the reasoning as to left-handedness, is not the length of a man's pace largely a matter of idiosyncrasy — something which is not, at any rate materially, dependent upon stature? Do not very many tall men take compara tively short steps, and a good number, of less inches, cover more ground with each? Have we not, besides, experience to testify that the upper and lower halves of the human body are often largely disproportioned? On a further occasion, trying to elucidate his course of proceeding at the expense of his associate, Dr. Watson, he thus deliberates : "My dear fellow, I know you well. I know the military neatness which characterizes you. You shave every morning, and in this season you shave by the sunlight; but since your shaving is less and less complete as we get further back on the left side, until it be comes positively slovenly as we get round the angle of the jaw, it is surely very clear that that side is less well illuminated than the other. I could not imagine a man of your habits looking at himself in an equal light, and being satisfied with such a result." Was not the calculator, to be able to draw this inference, required to impart a factor into the equation, which may not have rep resented the fact, namely, that it was his friend's custom to face the north when pur suing this routine, so that the light would strike on the right cheek? A noteworthy instance of what strikes the writer as distinctly vulnerable argument is contained in the story entitled, The Ad venture of the Engineer s Thumb. An hydraulic engineer, who had come from London to examine a machine, the purpose of which his employer told him was to ex tract " fuller's earth," is from certain appear ances it presents forced to the belief that it is being put to a questionable use; and on hinting this is forthwith, by way of revenge, placed underneath it; the machine — which
is, in reality, employed for towing — being at the same time, set in motion. A coal-oil lamp is in the room, standing well under the press. After watching, for a few seconds, the terrible engine of death proceeding on its downward course, intent upon crushing him, as he meditates, "to a shapeless pulp," he notices a small panel being pushed back wards at one side of the room, the walls of which, it is important to know, are built of wood, though ceiling and floor are of iron. Immediate contact of the machine with the floor must be the outcome of its pro gress, in the absence of any metal to be im pressed. The engineer miraculously escapes through this opening: and having returned to London, takes Holmes back with him, in the hope of locating the coiner's retreat, to which he had been previously conducted blindfolded. They find the house on fire, and this is the detective's remark to his companion: "Well, at last you have had your revenge upon them. There can be no question that it was your oil-lamp which, when it was crushed in the press, set fire to the wooden walls, though no doubt they were too excited in the chase after you to observe it at the time." Could igniting by any chance follow under the circumstances? And, even if such were possible, would not the flame have been too momentary to allow of its extension to the walls? Where, too, would a draught sufficient to keep it alive come from? Looking at them in the mass, as it be hooves a critic to do, the writer is led to the conviction that were the incidents on which they are exercised made to run the gauntlet of the rules of evidence, nearly all of Holmes's dialectic efforts would fall short of actual demonstration of the point to be settled in each case. His present attempt to review some of the episodes met with in the career of that renowned exponent of the
