by Bill Peschel
Dark lantern: A lantern made to hold a candle that has a shutter that can be opened when light is needed. When the door is closed, no light spills out.
Fly-paper: A paper coated with a sweetly fragrant, sticky and sometimes poisonous substance that traps flying insects. Flypaper at this time contained arsenic, which could be released in water and used to poison someone. This method was used in two notorious cases of the period by Frederick Seddon, who was hanged in 1912 for poisoning his lodger, and Florence Maybrick (1862-1941), whose murder conviction for poisoning her husband was commuted after a public outcry.
Merry Widow: A German operetta from 1905 by Franz Lehar (1870-1948) about a rich widow from the fictional nation of Pontevedrin and an embassy official’s attempt to marry her off to another countryman to keep her fortune in their country. A successful English adaptation premiered in London in 1907 and ran for 778 performances before touring the country.
Jui jitsu: A Japanese martial art considered effective against an armored and armed man involving throws, pins, and joint locks. Holmes himself preferred an English-developed variant called by Conan Doyle “baritsu,” (actually bartitsu) which combined boxing and a walking stick.
Bermondsey: A small district on the southern shore of the Thames in southeast London. During the early Victorian era, it was home to slums, immigrant housing, docks, and industrial plants. The arrival of the railroads and the rising river trade sparked extensive redevelopment.
Old Kent Road: A major thoroughfare in southeast London that lies less than a mile south of Bermondsey and connects the city to Dover. In existence since Roman times, it was the route Chaucer’s pilgrims took to Canterbury, English soldiers on their way back from slaughtering the French at Agincourt in 1415, and the site where traitors and religious martyrs were executed.
Whatnot: A small piece of furniture consisting of a vertical stack of shelves separated by slender pillars, used to hold ornaments, souvenirs, or trifles.
New-fangled cartridges: Between 1908 and 1910, several British tobacco companies came out with “self-filling tobacco cartridges” as a way to reduce the mess associated with pipe smoking. Despite improving the design and rolling out new varieties, they were not successful and faded from the stores during World War I.
Viola tout!: Actually “voila tout,” a French phrase meaning “here it is” or “that’s all” in a celebratory fashion.
Mitchell Yard: A reference to Scotland Yard, of course. A second joke was added by naming a member of the aristocracy the delightfully unaristocratic “Betty.” A check of the school’s records shows no reference to Betty Phipps.
Baird’s manual: Since 1879, Baird’s Manual of American College Fraternities lists active and defunct general, professional, and honor fraternities, along with an overview of their history, traditions, membership, and other information.
Bootblack: Someone who polishes shoes. Although commercial shoe polish wasn’t introduced to the consumer market until the late 19th century, bootblacks were working the streets much earlier. A photograph of a Paris street taken in 1838 by Louis Daguerre (1787-1851), the inventor of the daguerreotype photography procedure, shows a man getting his boots polished.
Bohunk section hand: A bohunk is a Central European immigrant. The name is probably a portmanteau of “Bohemia” and “Hungary.” A section hand is a member of a gang that lay or repair track.
Mr. Bones: Mr. Bones is also the name one of two comedians in a minstrel show who trade jokes with the master of ceremonies.
English Territorial force: After the Boer War (1899-1902) drained Britain’s military forces, it became apparent that the army needed to grow in a way that did not bankrupt the country by maintaining a large army. Several failed attempts were made under Conservative governments, and when the Liberals won in 1905, the Secretary of State for War, Richard Haldane, tried again. The result was the creation of a regular Expeditionary Force and an auxiliary Territorial Force that would be responsible for home defense and called upon when needed. This proved to be successful and, with modifications and name changes—it’s now called the Territorial Army—the system is still in use today.
Freemason: A fraternal organization, inspired by the medieval guilds, that began to appear in the late 16th century. Their loose organization, religious beliefs, and secret rituals have made it the target of other religious groups and the basis for conspiracy theories, particularly in totalitarian societies.
St Anthony: The patron saint of the lost, whether people, souls, or as in comedian George Carlin’s routine, car keys. Saint Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) was a Portuguese Catholic priest and friar of the Franciscan Order. He was known for his care of the poor and sick, his scripture knowledge, and his preaching.
Battle of Eylau: A Napoleonic War battle (Feb. 7-8, 1807) in which the Russian army battled the French army to a stalemate in East Prussia. Although they would defeat the Russians at the Battle of Friedland five months later, the reputation of Napoleon’s army for invincibility was shattered.
The Tablet: A Roman Catholic weekly newspaper, published since 1840.
Magic lantern: A projector developed in the 17th century that combined a light source with a lens to project an image on a glass slide.
Turkish bath: Probably a reference to Sutherland Macdonald (1860-1942) the first professional tattoo artist to open a shop in Britain. A trained artist, Macdonald learned the trade while serving in the British Army in the 1880s. In 1894, he received a patent for an electric tattooing machine, but still used Japanese hand tools for shading or heavy work. His first shop was in Aldershot before moving to Jermyn Street, upstairs from a Turkish bath, where he worked for the rest of his life.
Red stone: A reference to the gemstone Holmes found in a Christmas goose in “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.” The stone probably came from the putz, a model of a Christmas village decorated with animals, small shrubs, rocks, and moss that was set at the base of the tree.
Many elements of the Victorian Christmas was imported from Germany by Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert. The stone could have also come from the tub filled with stones and sand that steadied the small tree on the table.
(A word about the words: Do not confuse the village putz with the Yiddish word putz, meaning a stupid person. They are derived from different words: the village putz from the German putzen, which means to decorate or to clean. As long as we’re on the subject of words, the model of the stable showing the infant Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the rest of the cast is the crèche.)
Baker: “Home Run” Baker (1886-1963) helped the Philadelphia Athletics win the World Series in 1910, 1911, and 1913. In the 1911 series, Baker’s bat helped manager Connie Mack beat John McGraw’s New York Giants in a 4-2 series. His home run in game 2 against Rube Marquard provided the margin of victory, and in game 3 he tied the game in the ninth inning with a homer against Christy Mathewson. The Athletics won that game in the 11th inning.
Rules Jewby: Theatrical agent Jules Ruby, who worked for the United Booking Office. The UBO was formed in 1906 by the Vaudeville Managers Association to regulate bookings and avoid bidding wars for talent.
Push ’em Building: The United Booking Office was located in the Putnam Building in Times Square. It was torn down and replaced in 1926 with the Paramount Building, the former home of the Paramount Theatre and now called 1501 Broadway.
Perth Amboy: A New Jersey resort town on the Atlantic Coast.
Mysterious Rag: A 1911 song by Irving Berlin (1888-1989) and Ted Snyder (1881-1965). Actually called “That Mysterious Rag,” it was the first song to push the African-American musical genre of ragtime into the mainstream.
Quick-lunch palaces: An alternative to lunch rooms and restaurants since the 1890s, quick-lunch palaces were built according to the new and marketable fad for hygienic eateries. An article in The Druggists Circular of 1910 favorably contrasts the palaces “with their marble-topped tables, hygienic ventilation, shining table-ware, waitresses in clean and becoming unif
orms, and dazzling arc lights” with the old-style “popular price” restaurants “with atmosphere redolent of the odors of frying fish, stewing meat, onions and near-coffee; with frazzled and soiled linen on its tables; rusty knives, forks and spoons; greasy waiters, vermin-infected walls, dirty floors, and lamps the dimness of whose lights acted as a sort of charitable mantle to cover some of the other shortcomings of the place.”
Rolled two pills: Holmes is rolling two pills of opium, which are then smoked in a pipe.
Kelly and Benny: A Kelly is a Derby hat and could have originated as rhyming slang for “belly,” a reference to the Derby’s unique shape. The word first appeared in print around 1908. Benny has a much older origin, traced back to 1812 where it appeared as an “Upper-Ben” for a greatcoat. It could be a diminutive of Benjamin, possibly a tailor known for making them.
Dowling’s: A bar in the vaudeville district located on the corner of 43rd Street and Seventh Avenue on Times Square.
Foxy Agency: Probably a reference to William Fox (1879-1952), the Hungarian-born businessman, who moved from owning a string of nickelodeons to movie theatres to a studio, Fox Motion Picture Corp., that in bankruptcy would merge to form Twentieth Century Fox. At this time, he used vaudeville acts to help fill the bill at his movie theatres.
To be an actor: Sherlockian William S. Baring-Gould (1913-1967) wrote a biography of Holmes in which he claimed that he toured America as an actor. While this fact doesn’t appear in the stories, later writers and Sherlockians, including myself, have adopted this as canon for our own purposes.
Ted Healthy: Untraced. A suspicion that it was Ted Healy (1896-1937), a vaudeville performer and comedian who formed the Three Stooges, falters with the fact that he was 14 at the time and would not enter vaudeville until the next year.
Work in one: An act that can perform between the footlights and the closed curtain, allowing the stage crew behind it time to set up for the next act. The Academy of Music on East 14th Street and Irving Place was a 4,000-seat opera house that opened in 1854. It became New York’s premiere opera venue until 1883 when the Metropolitan Opera House opened. The Academy turned to vaudeville to survive, and was rented for plays and labor rallies until it was demolished in 1926.
Graiety Building: A reference to the Gaiety Building, built in 1909, at 1547 Broadway was the “Black Tin Pan Alley,” the working home for African-American songwriters, including W.C. Handy (1873-1958) and Bert Williams (1874-1922). The building also housed the Gaiety Theatre, owned by multi-talented entertainer George M. Cohan (1878-1942).
A Number One: Vaudeville was segmented into “first-class” or “high-class” and “second-class” theatres. The standards were not strictly defined, but depended upon the promotional abilities of the owner, and a consensus of the vaudeville community based on the types of acts it hired, the salaries it paid, and the quality of the theatre. An article in Everybody’s Magazine in 1907 stated that a first-class house’s payroll for performers was about $3,200 a week, with individual acts ranging from $1,000 to $75 a week depending on their place in the bill. The biggest stars such as Lillian Russell, Elsie Janis, and May Irwin (whose name was lent to a style of hair extensions mentioned in “Why I Jilted Nan”) could earn $2,500 to $3,150 a week.
Prince Albert coat: A double-breasted fitted long-sleeved coat with a center vent and cut at or just above the knee. Popularized by Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert (1819-1861).
’phoned: The apostrophe is not a typo. By 1910, common usage was shortening “telephone” to “phone,” so the apostrophe plays the same role as contractions such as “can’t” or “ ’bus”.
Alexander’s Rag-Time Band: A 1911 song by Irving Berlin (1888-1989). It was his first hit, and versions of it made the music charts for five straight decades.
Movie: A purpose-built theater that would add a vaudeville act or two as part of the bill. This is different from the vaudeville house, which might screen a short as one of the acts.
Shuberts: The three Shubert brothers, Lee (1871-1953), Sam (1878-1905) and Jacob (1879-1963) built the Shubert Organization to become one of the biggest theatrical managers in the country. At one time, they owned, leased, or managed half of the 40 legitimate theatres in New York City, and could be considered the founders of Broadway as the hub of the theatre industry.
Winter Garden: A renowned theatre at 1634 Broadway. Built for the American Horse Exchange by William Kissam Vanderbilt in 1896, it was turned into a theatre by the Shuberts in 1911. Among the shows that have played there are Hellzapoppin (1938), Peter Pan (1954), West Side Story (1957), Funny Girl (1964), Cats (1982), and Mamma Mia! (2001). It is still owned by the Shubert Organization.
White man: Such comparisons were common for this era. Should they be eradicated because it makes us uncomfortable today? While that seems to be the trend in today’s culture, I would argue against it. Reprinting racist material should never imply condoning it, and eradicating it keeps us from confronting our history and dealing with it. We read historical material in part to be entertained, but also to be educated. Retaining this material reminds us that no era is perfect, no people are perfect, and the words we create today will be judged by those who follow, and they may look back and judge us as harshly as we might want to judge our predecessors. It is my personal and philosophical decision that, given a choice between suppression and free speech, I nearly always favor free speech.
Badge of your profession: The origin of this unique clothing item has its roots in the religion of the middle ages. Medieval scholars were drawn from the clerical class, and they took with them their uniform of long gowns, which were useful in drafty and unheated buildings. They also wore hoods to cover their tonsured heads until they were replaced with the skull cap. Wearing the skull cap was retained into the early 20th century. In 1907, Pearson himself described the stereotype by asking “what is the badge by which one knows the librarian? Some will immediately answer ‘a pair of spectacles, a black alpaca coat, silk skull-cap, straw cuffs and rubber heeled shoes.’” But change was coming. The profession was also becoming more female, rising rapidly in the U.S. from very few women in the 1850s to nearly 80% female by 1910.
Magna Carta: A peace treaty signed in 1215 by King John (1166-1216) at Runnymeade that codified the legal arrangement between the king and his restive barons. Although neither side adhered to it and it had been nullified by the pope, it became an important political document, influencing how the English saw their history and how the colonists in North America created the American Constitution.
Resides at Windsor: The author is playing off the fact that several stories involved royal figures who couldn’t be named, such as the disguised King of Bohemia in “A Scandal in Bohemia” and the woman (obviously Queen Victoria) who gave Holmes a emerald tie pin as a gift for solving the theft of the Bruce-Partington plans.
Laudanum: Tincture of opium, typically 10 percent powdered opium by weight. Until the early 20th century, it was sold without a prescription. It was typically taken in drops; about 30 at one time (or .05 fluid ounces) was a standard adult dose for pain.
About the matter: A similar situation occurred in “The Adventure of the Naval Treaty” (1893).
Beecham’s Pills: A popular laxative invented by Thomas Beecham (1820-1907) and first marketed in 1842. The pills became the foundation of a pharmaceutical empire, and Beecham lives on as a brand name for cold and flu products. Two Beecham’s ads featuring Holmes, “Sherlock Holmes and the Missing Box” and “The Last Letter from Sherlock Holmes,” appear in the 1888-1899 volume.
Are registered: Many newspapers in this era, particularly in the smaller towns, regularly reported the arrivals of guests at the local hotels. Although Conan Doyle was unconcerned about German militarism at this time (see the 1911 essay for details), thriller readers were making best-sellers of “invasion literature” books such as The Great War in England (1897), The Riddle of the Sands (1903), The Invasion of 1910 (1906), and Spies of the Kaiser (1909).
Blaze away at it: As described in “The Adventure of The Empty House” (1903).
Pinckney Street: Although set in London, Pearson inserted a reference to a street in Boston’s Beacon Hill section. Now a historic district and expensive to live in, in the 19th century, Beacon Hill contained a mix of neighborhoods for the wealthy, workers, immigrants, and African-Americans, and many homes served as boarding houses, hence the source of Holmes’ compliment. Today, a two-story home at 1 Pinckney Street built in the 1790s was offered for sale at $1.2 million, which at 991 square feet works out to a whopping $1,211 per square foot.
J.P. Morgan: The Gilded Age’s greatest financier and banker, Morgan (1837-1913) made a fortune acquiring and merging companies including what became General Electric, U.S. Steel, International Harvester, and AT&T. During the Panic of 1907, he single-handedly arranged deals with the U.S. government and major New York banks to halt the crisis that threatened to bankrupt thousands of account holders. Morgan was also a major collector of books, prints, paintings, and other art objects, and a benefactor of museums, colleges, and trade schools.
