The sun. [volume], May 31, 1914, FIFTH SECTION, Page 3, Image 47

About The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916

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THE SUN, SUNDAY,. MAY 31, 1914.
8
SIR ARTHUR GONAN DOYLE A DETECTIVE IN REAL LIFE
Famous Creator of Sher-
lock Holmes by His
Genius for Detective
Work Righted Two
Grave Judicial Errors
nnd Saved Property of
Victims
Hr P. CWNMFFK-OWBX.
FORMER AMBASSADOR J03EPII
IT CHOATK In proposing the
hpilth of Sir Arthur Conan
Pr ylc lit the lunchcnn given In his
honor l y the Pilgrims Society onThurs
iy In!' at the Whitehall Club described
l-'m oa moru widely known In the United
Etates tlmn any other Englishman. This
is undoubtedly true. For there 1
hardly ft man, womnn or child In Amer
ica who Is not acquainted with his
name, a." at ot th creator of that
' world-famed sleuth, Sherlock Holmes.
But Conan Doyle has many other
claims to popular attention on this aldo of
h Atlantic besides the conception of
tl.ls creat detective, bo fomltlar to every
in,tlin playgoer and reader of fiction,
nnd It I" upon thesn features of his use- 1
ful career that I wish to toucn in tne
following brief notes, which may be of
lntorc't to thoso who come In contact
with Plr Arthur during the few weeks
whlch he proposes to upend In this
country.
It 15 to Conan Doyle, more than to
tiny one elsn, that his compatriots am
Indebted for the creation of a Court of
Criminal Appeal. It Is difficulty
Americans to reullzo tho fact that until
four or five years ngo there was no
medns In Orent Britain ot quashlnR tho
eentencA of any one convicted of crime
throiiKh a judtrUl error. Judgment In
civil nulls could always he appealed.
Jiut tho decl.lons of tho criminal courts
Ktir Jill',
No matter how erroneous the verdict
of tho Jury nnd the sentence of the
frige wero subsequently shown to be,
!n the face of newly discovered evidence,
cr through tho confession of tho real
culprit, thero was no means of reversing
. ...... A wi .tirltnrflr nr nf
me con itnui -"- t .
.Judicially declaring him to be nn Inno
cent man. The utmost that could do
dons for him was to set him at liberty
ty means of the grant by tho Crown of
a freo pardon hnt Is to say, freo par
don for a crime that ho had never com
mitted. To-day there Is, thanks to Conan
Doyle, r. Court of Criminal Appeal,
where nil wrongful convictions and Ju
dicial errors can bo righted; a court
' created by net of Parliament, In the
face of a considerable amount of oppo
sltion. I may add that this now court
hue Justified Its existence In a magnifi
cent manner, not only by tho number
of convictions that It has quashed and
the unduly harsh sentences that It has
reduced, but also by tho expeditious
nmner In which It deals with nil cases
'irouKht beforo It, which are heard and
determined within a few weeks of the
orlKinal conviction, Instead of having
to wait, bb hero In New York, not mere
ly for months, but sometimes even for
years.
If Connn Doyle was led to take ft
leading part in the public movement
I for the creation of a Court of Criminal
, , ppe(il, It whs because his interest had
been srouecd by the fate of two victims
of Judicial error, namely, Adolph Reck,
an English citizen of Swedish birth, and
a lawyer a solicitor of the name of
Unprecedented Feat of
Department of Bridges Will Soon Complete Work of
Reconstructing Span Which Started Three Years
Ago and Which Wilt Cost City 5750,000
N nnprccedented feat of engl-1
A
L necrlng construction has ben
performed by the Department of
Bridges In Its work of strength
ening th Williamsburg Bridge. The
reconstruction of the bridge, which was
started three yearn ago, will soon be
completed and the capacity of the struc
ture, will be more than doubled. The
writ will coat the city $760,000 and,
according to the experts, the bridge
will bn absolutely eofe despite the In
creased strain upon It.
In the midst of the subway negotia
tions between the city and the traction
companies it was discovered that the
'brldM, the second longest In tho world,
not strong enough to carry Its
capacity of travel. On the main epan
th bridge had a supporting strength of
4.J00 pounds per linear foot. At the end
Pns It had a supporting otrength of
,000 pounds per "near foot.
An elevated train or a subway train
e!Khs approximately 2,000 pounds to
the linear foot. A surface car weighs
1,600 pounds to the linear fot Vehlcu
i lar traffic la estimated at 100 pounds
to the square foot.
The bridge was equipped with four
for surface earn and two tracks
w elevated or subway carB. But If
'our trolley and two elevated cars passed
ny given point on the main span at one
tm that point would bo supporting
10,000 pounds of weight on 4,600 pounda
' strength, or 6,600 pounds per linear
fcot more than It was built to support,
w 122 per cent, of overload. The sal
'Uton of the situation waa that travel
V 00 '.ho bridge waa not excessively heavy
1 "ia. But something had to be done to
ft future requirements. So the Bridge
Nwtment got to work.
Tha erection of additional towers to
TPort the landward spans w a slm
?' matter. In addition tho engineers
ced the whole structure by crossing
hevy iron girders under the bridge
roaawaya and tracks.
- lhf,ntlMM rirMMativd
From left to right: Admiral
George Edaljl, whose parcntnge was
Eurasian, that Ik to say, his mother was
an Englishwoman; whllo his father was
the son of a Pnrseo merchant of Uom
buy. After receiving, his education at
nn English university, the father hod
entered tho orders of the Church of
England nnd had obtained tho rector
ship of a country parish In tho Mid
lands.
It Is unnecessary for mo to state that
Conan Doylo keeps himself thoroughly
Informed about all criminal cases. His
Sherlock Holmes stories show that.
Certain features In tho evidence on tho
strength of which these two men were
convicted, the one of cnttlo maiming nnd
tho other of a number of cruel frauds
upon women, created doubts In his mind
as to their guilt. Tho possibility that
they might bo Innocent nroused his sym
pathy In their behalf, nnd accordingly
he devoted thoso powers of deduction
and of rleuthlng which ho ascribes In
his books to Sherlock Holmes, to the
unravelling of the tangle.
In the face of almost Insuperable diffi
culties of an olliclal character, partly
duo to red tape nnd partly to tho deter
mination of the Government lawyers, of
the presiding Judge, of the members of
the Jury and of tho police to uphold their
contention that they could not possibly
have been wrong In tho ensn of Adolph
Beck, Sir Arthur Conan Doylo ended by
proving that It was a caso of mistaken
Identity and that there was no connec
tion whatsoever, beyond that of re
semblance, between the unfortunate
Adolph Beck and the real culprit, a
trwlndler of the name of Srrflth. Tet
tho women who had been defrauded,
and two policemen, who In a previous
case somo years earlier had occasion
to arrest tho real Smith, testified In
court that ho and Adolph Beck wero
one and the same man. It was not
the big problem of the reconstruction
programme. Tnis was tno removal oi
the old bridge anchor pins and the sub
stltutlon of otronger pins.
The anchor pins tie the girders of the
shoreward span to the land side of the
main towers. The old pins were of iron
ten Inches In diameter ana weighing
1,000 pountte. The plan was to 'replace
them with ntckel steel pins thirteen
Inches In diameter and weighing 1,800
pounds.
Briefly stated the work Involved pull
ing out the old pin and tying the dis
jointed end span rigidly to the tower
while the ten Inch hole was being en
larged sufficiently to admit the Insertion
of a pin thirteen inches In diameter and
forty Inches long. '
No engineering work of this magni
tude has ever been dono before. The
special drilling machine used was de
signed by' the engineers of the bridge
department. The gigantic drill has a
boring head with seven self hardening
steel cutters adjusted to boro out a chip
of metal one eighth of an inch deeper
and threo sevenths ot an Inch wider
thnn the previous cutter at each revo
lution. Tho steel cutting knives are
drlvon by a 100 H. P. motor which Is
fed by tho third rail. It cost $6,000 to
construct tho machine, r
Tho machlno as Anally worked out
looks something llko a rapid fire gun of
the typo that projected from the bar
bottes ot the old stylo battleships. It
haii a long barrel llko cylinder which
waa fitted Into tho ten Inch hole after
tho old pin was removed. Back' of this
Is the cutting head. Thero aro seven
teeth In this. They Ho back ot ono an
other in Hiich n way ns to bite at an
angle. The depth to which they bite
Into the eteel can bo regulated. A fea
ture of tho mnchlne Is that It la made
of a specially prepared steol which tern
pers Itself as It heats from friction so
that tho blades do not lose tlmlr cutting
edge.
Tho actual operation of. taking out
each of the ten 'Inch pins and substi
tuting the huge nickel steel pins con
stUB4 a Uttl -over, three f days. The
Robert E. Peary, Sir Arthur Oman Doyle, Former Ambassador Joseph H. Choate, St. Clair McKclway,
Harry L. Horton and John D. Crimmins.
until Heck had served two years of
the term of ten years penal servitude
passed ' upon him for tho crimes ot
Smith that Conun Doyle wa able to
convince the Secretary of State for the
Home Department that Reck was Inno
cent and to obtain for him a freo par
don from tho Crown.
Connn Doyle, Indocd, stirred up so
much nonulnr fcellnc about the matter.
especially when ho was able to show
that'tho unfortunate Reck had had his,
entire business ruined through his ur
rest nnd conviction, that the Govern
ment was led to make him a special'
grant of $15,000. Beck did not llvo long
to enjoy either his freedom or the
money a mere pittance compared to
what he had lost. His health hud been
completely wrecked by tho hardships
which do had undergone ns a penal
scrvltudo convict, and he died In 1909.
With regnrd to George Edaljl ho was
convicted at the Staffordshire Quarter
Sessions In October, 1903, of cattle
maiming of a particularly atrocious
character. Anonymous letters, In eome
of which the namo of Georgo Edalj'
nppearcd, while In others thero wero
threats of murder against the local po
lice force, played an Importnnt role In
the trial. The evidence against Edaljl
waif purely circumstantial In tho sense
that there was no direct testimony of
any kind. But owing to the Intense ani
mosity ot the Staffordshire police
against the Edaljl family nnd of the
popular prejudice In tho entire district
against the rector nnd his son George
owing to their Indian, that Is Parsec,
origin the Jury rendered a verdict
agnlnst tho accused lawyer and he was
sentenced to seven years penal servi
tude. The fact that tho horrible horse and
cattle maiming outrages In the Wyrlcy
district of Staffordshire continued after
Engineering
moat extraordinary part of the feat was
performed with practically no disturb
ance of the day traffic over the bridge.
On April 12 the first huge pin was
driven In tho tower on tho Now York
side of the bridge. During the opera
tion tho brldgo was closed to all except
pedestrian traffic between tho hours of
1 and C:C0 in tho morning.
The old pin having been taken out,
the boring or cutting machlno was trun
dled over to -the bridge from the ma
chine shop, was adjusted In position at
1:44 A. M. and was connected to the
third rail ot the elevated tracks, from
which It got lUs motive power. It took
Just ono hour and threo minutes to bore
tho thirteen Inch hole. This was the
equivalent of removing 360. pounds of
structural steel by boring. An addi
tional 4 fifty-seven minutes was con
sumed In finishing and dressing tho new
hole The new pin was then placed In
the' nolo and driven In by a ram oper
ated'der'rlck'fashlon from an upper steel
beam of the' bridge truss. The entire
operation1 was completed and the bridge
was I opeq -iq trafflo Hn . leu than five
tho Incarceration of Georgo Edaljl con
vinced Sir Arthur that the man was In
nocent and that the testimony of tho
police In tho case had been totally un
reliable. Ho set nil his wits to work
and procured the most Incontrovertible
proofs that Edaljl could not possibly
liuvo committed the crimes. Not only
that, but ho secured eighteen months
later the conviction of a man of tho
namo of Farrlngton for tho perpetra-
tlon of tho cattle maiming outrages
committed after Edaljl hail commenced
to serve his term of pennl servitude,
the presumption being of courso that
Farrlngton had nlso been guilty of the
crimes ascrllK-d to EdnlJI.
In this particular Instance It was Im
possible to get tho Secretary of State
for the Homo Department to take any
nctlon toward the obtaining of a free
pardon for Edaljl until Sir Arthur hnd
gone to the extreme length of securing
through tho forco of public sentiment
tho nppolntment of a, parliamentary
commission to Inquire Into the matter.
To this commission Conan Doyle sub
mitted nil the evidence that ho had
gathered In behalf of EdnlJI's Innocence,
uid after a number of sealons extend
ing over n period of several months the
commission finnlly reported to Parlia
ment to tho effect that Edaljl ought
never to havo been convicted aud that
he was guiltless of tho crimes with
which ho had been charged.
Very reluctantly tho Secretary of
Stnto for tho Home Department there
upon Issued In tho name of tho sov
ereign a free pardon to Edaljl, thus re
mitting the remaining four years of his
seven years ot penal servitude, and at
the samo tlmo sent a notification to -the
proper authorities demanding the
restoration of his name to the roll pf
solicitors from which It had .been struck
by order ot the High Court at the time
Doubles the Capacity,
Commis,'loner F. J. H. Kracke,
Department of Bridges.
hours. At Intervals of a couple ot
weeks or so tho other pins were re
placed In similar fashion.
The entire reconstruction work thus
consists of three main sections
1, The building . of additional sup
porting steel towers on each shore of
the East lltver to htrengtnen tne spans
iytwn the main bridge tower and'tho
anchora. u,
of his conviction. But the Government
absolutely declined to grant anything
In the way of pecuniary compensation
to Edaljl for tho cruel wrong which he
had suffered nor for tho ruin of his
legal practice, and In this particular
Conan .Doyle wns unable to accomplish
anything. For the Insular Briton does
not look kindly upon halfbreeds, espe
cially when the mixture of races Is be
tween the whites of the West and the
dusky liued of the Orient, and Edaljl had
to bo satisfied with recovering his lib
erty, which ho owed entirely to the In
itiative and efforts of Conan Doylo.
No one but Sir Arthur himself can
form any correct estimate of the amount
of money and of time which he spent
In the righting of these two particu
larly flagrant cases of Judicial error.
Realizing tho dlfllculty of finding any
one willing, like himself, to undertake
tho cost, the labor and tho odium of
juch a task, nnd that tho avcrago citi
zen would bo disposed to let an Inno
cent man rot In Jail rather than to
assume tho responsibility nnd labor of
obtaining the liberation of the victim,
he set to work to bring about tho
creation of n court of criminal appeal,
using his ablo nnd ever fascinating
pen to arouso public feeling In behalf
of the project.
It took him somo years to accomplish
his aim. But ultimately his efforts
were crowned with success; and now
every convict who Is either the victim
of a Judicial error or who has received
an unduly harsh sentence can blows
the name of Sir Conan Doylo when the
wrong Is righted by the Court of Crim
inal Appeal Sir Arthurs offspring.
Conan Doyle is first and foremost a
physlctun, .deriving his artistic tastes
nnd glfto from his father, that clever
painter Charles Doylo. He received
his early education at the great Roman
Catholic College at Stoneyhurst and
The Williamsburg Bridge.
2, The strengthening of the truss or
steel girders of the anchorage spans
and also ot the main span.
3. The substitution ot anchor pins ot
double strength at the Juncture of the
anchorage span In the main towers.
In addition the type of tho bridge
has been changed. As originally
planned tho bridge, In the vernacular
of the engineer, was a suspension
bridge with cantilever shore spans,
These have been converted now Into
trestle spans.
From having a supporting strength
of 8,000 pounds per linear foot, the an
chorage spans will have a supporting
strength of 16,000 pounds. This means
that If the same two subway cars and
four surface cars should pass a given
point with tholr live load of 10,000
pounds the bridge at that point would
have a supporting strength far In ex
cesa of. tho peak-load possible In the
cars.
The Mayor has Issued a short state.
ment!lnrevlow-of the work already, no-
Copyrlcht by Amerlcin l'rei Aatoelttlon.
Commissioner R. A. C. Smith,
afterward completed It first of all at
several of tho great German unlvcrsl
ties and afterward at Edinburgh,
where ho won his medical degreo. I
At Edinburgh he studied under that
very remarkable anatomist Dr. Joseph
Bell, became his favorite pupil and was
imbued with his Instructor's extraor
dinary talents of deduction. Dr. Bell
Indeed was a born detective; he devoted
all hla leisure to the unravelling of de.
tectlve mysteries and obscure crimes,
and, as Conan Doyle himself admits,
wns the original of Sherlock Holmes,
That Is to say Doylo had Dr. Joseph
Bell In mind when ho commenced to
write his Sherlock Holmes series.
Dr. Bell was a famous character, a
familiar figure to every ono of the older
generation of men who wero graduated
from tho University of Edinburgh and a
great favorite of tho reigning family,
owing to which he on several occasions
had offers of a baronetcy pressed upon
htm, which ho dacllned owing to the
loss under particularly sad clrcum
stances of his only son.
Doyle after graduation started out In
medical practice at Southsea and there
published his earlleBt work, "A Study In
Scarlet," In which Sherlock Holmes
makes his debut. "The Adventures of
Sherlock Holmes" followed four years
later, In 1891, and the book proved so
much of a popular success that Doyle
to a great extent abandoned his medical
practice and devoted himself to writing
novels and plays, thanks to which he Is
to-day a very rich man, Ma works and
plays having been translated Into a
number of foreign languages.
When, however, tho South African
war broke out he responded to the call
of patriotism, and dropping his pen for
the nonce, took service In the ambulance
department In the Transvaal and went
through the ontlro campaign as one of
of Williamsburg Bridge
Big Problem of Strengthening Was the Removal of Old Bridge
Anchor Pins and Substitution of Stronger Ones Bridge
Was Not Strong Enough to Carry Its Capacity of Travel
compllshed by the Bridge Department.
He says:
"Commissioner Kracke and his en
gineers deserve great credit for their
Ingenuity of method In strengthening
the Williamsburg Bridge without any
appreciable disturbance of the traffic
thereon. The proposition Is of special
Importance to the people ot Manhattan
and Brooklyn Inasmuch as the bulk of
travel between these boroughs has
shifted during tho past two years from
tho Brooklyn Bridge to the Williams
burg Bridge.
"In 1912 the Brooklyn Bridge carried
more than 62 per cent, of the total traf
fic to and from New York, while the
Williamsburg Bridge carried approxi
mately 36 per 'cent. Last year the for
mer carried about 41 per cent, of the
traffic and the latter 42 per cent In
view of these statistics and the coming
subway operation across the bridge tho
necessity for strengthening the Will
iamsburg Brldgo Is apparent.
"It Is the first time In the history ot
engineering, according to the authori
ties, that bo vital a structural chango
has been effected on a standing bridge,
actually In use. The character of the
work, Its scientific planning and execu
tion, the systematic care and foresight
exercised and the remarkable speed of ac
complishment reflect great credit on the
engineers of .tho Bridge Department."
NEW YORK'S PRETTIEST SIGHT.
"W
HAT la the prettiest sight In
New York?" asked the host
at the close of luncheon, "not
the most btautlful, but the prettiest."
After f, bfef Interval the artist on his
left spoke: "The prettiest sight In New
York ts the street In front of the Met
ropolitan Opera House on a wet night
when hundreds of motor lights aro send
ing long, shivering reflections down Into
the wet asphalt and all the street lights
are nebulous blurs of white,"
A woman across the table Bald: "I
think you are almost right, but there
Is one thing that la prettier to mo than
that. It Is the masses ot tulips is bloom
In Central Park In April when there
Is almost no green la the surrounding
After a Long Fight He
Succeeded in Having
a Court of Criminal
Appeal Established in
. Great; Britain' Aban
doned Medicine to Take
Up Writing
the prlncltvi surgeons of tne Lnngman
field .hospital. For his work In this
connection ho rccolvcd tho honor of
knighthood on the restoration of pnare,
and then dovotcd himself to tho writing
of two of the mosj popular books that
havo been published concerning tho con
flict: books defending the British army
from tho oharges of Incompetence nnd
Inefficiency so unjustly brought against
It by thoso who had remained at home
to criticise. Tho ono volume bears tho
titlo of "Tho Great Boer War" and tho
other that of "Tho War In South
Africa, Its Causes and Its Conduct."
Sir Arthur has been twice married.
His first wife died after twenty-two
years o fwedded happiness In 190C, and
about two years later he led to tho altar
the present Lady Doyle, wh6 was n Miss
Jean Leckle. With her nnd with his
two children by his first wife he makes
his home at Wlndleshnm, his charming
country place In Sussex near Crow-
oorougn, while in town ho divides his
time between tho Athcmeum and the
Reform Club.
He has always been an inthnui.i.tin
cricketer, Is a veteran member of
that premier cricket organization the
Marylebone Cricket Club, is n Liberal
Unionist In politics, which accounts for
tho defeat of his attempts to get Into
Parliament, has travelled extensively In
me .sircuc regions, in the west of Africa
nnd In tho Sudan, did n quantity of
shooting In tho Rocky Mountains
twenty ijears ago. In tho Selkirk Range
north of Banff, which lin lntpmiu in
visit with Lady Doylo beforo returning
nome, nnu taKcs a leading nart- In nil
sorts of public movements, to which his
personal popularity and the gift of his
pen are Invaluable.
Thus for tho Inst three months tin hnn
been engaged In getting up an agitation
among all the literary men In England,
mai is 10 my tno writers, for tho pur
pose of forcing the Government to yro-
viue ror mo participation of Great
Britain In the Panama exhibition at
Han Francisco. In spite of all the pres
sure brought to bear upon tho Admin
istration, howover, It has been found
lmposlblo to Induce Premier Asqulth to
reconsider the decision of tho Cabinet to
decline the imitation of tho United
States to the world's fair at the Golden
Gate. Sir Arthur Is not only a writer of sin.
gularly wholesomo and virile novels
hut Is also something of a poet, a fact
which Is generally Ignored. Of his
gifts In this connection no better 'llua
tratlon can be given thnn his "Song of
the Bow." It runs as follows:
What of the. bow?
The bow was made In England:
Of truo wood, of yew wood,
The wood of English bows;
So men who are free
Love tho old yew tree
And the land whero tho yow tree grows.
What of the cord?
Tho cord was made In England!
A rough cord, a tough cord,
A cord that bowmen love;
So well drain our Jacks
To the English flax
And the land where the hemp was wove.
mat of the shaft?
The shaft was cut In England :
A long shaft, a strong chart,
Barbed and trim and true;
Bo we'll drink all together
To the gray goose feather
And the land where tho gray goose flew.
What of the men?
The men were bred In England:
The bowman the ycomnn
Tho lads of tho dale and fell
Here's to you and to you!
To the hearts that nre truo
An the land where the true hearts dwell.
landscape and the sky through the
half bare trees Is a riot of scurrying
clouds."
"Life and motion have a place In my
understanding of prettlness," said her
neighbor as he took up tho theme. "I
think the prettiest thing In New York
Is a circle of bare legged, half clad
East Side children dancing around n
hand organ man, while an owlllko
Simian watches them with never ending
Interest from hla corner of the wheezy
Instrument Not a movement made by
the children Is studied, but every motion
Is as free and unconscious as the air
thcty are breathing."
"While we nro speaking of grace and
movement, did you ever consider tho
free, easy swing of the low flying flocks
of gulls that sweep Into tho lower end
of tho city at certain times of tho
year?" asked tho woman In black. "If
you should bo standing with mo upon
soma elevation and could see tho blue
"and white of their bodies enamelled
against the gray wrinkled water of the
bay I think you would ngree with me
that they provide tho prettiest sight."
"Really, I am at a loss to know how
to answer,'' said another woman, "but
there Is always one sight that makes
me catch my breath. It Is to look toward
tho skyscraper district In a purplo Oc
tober twilight and seo tho llttlo lights
come out In tho window one by on
until you become confused and do not
know which are window and which are
stars."
"And now that all of us except you
havo expressed ourselves, what In your
opinion Is tho prettiest sight In Now
York?" asked the artist, turning to the
host.
"Why, love In the parks to bo sure,"
he answered, "when even the babies in
perambulators and gocartu aro googoo
lng ut each other, and the older children
have paired off and retired Into tho
shadowy places to play out of the way
of the none too watchful housemaids,
who are In turn paired off on the
benches with younfx men. When even
the birds on tho btinches abovo nro
snuggling close together and aro. twit
tering exactly thJ eome things that the
occupants of tho benches aro whlietliig
and tho babies nro googooing, Tlil U
without doubt tho prettiest eight
New YorliC L