Here's an interesting item from 1901 in the Daily News from Perth Western Australia.
The location of Watson's wound has long been a source of both Sherlockian study, and Sherlockian humor. The location of the wound, and pain that Watson accorded to the wound, moved around Watson's body. MANY articles and analyses of Watson's wounds have been published, and included proposals that the bullet entered at one site, then moved through the body to another site, or exited and entered at a second site.
It would be impossible to summarize the debates and Sherlockian analyses, but there are some wonderful podcasts and posts that provide overviews and discussions of their own. Here are a couple that cover the topic well:
- Sherlockiana: Dr. Watson‘s Injuries - https://www.fext.eu/other/sh-watson-injuries.htm
- Episode 172 of Trifles: https://www.sherlockholmespodcast.com/2020/04/episode-172-mystery-of-watsons-second.html
- WATSON’S WAR WOUND - https://simanaitissays.com/2017/01/24/watsons-war-wound/
The topic has also attracted quite a number of academic medical discussions, publications, and editorials (that might be a good topic for a future blog post).
Back to the newspaper article in 1901, by "Needle". I'd be intrigued to know if this is the first "Sherlockian" discussion of Watson's wandering wound. In this short piece in a regular column titled Points, Needle claims to have discovered a slight inconsistency. I've checked the British Newspaper Archive and couldn't 'easily' identify any article this early discussing the topic.
The Daily News (Perth, WA : 1882 - 1955) Mon 1 Apr 1901
POINTS
[By Needle]
I have discovered a slight inconsistency in two of the Sherlock Holmes stories — not at the first time of reading. In "A Study in Scarlet," the ex-army doctor writes : — "At the fatal battle of Maiwand I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet." When he is introduced to Sherlock Holmes, the latter notices that his left arm has been injured — he holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. In "The Sign of Four," Watson writes: — "I sat nursing my wounded leg. I had had a Jezail bullet through it a short time before, and it still ached wearily at every change of the weather." Now, Watson could not have been wounded both in the shoulder and the leg before meeting Holmes, or else the latter would have noticed that he limped. He could not have been wounded by a Jezail bullet while practising as a doctor in Baker-street, London. The obvious inference is that Conan Doyle, in writing the second story, remembered the Jezail bullet but forget where it had found its entry.
There is then a short follow-up about another story with a continuity issue:
"There is a far more striking discrepancy in a detective story by the late Hawley Smart. A man says to the Scotland Yard detective — "We have heard of your fame in these parts." Later on we find that the same man had no idea that his companion was one of the cracks of Scotland Yard."
This is definitely not the first Sherlockian article in Australian newspapers, but this one is on a contemporary recognizable topic. As for Needle, he went on to publish at least one long article on the Sherlock Holmes stories in 1906 that is an absolute delight. Needle reprises his observations on the bullet as part of his article, but also seems to catch on to several other now-classic Sherlockian discussions such as the path to the Empty House that looks across at 221B, visiting the famous street itself, and picking apart a trifle in a story (in this case "The Three Students"):
The Daily News (Perth, WA )
Sat 24 Nov 1906
CONCERNING SHERLOCK HOLMES.
If I were a superior person, a highly intellectual and highly-salaried critic, I should perhaps affect never to have heard of Sherlock Holmes, or, at least never to have read and approved any story to which he figures. Being a very ordinary person I confess without shame that I have in my possession everyone of the "Sherlock Holmes" stories from "A Study in Scarlet" to "The Return," and that I have read everyone at least twice. I began with either "The Boscombe Valley Mystery" or "The Five Pips," when the "Adventures" were being published serially in the flrst volume of the "Strand Magazine." Then came the second set of "Adventures," afterwards called (rather prematurely) "Memoirs." I remember distinctly buying the number in which the "Final Problem" appeared. The frontispiece showed "The Death of Sherlock Holmes" — who was falling over the cliff locked in the arms of Moriarty. I bought "A Study in 'Scarlet," "The Sign Of Four," and also the "Adventures" in book form (in order that I might read those which I had missed), and I mourned that Holmes was dead — wantonly killed, because his biographer was tired of him — and that we were never to hear any more of the famous detective. In "Tit Bits" for
December 15, 1900, there was an interesting article (by Conan Doyle) which I transferred to my scrap-book. "By the time I had finished the Memoirs," said the author, "I was absolutely determined that it would be bad policy to do any more Holmes stories. I have always noticed that the ruin of every novelist who has come up has been effected by driving him into a groove. The public gets what it likes, and insisting on getting it, makes him go on until he loses his freshness. Then the public turns round and says, "He has only one idea, and can write only one sort of story.... From that day to this I have never for an instant regretted the course I took in killing Sherlock." And the writer seems to hedge a little: "This does not say, however, that because he is dead, I should not write about him again, if I wanted to, for there is no limit to the number of papers he has left behind, or to the reminiscences in the brain of his biographer." And it was not very many months before it was announced that, although Holmes was still dead, the
"biographer'" had consented to relate one of his earlier adventures, "The Hound of the Baskervilles," in the "Strand Magazine." It struck me, when I read this story, that there was too
much Watson, and too little Holmes. Month after month went past, and still the detective did not appear, and when he made his dramatic entry into the lonely hut at the end of one number, he had been absent for 150 pages - nearly half of the book. Having once yielded to temptation Conan Doyle was persuaded to yield again, and to discover that Holmes had not perished with Moriarty, but had lived to undergo many surprising adventures. It is rather amusing to turn back to the "Final Problem" of 12 years ago, and to read that an examination by experts leaves little doubt that a personal contest between the two men ended, as it could hardly fail to end in such a situation, in their reeling over, locked in each other's arms." It is amusing also to find the "biographer" six years afterwards telling how he "determined to bring Holmes to an end, as well as the stories": — "I was in Switzerland for the purpose of giving a lecture at the time, when I was thinking about the details of the final, story. I was taking a walking tour through the country, and I came to a waterfall. I thought if a man wanted to meet a gaudy kind of death, that was a fine romantic place for the purpose. That started the train of ideas, by which Holmes just reached that spot, and met his death there."
Was it a mistake for the author to bring Mr. Holmes to life again, or rather to prove that he was not dead? I know the orthodox answer - that it was a great mistake - that it was bad art - that the "Return" stories show a lamentable falling off, and so forth. But I am not quite sure - if it was a mistake, I am rather glad the mistake was made. Of course Holmes had no difficulty in demonstrating that Watson had blundered, as usual, and had deduced Holmes's death from an imperfect reading of the signs and traces, but I confess that the explanation of the reasons which induced Holmes to keep his secret so long, was not very convincing. This long silence on the detective's part gave him an opportunity for another of his favorite "dramatic entries," but I think we feel that the real Sherlock could not, and would not have treated his old friend in this way. "I had only one, confidant - my brother Mycroft," explains Sherlock.... "Several times during the last
three years I have taken up my pen to write to you, but always I feared lest your affectionate regard for me should tempt you to some indiscretion which would betray my secret." No, it won't quite do, but readers of fiction must be content sometimes to "make believe very much." It is the fashion to discover signs of failing power in a man's latest works, and it was obviously impossible for the thirtieth "Adventure" to have the same freshness as the first. Holmes had been imitated and burlesqued again and again. Readers were familiar with his method, of deducing surprising things from a man's trousers, or his boots, or his hat. They were familiar with his stock phrases - "The case presents some features of interest" (in the preliminary stages) - "You know my methods— apply them" (when poor Watson was in his chronic state of bewilderment), and "Commonplace!" in reply to Watson's admiring comments on Sherlock's marvellous subtlety. And yet I think if a critic who had not read all the earlier stories were shown three "Adventures" and were offered £5 for a correct answer to the question, "Are any of these from "The Return," and if so, which ?" he would have an excellent chance of not getting the money. I have a liking tor the last but one in the series, "The Abbey Grange." I think it was originally intended to be the last — if we may believe the statement on page 369, and if so, the author was evidently bent on making a good finish. So, like a conjurer, who arranges to "fail" in one marvel, in order that he may have the opportunity of surprising his audience with something more marvellous, the author represents Holmes as returning from the Abbey Grange without having been able to upset the surprising story which had been told by the mistress, corroborated by the maid, and accepted by the official detective. And then Holmes suddenly jumps out at a suburban station, pulls Watson after him, announces his intention of testing the case once more and thus the fun begins. What has he to go upon? Nothing definite, except that of the three glasses from which the burglars were supposed to have drunk port, only one contained beeswing. From this he infers that only two glasses were used, and that the dregs were poured into the third, in order to make it appear that three had drunk. Obviously if the story of the three burglars was false in one particular, it was extremely likely to be false in all.
I am not sure that a wholly consistent biography of Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes could be extracted from these thirty-nine stories, of which the first was written in 1887, and the last
fifteen or sixteen years later. But it is curious that an obvious inconsistency should occur between the first story and the second. In "A Study in Scarlet" Watson states that, at the battle of Maiwand he, was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. In "A Sign of Four" Watson is discovered "nursing his wounded leg." "I had had a Jezail bullet through It some time before, and though it did not prevent me from walking, it ached wearily at every change in the weather." It is easy to suggest that Watson might have been wounded twice, but this explanation will not serve. Watson was present at only one battle, and was invalided home.
It is interesting to me to turn back to the first story in "The Return," and to read how Holmes and Watson "emerged into a small road, which led us into Manchester-street, and so to Blandford-street," and how they made their way into an empty house, from which they had a back view of the famous house in Baker-street, which had been "the starting-point of so many adventures." There are, I suppose, several Manchester-streets in London, but there is only one from which a Blandford-street runs at right angles into Baker-street, and it was from Manchester-street that my last letter to "The Daily News" was written last year. I don't know which is the house that the author regards as having been the residence of Sherlock Holmes, but I must have passed it many times. Just a little carping criticism in conclusion. In "The Three Students" the author tells how a member of St Luke's College in "one of our great University towns" obtained access to his tutor's rooms and copied the proofs of a paper which was to be set next day in a scholarship examination. The tutor explains to Holmes that "the first of the paper consists of a large passage of Greek translation, which the candidate has not seen. To-day the proofs of the paper arrived from the printers. The exercise consists of half a chapter of Thucydides. The proof was in three long slips." On making inquiries I find that this is wrong in several ways. If the University was Cambrldge - the next story but one is located there - I am informed that an "unseen translation paper" usually consists not of one long passage, but of about four shorter passages. However, we may let that pass. A more serious objection is that there is no half-chapter in Thucydides of the required length. I have looked at a translation of Thucydides, and I find that the chapters are more like paragraphs, and that Macaulay's Essay on Lord Bacon is longer than any "book" of Thucydides. However, let us suppose that this paper consisted of a long passage from Thucydides - not half a chapter, but two chapters at least. Why should a man who was in imminent danger of detection laboriously set to work to copy the whole paper? He would certainly have a copy of Thucydides in his possession - and he would be familiar with most of it- all that he would require would be the reference to the passage set, and this he could easily get by noting two or three of the less usual words, and looking them out in his dictionary, which would be certain to quote the passage from which, one or other of these words was taken, and to give him chapter and verse. However, it is not essential to the story that the examination paper should consist of a passage of Thucydides or that it should be of such a kind that the man
who wished to make an unfair use of it would be obliged to copy it all. It has been suggested to me that a man who had just returned from practising the high jump (as Gilchrist, the offender, had done) wouldn't be likely to have gloves with him. This point did not occur to me when I read the story, and it was not till yesterday that it struck me that, if the athlete were in flannels, he wouldn't be likely to have a lead pencil with him. But we must allow a story writer a few
improbabilities, or there will be few stories.
Who was this Sherlockian journalist named Needle? Some digging was required. Needles was the pen-name of "Points" Pain, mentioned in an article or two as a brother of the British author Barry Pain (1864-1928). There was certainly some connection between Barry Pain and Conan Doyle, for example they met at the Authors Club.
Working to identify the final mention uncovered this article that names the elusive Sherlockian.
The Pilbarra Goldfield News (Marble Bar, WA : 1897 - 1923)
Fri 23 Sep 1910
Mr. A.G.O. Pain, better known as the writer of "Points" by "Needle", in the "Daily News", died on Saturday from heart failure during an operation on one of his knee-caps. [A few weeks ago, just after coming out of the Church of England Cathedral, he slipped on a flag stone and fractured a knee cap].
He appears to have studied at Cambridge prior to emigrating to Australia. His death notice states that he left behind a wife Martha Kate Pain. Indexes reveal he was Allison George Odell Pain, who was aged 52 at his death in 1910, and buried at Karrakatta Cemetery. Pain has a monument plaque in his memory, where he was a member of the Cathedral Chapter and the honorary Organist of the Church.
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