Page 22 THE VILLADOM TIMES III • December 11, 2013 Maybe we need Sherlock Holmes Trying to enjoy some early slumber one night, I was alerted by the patter -- actually more like the thunder -- of two pairs of little feet on the staircase. “Dad! Dad! We just discovered a detective show where the detective solves cases by using his brains instead of beating people up!” “What is the name of this newly discovered detective?” I asked suspiciously. “Sherlock Holmes!” “I think I may have heard of him.” Despite my torpor, I was elated that the kids had discov- ered the “new” Sherlock Holmes -- Jeremy Brett, in this case -- because I knew they would watch his adventures voluntarily. If Holmes had been forced on them, they would have done anything in their power, including times tables drills or piano lessons, to resist watching the shows. My logic worked. They became Sherlock Holmes buffs. Holmes seldom made mistakes, but people make mis- takes about Holmes. As portrayed on the screen by every- one from the classic Basil Rathbone with Nigel Bruce, to the Hammer Productions Peter Cushing, aided and abetted by his best friend Christopher Lee, to Jeremy Brett with David Burke as Watson -- they each sent my kids an auto- graphed photograph in response to a fan letter. Some think Holmes is the archetypal stiff-upper-lip Englishman, representing a class-conscious society. That is wrong. Arthur Conan Doyle was Irish, and the real-life characters who inspired Holmes was a Scot, Dr. Joseph Bell, who had been Doyle’s professor in medical school, and taught him how to analyze appearances while making medical deductions. While Holmes is generally shown as imperturbable, Doyle was subject to enormous inner turbulence. Raised as a devout Catholic, Doyle lapsed into disbelief, then into a sort of eclecticism, and finally into spiritualism, which he famously championed in ways that were more emotional than logical. Yet improved research into the paranormal indicates that Doyle was not on ground as shaky as some of his critics asserted. Doyle, above all, was a humanitarian and, in a racist era, he believed, as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote three times in “The Song of Hiawatha,” that “Every human heart is human.” One of his least-read books today is “The Crime of the Congo,” in which Doyle documented Belgian atroci- ties against the Bantu and Pygmy peoples of sub-Saharan Africa with photographs that can still raise a shudder after a century. Holmes wrote the 45,000-word book in eight days and it influenced dignitaries including Winston Churchill, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Theodore Roosevelt -- all of whom were good friends and mutual admirers at the time -- to protest against the grisly Belgian inhumanity toward the Africans. Doyle got most of his information from Sir Roger Case- ment, later sentenced to death for his role in Irish indepen- dence, and Doyle, respecting Casement’s humanitarian work in the Congo and in South America, headed the move- ment to spare Casement the death penalty for “treason,” by which the British meant support for Irish independence in wartime. The British hanged Casement in spite of the appeals led by Doyle. Doyle had no patience with either male chauvinism or class snobbery. The only woman to outwit Sherlock Holmes, in Doyle’s first magazine story, “A Scandal in Bohemia,” is Irene Adler. Adler trumps Holmes’ trickery and mastery of disguise, knocks his metaphorical block off, and comes out the winner in the case, sending Holmes a condescending farewell note. In a subsequent story, the mystery revolves around a white American woman’s attempt to hide the fact that her child by a first marriage, living with her in England, is of mixed African ancestry. “(A) nobler man never walked the earth,” the widow says of her first husband, a black man since deceased. In the end, the woman’s second husband kisses and accepts the child as his own. In another story, the presumed villains in the strange behavior of a white man presumed to be an opium addict are a “lascar” -- a lower-caste Hindu -- and a Chinese man. Neither is a bad guy when the case is cleared up. I will not ruin it for the reader. The white guy finds out he can make more money as a street beggar than as a journalist. That ruined it for me. I chose to forget the title. Doyle was not an expert on the British Empire as Rud- yard Kipling, the other most popular British officer of the era was, since Kipling grew up there and returned as a young man. In “The Sign of the Four,” Doyle offers a sinis- ter but reliable Sikh with the name “Mahomet Singh.” The last name “Singh” is given to every Sikh man. “Mahomet” -- Muhammad -- is an impossible name for a Sikh. The Sikhs organized to keep the Muslims out of central India about 500 years ago and most definitely did not name their sons after Muhammad. I once knew a Jewish man whom everybody called by a rather cute first name. I asked his wife about it. The man’s given name was Adolf. He never used it. The same prin- ciple applies. Two of Doyle’s private cases -- not as the author of Sherlock Holmes but as an expert witness -- also revolved around opposition to prejudice. A mixed-blood Indian man named George Edalji had been sentenced to seven years in prison due to maiming horses -- a particularly disgust- ing crime in which the perpetrators harmed animals to take some sort of revenge on the owners. Edalji was convicted against circumstantial evidence. He had alibis and one of the incidents took place while he was in jail. While inter- viewing Edalji, Doyle learned that the accused night stalker was virtually blind and could not have located, let alone mutilated, the livestock on moonless nights. He also found other flaws in the evidence. Edjali was released from jail, but was not formally cleared for 20 years. In another case, a gambler and pawnbroker named Oscar Slater was accused of bludgeoning and robbing an elderly widow. He was caught after he attempted to pawn a dia- mond brooch. The culprit, being both Jewish and an immi- grant from Germany, was convicted despite the fact that the brooch he tried to pawn had never belonged to the victim and that the police in the case had reportedly prompted the housemaid who said she had seen him near the scene of the crime. Slater’s common-law wife had an alibi for him but was not allowed to testify because they were not legally married. Slater spent 17 years in jail. Doyle got into the case and Slater was released with 6,000 pounds compensa- tion for time spent in prison. He thanked Doyle profusely, but later stiffed Doyle for legal costs. Toward the end of his life, Doyle was taken in by “Margery the Medium,” Minna Crandon of Boston, who bamboozled a number of Harvard professors with séance phenomena that were simple tricks. A “spirit” thumbprint she produced in dental wax in a blacked-out room turned out to be -- the thumbprint of her own dentist. Doyle took out a full-page newspaper ad attacking Dr. Joseph Banks Rhine, who had realized after one sitting that Margery was a fake and the elderly professors were romantic dupes. Dr. Rhine later went on to show, after 40 years of exacting research at Duke University, that mind-to-mind communication between the living was a statistically dem- onstrated reality. Doyle had the wrong perpetrator, but his defense of people who were unjustly accused of crimes due to race or religion was definitely on the right track. Perhaps we can convince the schools to make some of his stories required reading. Ho-Ho-Kus Jottings Have Breakfast with Santa The Contemporary Club of Ho-Ho-Kus will host its annual Breakfast with Santa on Saturday, Dec. 14. The event will be held from 10 to 11:30 a.m. in the multi-pur- pose room of the Ho-Ho-Kus Public School located at 70 Lloyd Road. The event will feature arts & crafts, musical entertainment by “Big Jeff,” and a visit from Santa. Tickets are $10 per person. For tickets and information, contact Shannon at semcg159@yahoo.com. Seating is lim- ited. Attendees are asked to bring a non-perishable food item to support the club’s Food Drive to benefit families in need. Council to host single meeting The Ho-Ho-Kus Council will hold just one meet- ing during the month of December. The 8 p.m. session is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 17 at borough hall, 333 Warren Avenue. Library board plans meeting The Worth-Pinkham Memorial Library Board of Trust- ees will meet on Monday, Dec. 16 at 7:30 p.m. The public is welcome. The meeting will be held at the library, 91 Warren Avenue in Ho-Ho-Kus. Hermitage sets Champagne & Candlelight Friends of the Hermitage will host its annual Cham- pagne and Candlelight evening on Friday, Dec. 13 from 6 to 9 p.m. The evening will begin inside the historic Hermit- age, 335 North Franklin Turnpike in Ho-Ho-Kus, with a champagne toast. The reception in Jacqua Hall will include wine, punch, and hors d’oeuvres. Guests will enjoy live music by the Bill Thoman Jazz Trio, have an opportunity to view a display of Rosencrantz Christmas ornaments, and bid on auction items. The choir of Saint Luke’s Church in Ho-Ho-Kus will welcome visitors by singing carols on the porch of the Hermitage from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. This year’s theme for the decor is “Song & Verse: Christ- mas with the Rosencrantzes,” inspired by the Hermitage’s Rosencrantz family collection of sheet music and books. Festive dresses of the Victorian period from the Friends’ collection will be displayed. Holiday songs, poems, and stories cherished by three generations of the Rosencrantz family will be featured on decorated trees, wreaths, and mantles. Tickets for this opportunity to enjoy the museum during the evening are available by advance reservation online at www.thehermitage.org or by calling the museum office at (201) 445-8311, extension 36. The cost is $60 per person. After Dec. 6, tickets will be $70. Proceeds from this fund- raiser will benefit children’s educational programs at The Hermitage. This National Historic Landmark is one of the nation’s outstanding examples of domestic Gothic Revival architecture. The Friends of the Hermitage, Inc., a non-profit mem- bership organization, manages the Hermitage, a New Jersey State Park. The Friends received a general operating support grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, a division of Cultural Affairs in the Department of State. Library announces new hours, classes The Worth-Pinkham Memorial Library, located at 91 Warren Avenue in Ho-Ho-Kus, will expand its hours beginning Jan. 2, 2014. The library will be open Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The library will host free knitting classes with Sally Anne in January. The eight-week free class will begin Jan. 6 at 7 p.m. Registration is required, space is limited. The English as a Second Language Conversation Group will meet on Thursdays beginning Jan. 9. The one-hour sessions are open to all who wish to practice their English in an informal venue. The program will run through March 13. Registration is required. Call (201) 327-4338 to register for classes or for addi- tional information.