The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1906-04-07
(Copyrighted)
billy and His Uncle Discuss the Sher.
lock Holmes Method of Detection.

Pray tell me, dear Uncle" said little
Oily, anxiously, what is the meaning
Of the word deduction as applied to
he practice of detection?"
"Ah, my dear nephew" observed
Uncle George, carefully filling his pipe
with a choice brand of tobacco, in
which hasheesh was generously pre-
dominant. you have CHANGED upon a
most perplexing query, and one that it
will afford me keen delight in explain
Ing to you. Primarily deduction is one
Of the simplest processes, but in litera-
ture it takes on a quantity and even
quality that lends to il an abstruse and
fascinating quality, totally at variance
with its true worth. If you will con-
suit your small genealogical compen-
dunn compiled by Mr.. Webster, you
will observe that the word is but a
synonym for inference. In other words,
when detective has spell of deduc-
ton, he merely infers that something
is. has or should have happened. 1t
does not at all follow that anything
even remotely resembling his theory
has ever been thought of, so you will
observe the extreme value of the
science of deduction. Possibly the
greatest victim of the disease was our
fascinating entertainer, Mr.. Sherlock
Holmes. His was a master mind ca
pable of determining guilt upon the
merest fragment of evidence. One may
imagine him proceeding as follows:
Kindly hand me the files of Dope's
Almanac, Watson. All, yes. l thought
so. A most interesting case. Cholly
Flabbergast has just shot his mother
in-law with intent to kill and breech-
loading rifle manufactured in 1879 at
Berne, Switzerland. The motive was
peace-on her part. The funeral will
take place Thursday and the family
will request no flowers Send for Bal
ustrade aid tell him to look for a
small man wearing eye glasses, with a
wart OF the back of his neck and a
stamme: in one eye. He has also a
pronounced stutter in his walk. Pass
the cocaine
That is the Holmes method, my
dear NEPHEW. In polite fiction it is all
the money, but in practice it works out
bpt poorly. In fact, I may say that
it fails generally owing to something
inherently wrong in the structure. If
we followed the Holmes method. as ex-
emplified in literary procedure we
might expect to find brutal looking
man rushing into the nearest station
house, throwing down a hatful of table
silver, bursting into tears and sobbing
out on the desk rail:
'' Lock me up, sergeant. / done it,
and they amt no use tryin' to hide
It. Sherlock Holmes just seen a plum
Der go by in a hanson with a yaller
dog snappin at tn horses heels, and
he's got me right.
Then the tender hearted sergeant
would ring the bell for the doorman,
send the weeping culprit to his cell and
that would be all, saving the formal
proceedings in court the next morn
ing. That is the true science of de-
duction. billy, and it is an ideal mat
ter for the police. = Unfortunately, how
ever, it is only in modern literature
that we find such able deaucers as Mr..
Holmes. The police method in daily
use in our large cities, is Just as eff
cacious and works with less mental
strain. 1t involves but the simplest
tools and mental processes. We will