DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 155, 21 September 1927, Page 6

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

EXIT SHERLOCK HOLMES (Copyright, 1921) NEW book has appeared on my desk purporting to be the closing tures of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, by Conan Doyle. In the preface of this book Mr. Doyle says that this is to be the the Holmes stories. He ought to know, for he made the first of them, and when a announces the death of his own offspring it is rather likely to he tfl**. Pardon us, while we shed a tear over the last of a valued i' ' fn ___ were one of the first to welcome him. We have followed his closely whenever we could get hold of them, and now we mourn his We have received the news of the death of many prominent have been missed. But none, I venture to say, more so than the of this fictional character. jjjjß Holmes was the prototype of all detective stories, and detect'' - * have been the delight of great and small. As the admirable H°° j e it the Science of Daw, so we say of Sherlock Holmes that “the vert his care and the greatest was not exempted from his power.” Why does the detective story interest us all? Well, in the first place, crime is probably one of the most of things thel we know. In it a man pits himself against all . : - oßW jkiH society and even against the Deity itself. And, somehow, tier* i* wwin us all that sympathises with the outlaw and the rebel. «nioy t* And again, we rather like to see the victim apprehended. ti f old-fashior ed triumph of law and order over violence. We like ~ villain ancl see his schemes come to naught. ..cters •** Detective stories are problems in human conduct. The usually clean cut. The villain is nothing but. a villain and the hero is « There is no realistic mixing in of the colours. i.taiir* Doyle has done a great service to humanity in beguiling ™ (0 gH ments, and who ever can cheer us up a bit. is quite as much enti thanks as the one who instructs us. .. witi * Hence we pipe our eye for the lamented Sherlock. We lay ** sigh these entrancing tales which have been done into a book. w«r*F' Along with Victor Hugo and his Jean Valjean, Goethe and Robert Douis Stevenson and his Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, Doyle -jgisl a character, and Sherlock Holmes will linger fn the memories o after the recollection, of. many real people has passed away-