Taking up a little while ago for diversion the collection of Conan Doyle’s entertaining detective stories which, with his Sign of the Four, made him famous—the writer could not fail to perceive how much his characters’ methods, meant to be those of a clearsighted, well-disciplined worker, justify criticism; how often, from unstable premises, he builds faulty conclusions. New interest, by the way, is just now aroused in the novelist’s hero—as much the distinguishing product of his brain as Gulliver is of Swift’s, or Robinson Crusoe of Defoe’s—on account of his resurgence, after his extinction was decreed, in The Hound of the Baskervilles. It is right to premise that while this conception of his theory and practice will be duly impressed as the discussion proceeds, not the least aim of this essay is to inquire as to what extent the various circumstances brought to light in his experiences constitute legal evidence of crime. Entering on the treatment of Holmes’ deductive process exhibiting the fruit, as he himself makes known, of an observance of trifles, the curious may be interested to learn that Zadig, an Oriental figuring in the dawn of history, was the first to obtain for it secure footing as a system. Many will no doubt remember the tale of the lost dromedary, about which its owners, two prosperous merchants, sought information from the expert, unknown to them to be such at the time of making their inquiries. Able to convince them that if the missing quadruped had one blind eye, was deprived of a tooth, and bore on each flank different commodities—honey and rice—he had recently visited the neighborhood, they, to his intense surprise, cite him before a magistrate as admitting knowledge that would seem to implicate him in its larceny. He is discharged in triumph from the accusation on explaining that, although he had never seen the animal, its presence not long before was attested by the facts that grass along its track had been cropped from one margin only, and that every tuft removed showed a gap in the middle, besides the symptom that flies gathered about the leakage from its burden at one side of the road, while ants lingered in the vicinity of that on the other. The self-centered authority whom these comments involve—who betrays, at one time, the depth and caution of an adept, at another, the haste and maladroitness of the tyro—is frequently observed to stray without valid excuse from the path in which his professional brothers, controlled by wisely ordained laws, feel themselves constrained to walk, habitually ignores landmarks which the regular experimenter is well satisfied to recognize. Now, of all work to which ability and resource may be pledged, that of the unearther of crime ought, by its performance, to gain respect, one would think, for the maxim, “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” Our subject nevertheless too often prefers to lean on the contradictory assurance, “In a multitude of counselors there is safety,” a doctrine which placed over against the other evokes the moral that man should not pin his faith to proverbs. Among the peculiar shifts to which he resorts is the roping in of a group of idlers for the purpose of bringing about a make-believe street quarrel, in order that upon its reaching its height he may be violently thrown to the ground and suffer to all appearances grave injury—that simulated issue leading to his being humanely carried into the house where his crucial move is afterwards to be made. Would these confederates, it may be inquired, have risked their not unlikely arrest by the police for causing a breach of the peace, without insisting beforehand that they should, to some extent at least, be taken into the manager’s confidence? And, if drawn to the scene, what measure of credence would the guardians of public order attach to a representation that the whole affair was a sham? Following his prey on this occasion, the hunter, as we gather from his own intimation of the result, was unable to keep himself concealed behind the stalking-horse called to his aid. At the by no means trifling risk of some of them revealing the secret, he several times allows three or four in this way to become privy to his intentions, and share in their putting into effect. Having once mapped out the course to be followed—chosen the cards he will play—Holmes never sticks at the means by which his end shall be accomplished. When he is not pointing a loaded revolver at some wrongdoer’s head to reduce him to submission, he, without fear of an action of assault and imprisonment before his eyes, turns the key of his door on another, the more readily to extort a confession, serenely flying in the face of the wholesome requirement that neither threat of evil nor promise of favor must be exerted to achieve this consequence. Nor does he scruple when carrying out his design, so impatient is he of control, to lay himself open to the charge of being an accessory after the factor or of being concerned in misprision of felony. Mark this astonishingly candid report of the manner in which he obtains possession of a stolen article, and deals with the felon: “It was a delicate part I had to play there; and I knew that so astute a villain would see that our hands were tied in the matter. | went and saw him. At first, of course, he denied everything. But when I gave him every particular that had occurred he tried to bluster, and took down a life-preserver from the wall. I knew my man, however, and I clapped a pistol to his head before he could strike. Then he became a little more reasonable. I told him that we would give him a price for the stones he held—one thousand pounds apiece. That brought out the first signs of grief he had shown. ‘Why, dash it all,’ said he, ‘I’ve let them go at six hundred pounds for the three!’ I soon managed to get the address of the receiver who had them. On promising him that there would be no prosecution, off I set to him, and after much chaffering, I got our stones at one thousand pounds apiece.”