Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-04-18
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Very
Serious About SpirituaIism,
EnHght Plans Crime Clear
ing House
BY JESSIE HENDERSON
(Leased Wire Service to The Journal. }
DOWNRIGHT 1927

(Leased Wire Service to The Journal.)
Copyright, 1927 4
NEW YORK, April 15.-Sir Ar
thur Conan Doyle has got us all
excited about our "ectoplasm,"
which it seems everyone owns; like
| f1ngernails or adenoids. The ecto-
| plasm is matter beaten UP with
ether"-the kind of ether that holds
| the stars together or apart, not the
kind they give you at the hospital.
And everybody's ectoplasm is an
exact replica of the body, even to
| the pores of the skin; leaving 1t
pleasantly and painlessly" at death
and hanging around thereafter at
a trance mediums elbow, all ready
to materialize at the proper signal.
In one way, these lectures which
the author Of Sherlock Holmes is
giving about the proof of life after
death constitute great comfort. In
another way, it's not so good. For
example, the ectoplasric Sherlock
Holmes, sleuthfng around the next
| world, must be glad that when
| body becomes a spirit it retains
even it's skin pores; it makes a celes-
tial Bertillon system so much easier.
"Ghostly fingers on the pane"
may, you see, be classified and filed
! for future reference. But in another
way: Those of us who use many
pounds of beauty cream because we
are not pleased with our pores can't
get jubilant over the prospect OF
L - q of In
features through all eternity.
Conan Doyle, however, is absolute
ly serious about the whole matter.
Very tall, florid and blessed with
a humorous twinkle, he doesn't look
as you'd expect him to look. But
then, few people do.
Women Becoming EmanCipated
Meanwhile, New York women are
growing more emancipated every
hour. They are usurping mems
privileges so fast that men have to
think quickly in order to keep one
privilege ahead of them. The latest
bit of emancipation by the new wom-
an was that of kidnapping a gentle
man and holding him prisoner for
three days. This is what a down
town broker complains to the court
that an actress did to him; and re-
fused to let him go home in spite
of his prayers and his family.
So far as can be ascertained, this
is the first instance of a woman
charged with kidnapping a man, but
if only Police Commissioner En-
rights crime clearing house were al
ready established other cases might
crop up among it's files. 1t is En-
rights idea, and in it he is enthu-
siastically backed by such organiza-
tions as the Republican Women's
Committee of One Hundred, the
United States should have a Nation
al Police bureau and perhaps an in
ternational one in which crime could
be reported on which tips on Grim
inals could be sent broadcast, and
through which a good deal of crime
might be prevented.
This city, pending the opening of
such a bureau, is doing it's best to
afford juicy statistics. The police
commissioner recently said that the
town was as safe at night as in the
day time. and the proper retort, Civ
en- with an ironic lift of the eye
brow, seems to- be: "Just about"
Many of the hold-ups, including the
removal of $4,000 in gems from a
jeweler in the subway, have occur
red in daylight. Another jeweler
was bound, gagged and his shop
robbed of $4,000 in stones at g
o'clock of the evening, fifty feet
from the traffic officer at Times
Square.
The Downtown league, an organi-
zation of some of the most eminent
business men in the city; has offer
ed the services of 100 of its mem
bers as special patrolmen. If you
happen to hear two detectives dick
ering with each other over ten
million dollar deal, or conversing
pleasantly around a police box about
the opera season or the country
club-the Downtown league mem
bers is the answer.
A clearing house for ELLIS Island
grafters wouldn't be such a bad
idea, either. Commissioner of I'M
migration Todd is paying detectives
out of his own pocket to trace the
immigration inspectors who extort
money from immigrants and their
friends. So far the commissioner
has expended three times his Town
yearly salary of $4,000.
Old Happenings
Yet in spite of hold-ups of one
hIIlu anu duOIneE, InSTS is DdlIn III
Gilead. One proof of it occurred in
| children's court the other day when
Justice Boyle, after committing an
11-year-old homeless boy to an or
phan's refuge, paused to ask why
tears stood in the youngsters eyes.
Rags" replied the waif, "I'll miss
him something terrible. Maybe he'll
| die; they amt no one to look out
for him." Rags proved to he a for
lorn terrier. The judge made out
| commitment papers for the canine
| orphan also.
And there was Chinatown Gertie,
| whose funeral proved one of the
| most extraordinary functions New
| York has ever seen. Gertie is a
proof of the Conan Doyle theory
that criminals can get into Heaven.
A drunk and pickpocket, Gertie re-
| formed some years ago and became
a worker at a rescue mission. When
she died, the pickpockets and drunks
whom she had befriended and helped
to reform went to say good-by. In
thieves slang they told of their love
for SISTER Gertie," of the times
they had seen her drunk, of the
way she had pulled them from the
gutter and made them go straight.
1t was thieves slang in bleak mis-
sion hall, but as acceptable to the
ear of a listening Deity as any gold
en- phrases floating upward from
| the solemn magnificence of q cathe,
dral altar.