The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-05-01
A CITY FULL OF DETECTIVES.
All London Struck With the Sherlock
Holmes Fad.

From the New York Times
When the amiable and clever writer,
DR.. Conan Doyle, created Sherlock
Holmes he doubtless had no .malevolent
intention. Now, however, that Sherlock
Holmes is devastating all England, and
rendering life burden to every plain and
sensible man, DIR. Doyle undoubtedly re-
cognizes the terrible mistake he has made.
1t is said that he has fled from England,
and is now in some secure Swiss retreat
OF course, he does not profess to have run
away, and pretends that he has merely
gone to Switzerland in order to find
quiet place in which to work The real
truth undoubtedly is that he found Lon
don no longer a safe residence for the man
who had let Sherlock Holmes loose on the
helpless British public.
Every one knows the exasperating way
in which Sherlock Holmes made what
he called deductions If he saw a man
with muddy boots he instantly deduced
from that fact long history of the
mans career, from his cradle to the mo
ment when his boots became muddy
This was not sheer impudence. 1t was
rather a species of madness, and like
certain varieties of madness it had
great deal of method in it. The reading
public was at first charmed with SHEER
lock Holmes. The stories in which he
figured were undoubtedly interesting but
the marvellous manner in which Holmes
made his alleged deductions fascinat( d
ordinary people. From admiration o
imitation is plunge which the reader f
criminal records is usually quick to take.
| Sherlock Holmes admirers began TO
initiate their heros method of deduction,
and the result has been that London is
now said to be well-nigh uninhabitable.
The imitator of Sherlock Holmes-and
there are now about 3,000000 of him in
London alone-never notices the most in
significant thing without attempting to
deduce from it three-volume novel or
an octave history. He meets friend in
the street, and he notices that the friend s
left shoestring is united. Instantly he
remarks: "Oh see that your wife's
aunt has gone over to the Church of
Rome, and that you have put up blue
curtains in your dining room.' The vic
tim asks what the maker of these
statements means, and the latter then
proceeds to explain how he has deduced
from the united shoestring the tragedy of
the aunt, and the domestic drama of the
curtains. OF course there is no earthly
connection between the shoestring and the
conclusions drawn from it. Moreover,
there is not word of truth in either of
these conclusions That, however. docs
not in the least daunt the imitator of
Sherlock Holmes He is working accord
ing to the true deductive method as set
forth by Holmes. and if the facts do not
always agree with his deductions it is not
his fault
Even young ladies have fallen under the
baleful influence of Holmes, If you dance
with a young lady who is ''up TO date"
the chances are that she will tell you
some such startling news as that you have
just been refused by young woman with
blue eyes and a pearl-gray dress,
and that you had thereupon taken
four brandy and sodas and determined
to go to South Africa and hunt for gold.
Knowing all this to be absolutely I'M
true, you smile and ask your partner
how she has arrived at her conclusions;
whereupOn she tells you that she has de-
duced them from the fact that your sleeve
buttons are solitaires instead of links
Nothing can shake the young woman
conviction that her conclusions are true,
and the chances are that in the
course of the evening she will repeat them
to some other man as part of the history
of the day.
Sherlock Holmes has penetrated into
the kitchen and perverted the minds of
previously innocent cooks and waiting
maids. The girl who comes in to kindle
your fret in the morning will remarks:
''Beggin' your pardon, sir but / see by
the way your hat is brushed that you
went to the races yesterday and lost
rot of money on a black horse as was rode
by small boy in red and yellow colors
and squirt eye" If you are wise man
you make no reply. You recognize at
once thatthe girl is afflicted with the
Holmes mania and is not responsible for
what she says. So you merely ask her to
hurry through her task, and you privately
resolve TO change your lodgings without
where the mistress and maids have never
learned to read.
So long as ones experience of Sherlock
Holmes was confined wholly to DIR.
Doyle's records of his hero's exploits,
Holmes awakened no thirst for blood
I Now, however, that nine men and women
in every ten are possessed by a passion for
initiating Holmes, the growth of the hom-
icidal mania in London bids fair to be
something appalling. Either the imi-
tators of Holmes will be carried to the
lunatic asylum in time TO save their lives,
or they will be slaughtered by men whom
they have wantonly insulted and bored
So far the Londoner, being a law-abiding
citizen, has abstained from
imbruing his hands in the blood of the
amateur Holmeses, but that there has
been an alarming increase in the number
of suicides since Sherlock Holmes became
popular is undeniable. The suffering pub
lie will not long content itself with sui
eide, and at no distant day we may ex-
pect to see a popular uprising against the
imitators of Sherlock Holmes, in com
parson with which the Eve of St. Bar
Jholomew was quiet and eminently