.F. Carman at the 1910 summer yearling sales at Saratoga, N.Y. for $1,500, $100 and $150, respectively, and ran many of their races at Woodbine Race Track, Toronto, from 1911 to 1915. Sherlock Holmes won six times out of 98 starts, which included some stakes races. Dr. Watson had a single win in 10 starts in 1911 but died late that year. Inspector Lestrade finished his career (1911-1915) winning three times out of 58 starts. Dayna Nuhn offers up a toast in rhyme to our equine hero, referencing Isonomy, the Wessex Cup, King’s Pyland, trainers John Straker and Silas Brown, and Colonel Ross. At the mid-meeting break, Philip Elliott dons the hat and apron of Mrs. Hudson, setting a Sherlockian table with sandwiches, vegetables and dips, dessert and drinks. The delectable repast is topped off with a cake, featuring Sidney Paget’s image of Silver Blaze, with the inscription, “2013 Can-am BOT- BSI Silver Blaze Event, July 13, 2013, Toronto, Canada,” courtesy of Barbara Rusch (see photo, page 36). Barbara Rusch, one-half of the BOT’s former Quizzards, offers up the Wessex Cup quiz, which tests our knowledge of ‘Silver Blaze.’ Questions/answers reference inculpatory and exculpatory evidence regarding the London tout, Fitzroy Simpson; another story and character whose disguise is revealed when Holmes washes his face; and how Holmes calculates the speed of the train from London to Exeter. The winner, Cliff Goldfarb, receives a handsome engraved trophy of a thoroughbred in stride, with runners-up Bruce Aikin and Garry Marnoch winning Sherlockian book prizes.

40 Canadian Holmes  Fall 2013