stephensmithuk

[stephensmithuk]

The Sign of Four: Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration

Snib means to bolt, lock or fasten a door or window. Can't say it's a term I've heard of myself.

Sixty feet is 18.2 metres. That's a long way down!

"Horny" here means that his hands would have been hardened like a horn, from extended periods of manual labour. Sailors would have done a lot of rope pulling and climbing up rigging. This, along with the tar used to seal the wooden would have also made their hands quite dirty, which is why the Royal Navy salute has the palm facing rearwards.

Also, rope burn hurts.

Senegambia is a historical term for the region of African between the Senegal and Gambia rivers, covering a larger area than the two modern states of that name.

The spring return tape measure was invented in 1864, but the practice of applying length increments was not widespread at this time.

A Hippocratic smile is a rictus grin. It can be a sign of tetanus or poisoning by strychnine. It is a feature of the later discovered Wilson's disease, a genetic disorder where too much copper builds up in the body and is eventually fatal if not treated.

It can also be observed in cases of execution by hanging, although at this point, the condemned in Britain had hoods put on to stop spectators seeing this.

Norwood being in the Metropolitan Police District, Athelney Jones could justifiably be there in a case.

The French Holmes uses translates as "There are no fools so inconvenient as those who have wit!", implying that the detective knows just enough to be dangerous.

Police officers in England and Wales make a sworn attestation that they will serve the King in the office of constable. The Scottish and Northern Irish equivalents do not mention the monarch, for obvious reasons.

The Metropolitan Police were operating at this point under the Police Code written by the former head of CID, Sir Howard Vincent and first published in 1881. This included a A-Z guide of various offences and practices for the officer but did not include a standard form of wording used on an arrest. This book was informal, and it was not until 1912 that the "Judges' Rules" made an official recommendation that suspects be cautioned, but formally suggested wording only existed when charging someone.

Goethe's words translate as "We are used to people mocking what they don't understand."

#letters from watson #history #sherlock holmes #acd canon #the sign of four #sign

[stephensmithuk]

A police map of London valid for the late Victorian period

The 1888 one I posted isn't the best quality. This one is a bit better:

It also shows the mainline railways, but not the Underground ones.

#letters from watson #letters from bunny #history #london

[stephensmithuk]

"You’ll be hearing more of this, Mr. P 34!"

Mackenzie is here referring to the poor police constable by a feature that most uniformed officers in the UK and Ireland have, namely his collar number. Although these days they tend to be known as shoulder numbers.

Permit me to demonstrate via this image:

This is Police Constable C 333. His actual name is not recorded in this c.1948, but we'll call him Robert Smith, or Bobby to his friends.

The letter C represents the division of the Metropolitan Police he is assigned to. In this case, C covered the West End of London. The Met has gone through a lot of command changes over the decades - today this would be Central West Basic Command Unit and he'd have AW on his shoulders, not his collar.

These numbers allow for identification of the officer; the public would know who to compliment or complain about. There have been cases of officers policing protests not wearing these, which caused a fair amount of upset when it was reported.

If he was using a radio, he would be Charlie Three-Three-Three. Or just "Three-Three-Three" for a local chat.

If he was to sign a statement, he'd be PC Smith 333 C. He would also put that in his email signature today.

Sergeants would have three V stripes on their sleeves and now their epaulettes outside of a dress uniform situation. They would also have their numbers on their uniform.

Police Community Support Officers (civilians wearing a uniform, basically) and Special Constables (volunteer officers with full powers, but unpaid) have shoulder numbers.

Inspectors and above just have their rank insignia, no numbers.

If Bobby moved to another division, he might keep his numbers, but he would have to change his letter. He would go down to two numbers if promoted to Sergeant.

****

Outside of London, you will usually just see four numbers, with no letters.

Bobby would also have a warrant card, akin to the US police badge, which he would use in a plain clothes or off-duty situation. If he were suspended for excessive force, he would have to hand it over.

****

Now P 34 is a bit outside his area.

This is the 1888 police divisions map, also relevant for Sherlock Holmes:

(Source: https://gmic.co.uk/topic/64457-metropolitan-police-divisional-areas-1888/)

The blue area represents the boundaries of the London County Council, although the City of London was excluded from that - it retains its own local government and police, who have their numbers on their sleeves today.

You can see the Whitechapel area under H and the Docklands area, plus points east under K.

The red area was the then boundaries of the Metropolitan Police District. You can see that it excluded my manor of Havering, then under the auspices of Essex Police. This went quite a way out, beyond even the modern Greater London boundaries in some places, although in 2000 it was aligned to match those. Havering was KD until recently, it is now part of EA.

As a further fun note, the MPD boundaries were also those of the coal tax area. Any coal brought within this area, which also included the City, was subject to tax until 1890, when this was abolished due to its unpopularity in the new suburbs. The boundaries were marked by obelisks or white concrete posts, many of which are still in situ, although not always easy to spot, to remind people of the tax. The railway or river transport companies usually collected this anyway.

Anyway, P Division covers the Camberwell, Lewisham area. Quite why Mackenzie has grabbed this bloke from there for this operation is a mystery. While P 34 could easily go outside his area for public order stuff, like a parade or dealing with a protest; during the miners' strike of 1984-85, Metropolitan Police officers were used in protecting those who were going into work from their striking colleagues, as well as beating up the latter.

Perhaps he was just doing it for the LOLs.

****

As a final note, police officers are also starting to wear name badges. This was somewhat controversial as some officers feared being targeted as a result.

#letters from bunny #raffles #the return match #police #British police #allo allo allo #what's all this then?

[stephensmithuk]

The Sign of Four: The Tragedy of Pondicherry Lodge

Doubt you get many places with their own grounds in that part of London today.

The broken glass topping was an anti-theft measure. Any Raffles-type would end up with nasty injuries if they tried to climb over the wall.

We would today calling soil left over from digging "spoil". Rubbish is what the British call trash.

The stairs are lined with what today is known as coir matting, which is generally found in brown, but can bought in other colours. You would common find it today used for doormats.

A retort is a vertical metal rod secured to a heavy metal base; you can clamp other holders etc. to put test tubes, flasks etc. on.

A carboy is a large rigid container used for transporting or storing liquids. Historically strong glass to resist acid corrosion and protect from shattering if knocked over, they are frequently plastic today. Those large plastic bottles for water coolers are carboys.

The police station for Upper Norwood at the time was in Gipsy Hill; it was used until 1939 when a new station was opened in Central Hill and itself was turned into police flats in 1948; I believe they are now gone. The new station itself appears to have shut some years ago.

It is quite probable that the police station itself would not have had a telephone, but likely would have had a telegraph facility.

#letters from watson #sherlock holmes #history #factoids #acd canon #the sign of four #sign

[stephensmithuk]

Sent to America for trying to steal cheesecake and apple pies

Looking through the records of the Old Bailey, which I have discussed in some of my LFW and LFB posts, I came across this interesting case from April 1724:

A man was brought up before the court being charged with stealing 3 shillings worth of cakes - specifically 18 cheesecakes and 12 apple pies. It seems from the evidence that the baker had encountered several thefts from his premises and so put a watch to catch the perpetrator.

Cue Henry Millmash, a former employee - hence the dogs ignoring him after initially barking at him, being caught by the other servants, literally with cheesecake in his mouth.

Interestingly the jury knocked the value of the goods down to 10d; which made the matter petty rather than grand larceny. This deliberate reduction of value was commonplace in this era as the value determined whether you would get the death penalty or not.

Millmash was sentenced to transportation and probably ended up in America. Perhaps he has descendants still living there!

#history #factoids #the old bailey #london #transportation #letters from watson #lett #letters from bunny #cheesecake #apple pie

[stephensmithuk]

The Sign of Four: The Story of the Bald-Headed Man

The Victorians were rather into what is known as chinoiserie, the European imitation of Chinese and other East Asian artistic traditions, although the popularity had somewhat peaked by this point.

The stethoscope had been invented in France in 1816 by René Laennec and the two-ear version was commercially available from 1852. The practice before and without one - see A Study in Scarlet - was to listen to the chest by applying your ear directly too. This was a bit awkward when dealing with a woman, the reason Laennec invented it in the first place.

We've seen Tokay before, in "The Last Bow".

Since tobacco came to Europe, there have been people who couldn't stand the smell. James I of England/James VI of Scotland wrote A Counterblaste to Tobacco in 1604, one of the earliest anti-smoking works. He would impose an import tax on tobacco, then later made it a royal monopoly.

It was also considered taboo to spoke in front of women for much of this period; hence the use of smoking rooms. It was also seen as unladylike for a woman to smoke at all; if she did, it evoked an image of prostitution. Unless you were working class, in which case women widely smoked.

Hookah comes from the Hindustani word "huqqa". Hindustani is also known as Hindi-Urdu; Hindi being the Devanagari-written version used in India and Urdu the Pakistani version written in the Persian alphabet. Both countries have tried to make their two versions somewhat distinct; Hindustani is not used in official terminilogy in either. In speech, the two are pretty much mutually intelligible, if you keep things simple.

The hookah remains popular in South Asia and the Middle East; smoking is not specifically prohibited in the Quran, but in recent decades, a number of very prominent clerics have declared it haram (forbidden). In much of Europe and North America, indoor smoking bans cover hookahs, places that offer them have had to switch to tobacco-free version.

In any event, hookah smoking is really bad for your health - you're basically inhaling the equivalent of 100-200 cigarettes in a single session.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was a French realist painter. Works of his can be found in the Louvre and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, among various other galleries.

Pondicherry, which we've seen mentioned before, is a city on the south-east coast of what is now India; it was a French territory at the time - the British had taken it more than once, but returned to them each time, the last time in 1814.

The lightweight division of boxing today covers weights of 130 to 135 pounds. The current British lightweight champion is James Tennyson, but he has not fought a professional bout since a technical knockout to Jovanni Straffon in 2021.

Agra, located in Uttar Pradesh, is best known as the location of the Taj Mahal, built on the orders of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan between 1631 and 1653 as a mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz Mahal after her death in childbirth in 1631. He is also buried there himself.

£500,000 in 1888 would be the equivalent of over £54m at 2024 values. Not a bad chunk of change.

#letters from watson #sherlock holmes #factoids #acd canon #the sign of four #sign #history

[stephensmithuk]

The criminal courts of late Victorian England

Edit: I have made some slight corrections. CW for discussion of crimes, courts etc.

****

This does not cover Scotland, which has a rather different system. I believe it covered Wales as well.

In the 1890s, there were three types of courts someone charged with a crime could end up.

Police Court (London)/Petty Sessions Court (outside London)

These were based in each of the 'hundreds', the traditional divisions of the counties used for administrative purposes for much of the second millennium.

This is what the Essex hundreds looked like in 1832:

I live in the area of the Havering Liberty, then rural and now very much suburban, being part of the London Borough of Havering.

Chafford Hundred's name survives in that of the railway station that serves the Lakeside shopping centre and the Romford to Upminster Overground line will now be called the Liberty line. There is also a Liberty shopping centre in Romford and a Royal Liberty School.

The boundaries changed over time - as towns grew bigger, they would get their own 'petty sessional district'.

The Royal Liberty of Havering was an autonomous area of Essex, with its own courts and special exemptions from certain taxes.

Being a pretty small area with a low population before a housing boom in the 20th century, its existence was seen as an anachronism and it was on its way out in 1891; it would be fully incorporated into Essex the following year.

Romford's court in any event was located with the County Court on South Street, just north of the Great Eastern Railway station (still in use, but heavily changed inside). Looking at the historical maps, I think there's a Slug & Lettuce on the site now. The police station was close by; there may have been a tunnel linking the two buildings, but I would have to confirm that.

Anyway, these courts dealt with misdemeanours, with cases tried by one or more Justices of the Peace aka magistrates. JPs were generally unpaid and so they would often be people who could afford to do this stuff in their spare time. They'd often be local notables, like the main landowners, a rich doctor, a local priest, or someone who ran a factory. This may well have caused issues in bias.

This included things like:

A drunken punch-up outside a pub.

Domestic violence.

"Your dog bit my servant."

"You drove your cart too fast and collided with my shop window."

Solicitation i.e. prostitutes seeking business on the street.

Shoplifting, pickpocketing, burglary, and various low-level theft/fraud cases.

"You said in the newspaper I paid young men for sex" (Criminal libel, which is what Oscar Wilde charged the Marquess of Queensbury with via a private prosecution - and we know how that ended for him)

The JPs would try the case, decide on guilt or innocence, then decide any punishment; I believe the maximum possible sentence was six months. Solicitors would represent defendants.

Havering had exactly three JPs. The crime rate was pretty low in this rural area.

This 1887 article covers the workings of one London police court:

This court in Soho, which closed in 1998 and is now The Courthouse Hotel, would see a few famous names in the dock, including John Lennon (for indecency over an art exhibition, case dismissed), two Rolling Stones (fined for drugs possession) and Bob Monkhouse (for illegally importing films, acquitted at the Old Bailey).

They also served as the place for the first court appearances of people going to the higher courts like...

Quarter Sessions

These sat at the seats of each county and each county borough. The latter included places like Oxford and in the case of Essex, Southend-on-Sea after 1914.

Havering had its own quarter sessions until 1892 - the three JPs also doing these; it would then be merged into Essex. This caused a few jurisdictional issues when Essex courts charged men for crimes alleged in Havering and some cases got quashed for that reason.

For Essex, the Quarter Sessions were held at Shire Hall in Chelmsford; this closed entirely in 2012 and is now being redeveloped. In 2024, it featured in the Channel 4 documentary series The Jury: Murder Trial.

They were traditionally held four times a year - hence the name. Unless you could put up the sureties required for bail, you were going to gaol, at least until the next session. Romford had a small gaol, but it was generally more convenient to send people to Chelmsford, where the prison still operates.

Quarter sessions dealt with more serious felony cases, like armed robbery, serious assault, poaching and forging banknotes. Cases were presided over by two or more JPs, with a jury making the decision on guilt or innocence.

By 1891, most of the administrative functions of magistrates had gone to the new County Councils, but they still dealt with alcohol licence applications.

However, these courts could not deal with capital-level offences, at this point pretty much reduced to murder, treason, and piracy. These would be handled at:

Assizes

Happening twice a year in each county, these also dealt with civil matters, which are outside the remit of this post. Since these dealt with capital crimes, bail was pretty unlikely.

The country was split into six judical circuits with professional judges travelling around between the courts, often accompanied by barristers. This might sound pretty familiar to American readers; Abraham Lincoln was a circuit lawyer in Illinois and the US court system remains divided into circuits, but the judges don't ride on horses anymore. Insert your own jokes here about the judge of your choice.

Essex fell under the Home Circuit along with four other nearby counties - Middlesex had been joined up with the City of London by this point. This appears not to be linked to the term "Home Counties", which covers some areas outside.

Once the judges arrived, they would impanel juries and try all the cases before them. Only barristers could represent defendants here, I believe - a solicitor would instruct a barrister if a client were facing the Assizes.

The historical Havering gallows had been near Gallows Corner, but it had stopped being used by 1815. Gallows Corner is now home to a notorious roundabout. Chelmsford was where hangings for Essex took place.

In summary

If you punched someone in London, you'd go to the police court.

If you broke their leg, you'd go to the quarter sessions.

If you killed them, you'd go to the Assizes and quite possibly soon to the highest court of them all.

The end of the system

In 1972, this system was abolished. The petty sessions courts became magistrate's courts, with the quarter sessions and assizes combined to form Crown Courts.

Romford Magistrate's Court today sits on Main Road, next door to the police station and in close proximity to Havering's Town Hall. It covers cases in the surrounding areas to Havering as well.

The nearest Crown Court is at Snaresbrook - it's the biggest in the country with no less than 20 courtrooms.

#letters from bunny #letters from watson #history #factoids #courts

[stephensmithuk]

The Sign of Four: In Quest of a Solution

You could find the back issues of most papers just by visiting a local library. Today, the British Newspaper Archive will, for a monthly subscription, allow you to look at a whole slew of vintage papers, including The Illustrated Police News for all your Victorian "true crime" reportage.

As mentioned before, a four-wheeler was a four-wheeled carriage with a driving seat on the top front and a luggage rack on the top; they costed more than the hansoms.

Doyle isn't very good with coming up with convincing Indian names, is he? Singh is the name used by a baptised male Sikh (Kaur is the female equivalent) i.e. a turban-wearing, dagger carrying one. Mahomet is a version of Mohammed.

The gas lights of London weren't hugely bright compared with modern street lights; you'd be able to find your way, but there's probably a decent chance you'd step in horse exhaust if you weren't careful.

The Lyceum Theatre, located on Wellington Street, dates back to 1765, but the current building is from 1834, rebuilt after a fire. It contains a balcony over the dress circle, a unique theatre.

GhostApple on Tumblr pointed out that Bram Stoker was the manager at that theatre at the time SIGN was released. The theatre at the time was run by Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, two of the biggest stars of their days, becoming Sir Henry and Dame Ellen later in life. Stoker based Dracula on Irving, but sadly Irving never actually played the Count on stage.

After a further rebuild, time as a ballroom, a demoliton threat and two closures, the Lyceum reopened in 1996 and is a Grade II* listed building, the second highest grade. Since 1999, it is the London home of The Lion King.

The normal garb of a coachman would be a top hat and a heavy double-breasted overcoat; they would be driving their vehicle in a vast array of weather conditions, sometimes on the same day as anyone who has lived in Britain can tell you.

The coach is going rather fast at this point, possibly dangerously so. The Offences against the Person Act 1861 created an offence of "causing bodily harm by wanton or furious driving"; which could mean that if a horse-drawn vehicle hit another vehicle or a person, the driver could get up to two years in prison. The offence remains on the books, being used against horse-drawn carriage drivers (still a thing, particularly in the Traveller community), motorists when not on a road or public land and cyclists, as the Road Traffic Act 1988 is not available in these cases - it is a Crown Court-only offence. In 2017, a cyclist riding at speed in East London with no front brakes hit and killed a woman; the jury found him not guilty of manslaughter, but convicted him of this offence, with the result he got a 18-month sentence.

Tiger attacks were very common in British India; tigers are known to attack humans when feeling threatened (human encroachment on their territory is a big problem)), injuries prevent them from going after other prey or they mistake a human for something else, or if one is riding a bike, their chase instinct may kick in. 33,247 people were killed by tigers between 1876 and 1912. In 2022, the Indian government recorded 112 tiger-caused deaths, up from 59 in 2021. Some tigers have ended up killing over 100 people before being shot dead.

For those having a go at Watson for shooting at a tiger cub, we don't know how old or how big the tiger cub was. A newborn tiger maybe less than 10 pounds and look adorable, but a ten month male could easily be over 100 pounds and looks rather like a full-grown adult. Especially in the dark.

This said, humans are a good deal worse than tigers. The British cleared vast amounts of their habitat for the timber to build their railways. Hunting tigers for "sport" had been a common practice for the Indian nobility and the British ruling classes liked doing it just as much, bringing modern firearms along. Remember Dr. Sterndale from DEVI? There's a chance Watson might have gone hunting himself, sadly.

The tiger hunting got worse post-independence as improved air travel made it easier for game hunters to get to India. The Indian government banned tiger hunting in 1972 and the Bengal tiger population is slowly recovering. The size of reserves have not kept up with the population and so some tigers have gone into human areas for food, usually livestock but sometimes humans. If a tiger starts killing people and attempts to tranquilise it fail, then lethal force will be authorised. In 2022, T-104, a three-year-old dubbed the "man-eater of Champaran", killed nine people before he was shot dead by the police, who conducted their search riding elephants.

The "Surrey side" refers to the southern bank of the river, the other being the "Middlesex side" referring to the now defunct county. Those terms remain in use for the Boat Races; with the Middlesex side being on the right as the crews row upstream. The two "stations" have various advantages and disadvantages; Middlesex helps at the start end, Surrey in the middle.

Vauxhall Bridge was in rather a bad shape by this point and would be replaced in 1906, five years late due to various construction and design issues. The modern bridge is notable for having the very distinctive headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service next to its southern end.

"Hindoo" was a contemporary spelling of Hindu, today considered derogatory.

"Sahib" is the Indian equivalent of "sir" or "master"; "Mem-Sahib" is the female version. The Indians used it when speaking to white people (or about them, possibly sarcastically) and the British officers would use it with their Indian counterparts. It is less common now, but still widely used in the Indian Army and about people in positions of power.

"Khitmutgar" was a term for a male butler or underservant who would set the table for dinner etc.; during the Bengal Presidency, these would typically as opposed to Hindus.

#letters from watson #sherlock holmes #history #factoids #acd canon #the sign of four #sign #tigers

[stephensmithuk]

"We should swing in a row at Newgate in six weeks’ time!"

CW for discussions of the mechanics of capital punishment.

Newgate was one of the places in London that you least wanted to end up for most of the second millennium. Located near the "New Gate" of the City Walls, it began life in 1188 as a collection of cells to hold those awaiting trial.

It had a rather long and dark history, with many famous inmates (such as Daniel Defoe and of particular relevance here, Oscar Wilde spent some time), quite a lot of abuses and generally unpleasant conditions. The prison of this period dated from 1782, the third on the site. The second had been almost finished in 1780 when it was set on fire during the Gordon Riots, an anti-Catholic outbreak of disorder that saw 300-700 deaths. Charles Dickens used it as the backdrop for Barnaby Rudge, one of his lesser-known novels, possibly due to the limited number of adaptations. Other works of his set there included Oliver Twist, where Fagin spends his final night.

It was attached to the criminal courts colloquially known as "the Old Bailey" after the street is was on. By 1891, it had become the Central Criminal Court, dealing with high-profile cases from across England.

Many people only left Newgate for their meeting with the hangman. In 1783, London's gallows were moved from Tyburn to the front of Newgate prison. Until 1868 (three years after the opening of the first bit of the Underground!), these executions would still be done in public. Prisoners would take their final walk along Dead Man's Walk, over the quicklime-covered bodies of the previously executed under the flagstones, before coming out to see the crowds of spectators, looking forward to the show. It was quite common in the Bloody Code days for pickpockets to operate at the executions of people hanging for theft. The nearby Magpie & Stump pub would hire out upper rooms for those wanting a better view and also send the condemned a final pint.

After the end of public executions, the gallows were moved inside the facility. From 1881, a dedicated execution shed was built where up to four people could be hanged at once, although that only happened on one occasion, so a triple execution would have been perfectly possible. And "by once", I mean at the same time; the hangman would open the trapdoor so all were dropped into eternity at the same time.

There was a spectator's gallery outside for the press and official witnesses - their view was restricted so all they would see of the actual execution was the condemned drop into the pit below and the rope go taught. The prison was also used to train new executioners.

By 1891, the British government had clamped down on some of the dodgier practices engaged in by hangmen at this point after the Aberdare Committee of 1886. Like going around the local pubs the evening before and showing off the rope to the drinkers. Or selling said rope and the dead person's clothes to souvenir hunters after the fact. Or charging people to act as extra assistants at the execution, including one actual baronet. A standard "table of drops" was also set up, although not always followed initially.

In 1902, the prison was closed down and demolished in 1904. A rebuilt and expanded Central Criminal Court, opened in 1907 covers the old site - some of the old walls form part of it - still being known as the "Old Bailey". Trials are open for the public to attend, subject to a strict security check and an outright ban on taking photos inside.

Some of the remains of the hanged were removed and placed in a plot at the City of London cemetery.

The gallows moved to Pentonville and remained there, with the last execution occurring at that site in 1961, capital punishment ending three years later.

The Magpie & Stump remains to this day, heavily rebuilt. I might go there for lunch at some point.

A door from the prison is in the collection of the Museum of London, but the main site closed in 2022, with the facility moving to a new location in the Smithfield area that is due to open in 2026.

The six weeks reference? That was how quickly you could go from arrested to hanged in England.

#letters from bunny #raffles #history #wilful murder #wilf

[stephensmithuk]

The Sign of the Four: The Statement of the Case

CW for the end of this as it includes discussions of child murder and detailed discussions of capital punishment.

Turbans have never been particularly common in the United Kingdom; these days, they are most likely to be worn by West African women or those who are undergoing chemotherapy.

It was the norm for a married woman to be referred to as "Mrs. [husband's name]", especially on something like a dinner invite. Historically, in the English common law system the United States also uses, a woman's legal identity was subsumed by her husband on marriage, in something called coverture. In some cases, a woman who ran her own business could be treated as legally single (a femme sole) and so sue someone - or be sued. This practice was gradually abolished, but did fully end until the 1970s.

@myemuisemo has excellently covered the reasons why Mary would have been sent back to the UK.

As you were looking at a rather long trip to and from India, even with the Suez Canal open by 1878, long leave like this would have been commonplace.

The Andaman Islands are an archipelago SW of what is now Myanmar and was then called Burma. The indigenous Andamanese lived pretty much an isolated experience until the late 19th century when the British showed up. The locals were pretty hostile to outsiders; shipwrecked crews were often attacked and killed in the 1830s and 1840s, the place getting a reputation for cannibalism.

The British eventually managed to conquer the place and combine its administration with the Nicobar Islands. Most of the native population would be wiped out via outside disease and loss of territory; they now number around 500 people. The Indian government, who took over the area on independence, now legally protect the remaining tribespeople, restricting or banning access to much of the area.

Of particular note are the Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island, who have made abundantly clear that they do not want outside contact. This is probably due to the British in the late 1800s, who kidnapped some of them and took them to Port Blair. The adults died of disease and the children were returned with gifts... possibly of the deadly sort. Various attempts by the Indian government (who legally claimed the island in 1970 via dropping a marker off) and anthropologists to contact them have generally not gone well, with the islanders' response frequently being of the arrow-firing variety. Eventually, via this and NGO pressure, most people got the hint and the Indian government outright banned visits to the island.

In 2004, after the Asian tsunami that killed over 2,000 people in the archipelago, the Indian Coast Guard sent over a helicopter to check the inhabitants were OK. They made clear they were via - guess what - firing arrows at the helicopter. Most of the people killed were locals and tourists; the indigenous tribes knew "earthquake equals possible tsunami" and had headed for higher ground.

In 2006, an Indian crab harvesting boat drifted onto the island; both of the crew were killed and buried.

In 2018, an American evangelical missionary called John Allen Chau illegally went to the island, aiming to convert the locals to Christianity. He ended up as a Darwin Award winner and the Indians gave up attempts to recover his body.

The first British penal colony in the area was established in 1789 by the Bengalese but shut down in 1796 due to a high rate of disease and death. The second was set up in 1857 and remained in operation until 1947.

People poisoning children for the insurance money was a sadly rather common occurrence in the Victorian era to the point that people cracked jokes about it if a child was enrolled in a burial society i.e. where people paid in money to cover funeral expenses and to pay out on someone's death.

The most infamous of these was Mary Ann Cotton from Durham, who is believed to have murdered 21 people, including three of her four husbands and 11 of her 13 children so she could get the payouts. She was arrested in July 1872 and charged with the murder of her stepson, Charles Edward Cotton, who had been exhumed after his attending doctor kept bodily samples and found traces of arsenic. After a delay for her to give birth to her final child in prison and a row in London over the choice the Attorney General (legally responsible for the prosecution of poisoning cases) had made for the prosecuting counsel, she was convicted in March 1973 of the murder and sentenced to death, the jury coming back after just 90 minutes. The standard Victorian practice was for any further legal action to be dropped after a capital conviction, as hanging would come pretty quickly.

Cotton was hanged at Durham County Goal that same month. Instead of her neck being broken, she slowly strangled to death as the rope had been made too short, possibly deliberately.

Then again, the hangman was William Calcraft, who had started off flogging juvenille offenders at Newgate Prison. Calcraft hanged an estimated 450 people over a 45-year career and developed quite a reputation for incompetence or sadism (historians debate this) due to his use of short drops. On several occasions, he would have to go down into the pit and pull on the condemned person's legs to speed up their death. In a triple hanging in 1867 of three Fenian who had murdered a police officer, one died instantly but the other two didn't. Calcraft went down and finished one of them off to the horror of officiating priest Father Gadd, who refused to let him do the same to the third and held the man's hand for 45 minutes until it was over. There was also his very public 1856 botch that led to the pinioning of the condemned's legs to become standard practice.

Calcraft also engaged in the then-common and legal practice of selling off the rope and the condemned person's clothing to make extra money. The latter would got straight to Madame Tussaud's for the latest addition to the Chamber of Horrors. Eventually, he would be pensioned off in 1874 aged 73 after increasingly negative press comment.

The Martyrdom of Man was a secular "universal" history of the Western World, published in 1872.

#letters from watson #sherlock holmes #history #factoids #acd canon #sign #the sign of four

[stephensmithuk]

Victorian-era laws

This site contains the text of a whole bunch of Victorian-era laws:

The Irish kept a lot of them when they became independent in 1922.

#letters from bunny #sherlock holmes #history #factoids #victorian era

[stephensmithuk]

The evasions of Raffles

Raffles' attempt to evade Baird can be followed on a modern railway map of London:

He books a ticket to High Street Kensington, travelling on what is now the Circle Line as far as Sloane Square. This would be mostly underground in steam-hauled closed compartment trains on the Metropolitan District Railway. A similar style of carriage can be found - and gone inside - at the London Transport Museum at Covent Garden.

He gets off at Sloane Square and goes to his studio.

After leaving, he gets a taxi across the river to Clapham Junction. This is the busiest British station for the sheer number of trains passing through, due to the two major railways there.

Boarding without a ticket was something that could get him in a magistrate's court if he ran into a ticket inspector. These days, the companies will allow you to pay a "Penalty Fare" as an alternative to prosecution unless your evasion is particularly egregious or you're a repeat offender. This is £100 plus the full single fare for your journey, but will be reduced to £50 plus fare if you pay within 21 days.

From Clapham Junction, he goes to Twickenham - there are Waterloo to Waterloo services using the Kingston Loop Line.

Walking to Richmond takes about 40 minutes today; it would probably be a bit longer back then due to poorer conditions, but remember Raffles is a fit young man.

He then gets the District Line to what was then Charing Cross, but what is now called Embankment. The current Charing Cross tube dates from 1906, being originally Trafalgar Square (Bakerloo) and Strand (Northern) - neither of those bits had yet been built.

Albany is located between Green Park and Piccadilly on the not-yet-built Piccadilly line. The line goes more or less literally under the Piccadilly street; while a deep-level line, it was easier to dig it that way to avoid accidentally entering someone's sub-basement.

#letters from bunny #trains #wilful murder #raffles #history

[stephensmithuk]

The Sign of Four: The Science of Deduction

A morocco case is a stitched leather pouch, with a strip of leather through the holes that can used to secure it and or as a handle. Also a strip of leather like that is called a thong. No sniggering. Or snickering if you're American.

Beaune refers to Beaune wine, from that part of the French region of Burgundy.

Cocaine had become a widely popular drug, with stuff like coca wine (i.e. cocaine and wine combined) being available to buy. However, public opinion was turning against the drug. The British would ban it in the Dangerous Drugs Act 1920, even for medical use - the US still allows it as a local anaesthetic, although it is rarely used for that purpose.

Today, under British law, cocaine is a Class A drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, sitting with heroin and ecstasy among others. This means that possession carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison or an unlimited fine; fines are more likely for a first offence. "Possession with intent to supply" (a fairly subjective determination), supply or production can get you life.

Wigmore Street, near Marble Arch, is about a twenty minute walk from 221B Baker Street.

These days, spoil from street excavations is required to be placed in a designated area and barriered off.

Fifty guineas would be a lot of money back in 1888.

Self-winding watches had been around since the late 1770s, but they were rare until the wristwatch gained widespread popularity among men as a result of the First World War.

The Victorian era saw a massive expansion in the number of pawnbrokers. Many poor people, unable to get loans from banks, were reliant on them for easy credit to tide them over. It was common for someone to pawn their "Sunday best" clothing on a Monday, reclaim it on Saturday once paid, wear it to church or chapel (the latter being the term for nonconformist places of worship) and then start the process over again.

However, despite the stigma of doing it (see "The Beryl Coronet"), middle-class and rich people also would use pawnbrokers when desperate.

From 1872, regulation increased on pawnbrokers with maximum interest rates set. Uncollected "pledges" could be sold after a year and seven days if under ten shillings. If over ten shillings, they had to be sold at public auction, although the pawnbroker was allowed to set a reserve price for them.

#letters from watson #sherlock holmes #history #factoids #acd canon #sign #the sign of four

[stephensmithuk]

Raffles Down Under

A tour in Australia back then was a serious undertaking.

With the only way to get from the UK to the then British-ruled colonies that would become Australia in 1901 being by the sea, you were talking a very long journey.

The July 1887 Bradshaw's shows fortnightly services of the Orient Line (later to merge into P&O in 1966.) leaving from Tilbury - the port just to the east of London that is now the main one serving the capital - every two weeks for Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. It's down as taking 25 days just to reach Suez i.e. the southern end of the Suez Canal and the entrance to the Red Sea. The advert gives zero information as to how long things will take after that, but another month at least would seem reasonable.

The "Ten Pound Poms" i.e. the British who migrated to Australia after the Second World War on an assisted passage basis (£10 single fare but you have stay for more than two years) were looking at five to seven weeks, for point of comparison.

Raffles says that his fare, food, accommodation etc. are being covered as part of the cricket tour. Expenses generally had to be covered and many of these people could afford not to work for half a year or more. The fact the poorer ones couldn't is a big reason why professionalism become a big thing and even today, many athletes rely on grants, endorsements etc.

He'd also have to deal with the deadly Australian wildlife in a less hygienic time...

#letters from bunny #le premier pas #cricket #aj raffles #travel #australia

[stephensmithuk]

The Raffles story collections - a quick guide

The Raffles stories are split into three short story collections and a full-length novel. In the order we are covering them:

The Amateur Cracksman: Eight short stories originally published in 1899.

The Black Mask: Another eight short stories published in 1901.

Mr. Justice Raffles: The 1909 full-length novel and the last work Hornung wrote featuring Raffles.

A Thief in the Night: Ten short stories from 1905.

Hornung also did two plays:

Raffles, The Amateur Cracksman: From 1903, based on "Gentlemen and Players" but considerably expanded to a four-act work.

A Visit From Raffles: More of an extended comic sketch, this is a single-act version of "A Costume Piece", much simplified.

#letters from bunny #aj raffles #raffles

[stephensmithuk]

The main varieties of cricket

First-class cricket, known as Test cricket when played on the international level: This is the two-innings each, up to five days version, that's the longest form of the game. This is one you take a holiday to go watch.

One-day cricket: The match lasts a single day (up to eight hours), with 40 to 60 overs for each side, just one innings each.

Twenty20: Cricket for the YouTube generation and the variety which has really saved the sport. 20 overs each and just a ten-minute break after the first inning is over. Takes two and a half hours each. A much faster-paced game, its best-known competition is the Indian Premier League, which attracts players from all over the world.

#letters from bunny #raffles #aj raffles #cricket

[stephensmithuk]

An estate agent listing for the Albany I found

£1,250 a week. That's about half a month's wages before tax and National Insurance for many Londoners.

#letters from bunny #raffles #the albany