by Bill Peschel
[back] Tannhauser: An 1845 opera by Richard Wagner, based on the legend of the poet and songmeister.
[back] Beat the one: A phrase commonly misattributed to poet John Keats, it was written by Austrian dramatist Friedrich Halm (1806-1871) from his play Ingomar the Barbarian.
[back] Gold cure: A purported cure for alcoholism promoted by Leslie Keeley that was popular in the late 1890s. At its height, there were more than 200 branches of the Keeley Institute in the United States and Europe offering injections of its secret formula which included bichloride of gold. The institute’s popularity faded after Keeley’s death in 1900.
[back] Coster tongue: The slang used by costermongers, who sell fruit and vegetables in the street. A brogue is a dialect or regional pronunciation, and a patois is a language spoken in an area that’s different from the main language used there.
[back] Hydrophobia: It was believed that barking and biting like dogs was a symptom of people with an irrational fear of water (hydrophobia).
[back] Did for Kingslay: Kingslay is an uncommon spelling, so this could refer to Mary Kingsley (1862-1900), whose writings and lectures on West Africa shaped attitudes toward African cultures and British imperialism. While she favored British involvement in Africa, she criticized missionaries for disrupting the natives’ cultural beliefs. In 1897, she publicly clashed with missionaries by defending the African liquor trade, saying that the natives were capable of determining how much drink they can handle, and that the empire benefited from the trade in gin.
[back] Caesar Lombroso and Dr. Nordau: Italian physician Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) theorized that genetics determined if a person would become a criminal and that he could be identified through physical defects, such as fleshy or protruding lips, a receding chin, or an uneven-looking face. Later in life, he abandoned atheism and, like Conan Doyle, became a spiritualist. Austrian physician Max Nordau (1849-1923) believed that urbanization was weakening society and returning us to a pre-Enlightenment state.
[back] Bloemfontein: The capital of the Orange Free State Republic (1854-1902). It was captured in 1900 during the Second Boer War.
[back] Omdurman repute: A city in the Sudan that was the site of an 1898 battle between the British army and Muslim forces commanded by Mahdi Abdullahi ibn Muhammad. The British capture of the city toppled the Mahdi’s government and re-established control over the country. This was one of the many, many “little wars” of the Victorian era.
[back] Kitchener’s staff: Herbert Kitchener (1850-1916) was the army commander and colonial administrator who played key roles in the Sudan invasion, the Second Boer War, and the first half of World War I. He drowned in the sinking of the HMS Hampshire.
[back] 21st Lancers: Cavalry regiment that fought in the Battle of Omdurman (2 September 1898) in the Sudan. The 400-man cavalry regiment charged 2,000 Dervish spearmen and routed them. For their gallantry, four soldiers were awarded the Victoria Cross.
[back] Emirs: A Muslim military commander or local chief.
[back] Mohammedan forelock: Shaving the head has several meanings in Islam. In this case, the emir saw Sparks’ bald head as a sign of his devotion to God.
[back] Kimberley: A South African city about 165 kilometers (100 miles) west of Bloemfontein. When war broke out in 1899, the Boers surrounded the city. Despite being caught unprepared, the British held out for four months before being relieved.
[back] Cape Rifles: The Cape Town Rifles is an infantry regiment established in 1855. It received its nickname as the “Dukes” (for “Duke of Edinburgh’s Own”) in 1867 after it served as a guard of honor for him during a visit to Cape Town. It fought during the first Boer War, but during the second detachments were formed to occupy outposts and blockhouses in the northern Cape area. It still exists as a reserve unit in the South African Army.
[back] Clincher: The type of tire used today, consisting of a rubber shell in which the tube is inserted and shaped to grip the metal rim. The alternative is to use a tubular wheel in which the tube is stitched into the casing and glued onto the rim.
[back] Delagoa Bay: An inlet on the coast of Mozambique about 450 miles northeast of Bloemfontein. It is now called Maputo Bay.
[back] Lorenco Marques: The capital city of Mozambique, named for the 16th century Portuguese trader and explorer. Marques explored the area and lived there with his African wife. It was renamed Maputo upon the country’s independence in 1975.
[back] The maxim: De mortius nil nisi bonum: A common Latin proverb meaning “speak no ill of the dead.” Actio personalis moritur cum persona: A legal phrase meaning “a personal action dies with the person.”
[back] Camberwell Grove: A street in the Southwark borough of London, about three miles south of the city center. Once the home of well-to-do and wealthy families, it had declined in status by 1900.
[back] Andaman islander: A resident of the Andaman Islands, located in the Bay of Bengal east of India and south and west of Myanmar.
[back] Covert coat: A short topcoat made from heavy tweed designed for horseback riding or hunting. Gaiters: Leather garments worn over the shoes and lower pant legs to protect them from the elements.
[back] New Cross: A district in the Lewisham borough about 10 miles east of Camberwell Grove.
[back] What Happened to Jones: Why Paul Ferroll Killed His Wife: The title of an 1860 novel by Caroline Clive (1801-1872). It is a prequel to Paul Ferroll (1855), which created a sensation with its anti-hero murderer. What Happened to Jones: The title of a popular 1897 farce by English-American theatre manager and playwright George Broadhurst (1866-1952).
[back] Peculators: Embezzlers. From the Latin peculor and related to peculium for “property.”
[back] Seal-skin sacque: A woman’s full-length loose jacket made from sealskin.
[back] Macfarrenish or Proutean: Two renowned musicologists. Sir George Alexander Macfarren (1813-1887) composed a wide variety of works, including symphonies, overtures, choral pieces, and operas. After his death, they were considered too conservative and were not performed. Ebenezer Prout (1835-1909) was a music theorist, composer, and influential teacher who was credited with training the next generation of British classical musicians.
[back] Glissando curve: Homes is using musical terms in a humorous, if inaccurate, fashion. Both describe the smooth playing of notes that are meant to be linked. In glissando, from the French for “glide,” it is by sliding from one note to another; in legato, from the Italian for “tied together,” by playing them smoothly with no silence in between them.
[back] A life on ze ocean vaves: A regimental march composed in 1846 by Henry Russell (1812-1900). In 1971, Disney set words to its sea chantey-like sound and published it as “A Life on the Ocean Waves” on the children’s record Treasure Island.
[back] Who know not Joseph: A phrase from Exodus 1:8: “Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.”
[back] Captain Kettle: Also mentioned in “The Book of 1900,” above, Captain Kettle was the creation of C.J. Cutcliffe Hyne (1866-1944), who modeled his anti-hero on a sea captain he knew from South Shields, Davey Proffit.
[back] The war movement: The year before, Conan Doyle had spent six months in South Africa supervising a field hospital treating the wounded. He also wrote a history of the war and a pamphlet defending the British against atrocity charges.
[back] The Messenger Boy: A popular musical comedy about two men competing for the same woman that ran in London and New York. The show was produced by George Edwardes (1855-1915), whose habit of casting pretty girls in his productions was so notorious that he was credited with creating the trope of “Stage Door Johnnies” waiting for chorus girls outside the theatre with matrimony and other goals in mind.
[back] Hythe: There are at least three Hythes to choose from, in Essex, Hampshire, and Kent. Hythe is from the Old English word for haven or landing place.
[back] Lecoq: A fictional amateur detective created by Émile Gaboriau (1832-1873) and based on the t
hief-turned-detective Eugène Francois Vidocq (1775-1857).
[back] Cook trippers: Travelers participating in a tour organized by Thomas Cook & Son. The elder Cook (1808-1892) took advantage of the expanding railroad network to organize tours that included discounted train fares and food. “Cook’s trippers” were looked down on as vulgar tourists being herded about to gawk at the natives and scribble graffiti on ancient sites.
For example, a writer about the Irish festival in Killarney for The Leader observed with distaste that “the Cook’s trippers and other tourists flitted to and fro. The feelings they inspired were somewhat different in 1905 to those they aroused in, say, 1898. In the latter time they made a thoughtful Irishman feel savage as he watched the procession going by, the angels of mongrel Anglicisation passing unchallenged amidst a volley of ‘Yer honers’ to the Gap; in 1905 at least they are challenged—streamers with Irish inscriptions spanned the streets and under them they had to go; a couple of British tourists even strolled into the Irish play on Wednesday night and it was their turn to feel savage; they didn’t like George Swiggins [the play’s villainous English planter], and vowed that they would warn the would-be trippers at the other side of the violence that was done to their imperial souls.”
[back] Newnes: George Newnes (1851-1910), the publisher of The Strand magazine and Tit-Bits.
[back] Lord Rosebery: The fifth Earl of Rosebery, Archibald Primrose (1847-1929) was a politician with a gift for oratory but no experience in the day-to-day workings of government. His disastrous stint as prime minister (1894-1895) after William Gladstone fatally weakened the Liberal Party.
[back] Populist: Populists were a faction within the Democratic Party that supported the Cuban revolution against Spain. The movement had made several bids for freedom since the 1860s and succeeded after the Spanish-American War in 1898.
[back] What-not: A piece of furniture popular in the Victorian era, consisting of a stand with several shelves used for displaying small items.
[back] Croydon Cardboard Box Case: The story, published in 1893, in which Miss Cushing received two freshly severed human ears by post.
[back] Elamites: An ancient civilization located in what is now western and southwestern Iran. Its history is fragmentary and open to arguments among archaeologists, but is subdivided into four periods from c. 3200 BC to 539 BC.
[back] Without its Scott: Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square honors Admiral Horatio Nelson, who led the Royal Navy to several victories over Napoleon before dying at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Scott: On Princes Street Gardens stands the monument to historical author Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), a 200-foot-tall structure described by Bill Bryson as looking like a “gothic rocket ship.”
[back] Cat’s-meat man: Men who sold meat from barrows in the streets to feed the family pet. With their cries of “Cats’ meat – cats’ meat, on a skewer come and buy,” they’d sell horse flesh (or whatever else was at hand) of questionable quality that by law had to be tinted blue or green to keep it from being sold for human consumption or baked into pies. Cat’s-meat men were a familiar sight on the street up until World War II.
[back] Dr. Nikola’s Revenge: If this be revenge it was short-lived. The Adventures of Dr. Nikola had a brief London run in 1902. The next year, Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman—co-written by the creator, Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law E.W. Hornung—began a six-month run in New York, and in 1909, Arsene Lupin, co-written by his creator Maurice Leblanc, mounted successful productions in New York and London.
[back] Edgar Allan Poe: The joke lies in knowing that Holmes had harsh words for the hero of Emile Gaboriau’s 1868 novel (“Lecoq was a miserable bungler”) and Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin (“a very inferior fellow”). But Conan Doyle admired them and admitted borrowing characteristics of the two detectives to flesh out Holmes.
[back] Verdant: The color of lush grass, making this a very distinctive disguise.
[back] American Millionaire: Most likely the 1st Viscount Astor, William Waldorf (1848-1919), who as the only son of John Jacob Astor III became the richest man in the United States on the old man’s death. He moved his family to England in 1891 and became a citizen in 1899. Thanks to his donations to charity, he was made a peer in 1916 and elevated to viscount the next year.
[back] Robinson wrote: Journalist Fletcher Robinson (1870-1907) befriended Conan Doyle the previous year and his stories about his native Dartmoor inspired Hound.
[back] Brown study: In a state of deep thought. The phrase appears in a 1532 book, A Manifest Detection of the Most Vile and Detestable Use of Diceplay, and Other Practices Like the Same: “Lack of company will soon lead a man into a brown study.”
[back] Epworth League: A youth group for Methodists ages 18-35. It is still in existence today. It is named for the village in England where Methodist founders John Wesley (1703-1791) and Charles Wesley (1707-1788) were born.
[back] Called high fi-nance: With New York financial institutions considered “too big to fail” and saved from their folly with taxpayer money, it appears that some things haven’t changed since a century ago.
[back] Alley L stock: The first route on Chicago’s elevated rapid-transit system was laid through alleys, so it quickly acquired the name “Alley Elevated” by the time it opened in 1892. It was shortened through popular use to “Alley L.” Large portions of the system remain elevated, and the system is called simply the “L.”
[back] Joliet: A reference to the prison in Joliet, Illinois, that was open from 1858 to 2002.
[back] Pantomime: Family friendly musical comedies put on during the Christmas season. Typical “panto” stories include “Cinderella,” “Aladdin,” “Dick Whittington and His Cat,” and “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Traditional tropes include the appearance of a pantomime horse (two actors in a costume), cross-dressing actors (men in dresses for comedy, women in tight male garments for the dads), slapstick, and sing-songs. Audiences are encouraged to cheer the hero, jeer the villain, and join in the singing.
[back] Inquire Within: A book published in 1856 whose full title was “Inquire Within Upon Everything.” It contained thousands of brief descriptions for doing everything from how to make wax flowers to how to bury a relative.
[back] Before he was better: In an age before penicillin and vaccines, there was no guaranteed treatment for childhood diseases. One doctor, for example, published a paper in 1900 detailing his successful use of heroin in most cases of whooping cough. Another treatment involved using expectorants to clear the child’s lungs. The Johnsons hoped that the noxious vapors from the moors and the gasworks would provide a beneficial effect.
[back] Out at the gathers: Perhaps Mrs. Tuttlebury was using a sewing expression. The gathers is any place where loose cloth is sewn together, such as at the wrist end of a balloon sleeve.
[back] Crowshade: A misspelling of “crocheted.”
[back] When I find out: Cooper left the ending up in the air. In the next issue, The Bookman’s editor had this to add: “Just a word regarding Sherlock Holmes’s wedding present. The idea of ‘the editor with the golf stick’ is certainly crude. Would it not have been truly characteristic if Holmes had contrived in his own ingenious fashion to find what Dr. Watson and his bride had most wanted for their new home, but had been forced to cut from the list, since the doctor’s purse was not over-plethoric? You will probably think that this is begging the question, after all.”
[back] Sorosis: The first professional women’s club in the United States, founded in 1868 in New York City. The name is probably related to the Latin sororitas for sisterhood. Cimmerian: A mythical people in Homer’s Odyssey who live at the edge of the world and at the entrance of Hades. They bear no relation to the ancient people who lived north of the Caucuses as early as 1300 BC.
[back] Clyde Fitch: From 1890 until his death in 1909—from blood poisoning after an appendicitis operation—he was America’s most popular playwright. At one point, five of his plays were running on Broadway.
&nbs
p; [back] Mr. Dooley’s: A reference to Martin Dooley, the Irish barkeeper created by Finley Peter Dunne. See Sherlock Holmes, above.
[back] 32mos: Abbreviation of thirty-twomo, a sheet of paper large enough to be folded into 32 leaves to create a 64-page book.
[back] Sienkiewicz: Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916), a Polish journalist and novelist who won the 1905 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is best known for his Roman epic Quo Vadis, which has been filmed several times.
[back] Hall Caine (1853-1931) and Marie Corelli (1855-1924): Two of the most popular novelists of the era.
[back] Mr. Mansfield’s: Actor-manager Richard Mansfield (1857-1907)—after a successful run as Beau Brummell in Clyde Fitch’s play—went on to introduce to America plays by George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen. He was best known as a Shakespearean actor, having played Richard III, Henry V, Brutus in Julius Caesar, and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.
