SHERLOCK HOLMES TAKES OVER

Hokitika Guardian, 21 September 1929, Page 2

SHERLOCK HOLMES TAKES OVER

(By F. W; Memory in London

“Daily Mail.”)

Of all the defectives I ; khow—in ‘his country, on the .'Continent and n the United States—Mr John Ashley, who to-day becomes Chief Constable of the Criminal Investigation Department at New Scotland Yard, is the one who possesses all those qualities which inspire writers dt action.

Indeed, Mr Ashley might be described as the Sherlock Holmes - of real life. I do not mean that he habitually meanders round Scotland Yard ■ wearing a dressing-gown and playing a fiddle, but he simpy does not look like a defective. It is said, not unkindly,- that detectives always look what-they are, but that is more trite than'" true; anyhow no one meeting Mr Ashley for the first time would imagine him to be what he is. At a guess they would hazard banking as his profession ; he has that wise, kindly sympathetic look tinged with a decided appearance of firmness which popular and successful bank manage* cultivate.' '

Picture him. A tall, well-built man, with silvering hair; a closecropped grey moustache and grey eyes which serenely regard the world through horn-rimmed Spectacles. Thefc'e is an illusion of frailness about Mr Ashley; he looks a student rather than a man of vigorous affairs—it is a mistake which desperate criminals have made in the past; but that is another story. The : new Chief Constable was earmarked for the Criminal Investigation ~Department almost from the cradle,.;, certainly from the time he

loft school. He was only 15 when he madesjhis first “arrest;” he captured a burglar, and the judge’s commendatory remark# determined him to bc- ■ como a detective. At the earliest possible moment he joined the Metropolitan Police and did the customary uniform service, but his eyes were on the Department; and he secured his transfer to it as speedily as possible. He has passed through all the grades, has carried out special work, notably the overhauling of the Criminal Record Office lit the Yard, a task he lias performed quite recently. In