DEATH OF "SHERLOCK HOLMES."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 140, 9 December 1911, Page 9 (Supplement)

DEATH OF "SHERLOCK HOLMES."

ORIGINAL OF THE GREAT DETECTIVE. London, October 7. Dr. Joseph Bell, who is reputed to be the original of Sir A. Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes," died this week in .Midlothian, lie was born in 1837 and came of a family which for hree generations had been distinguished in surgery. For twenty-live years he was surgeon at the Royal Inlirmary, Edinburgh,.and Sir A. (J. Doyle, then a young man, was one of his students, it was at this period that the novelist came under the 1 doctor's influence and it was doubtless largely duo to the impression which the famous surgeon's wonderful powers of intuition and deduction made oil the young student that he eventually abandoned the scalpel for the pen. With regard to old controversies surrounding the personality of "Sherlock Holmes," it is interesting to recall that with Robert Louis Stevenson, in Samoa, read the first of' the famous detective stories, he at once wrote to Sir A. C. Doyle and asked him if he had not taken Dr. Bell for the central figure. Stevenson himself had studied under Dr. Bell and at once recognised his old professor.

Dr. Joseph Bell was an interesting personality, and, as ho traversed the streets of Edinburgh with limping gait, alert manner, and kindly, clean-shaven face_, the passing citizens would nudge each other and whisper, "That is Dr. Joseph Bell" In the profession he was familiarly and affectionately known by the simple title of "Joe Bell." Many stories are told of his wonderful powers of observation ad analytical reasoning. For instance, he could tell from the mud on a patient's boots the part of the city or surrounding country lie had come from. When giving gratuitous advice to outdoor patients at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary he was fond of mystifying them by giving them little intimate tit-bits regarding their occupation or past lives. , "I see," he would observe slyly to a patient, "you are suffering from drink; you even carry a flask in the inside breast pocket of your coat. Throw it away!" To another he would nonchalantly remark: "Cobbler, I see," having quick" ly observed the mark where the lapstone had worn the man's trousers. To ai« anxious mother he would quietly observe, "Your first child, my good woman." The mystified, simple soul wonderingly replying, as he had foreseen, in the affirmative. She would go away still marvelling at the intuition of the great surgeon, having no idea that there conld be any significance in the brilliant tartan cape she had bought with such pardonable extravagance for her firstborn. Then a bricklayer would appear in the consulting-room, suffering from spinal complaint, 'and the kindly doctor's sympathy was instant and comprehensive. "It aches, does it? I have no doubt it does, and carrying a heavy hod of bricks won't improve it, will it?" he would observe in his brisk fashion. The afflicted bricklayer, being a reticent Scot, kept his surprise to himself, till the end of the interview, when he- asked somewhat cannily; "I am no saying you're wrang, hut wha' telt ye I was a bricklayer by trade?" It had never occurred to the workman that the man, presumably occupied with his spine, could have noticed the rough, horny hands that to the practised eye at once revealed his trade. Dr. Bell was well aware of the part he had played in creating the great defective of fiction, and was modestly proud of the fact. One winter evening some ladies were sitting round the fire reading and discussing Conan Doyle's hero, when there entered the great surgeon. With his habitual spirit of enquiry he asked what they were reading and they told him that it was the "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," the story of a most entrancing individual whom they only wished it were possible to meet in real life. '•'T know the man," observed the doctor, quietly, hastening away before they had time to ply him with many surprising questions that naturally rose to their lips. Returning shortly from seeing the patient, he camo back for one brief minute to finish his story and to announce with as much modesty as might, be, "I am Sherlock Holmes."