by Bill Peschel
“Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hush’d with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfum’d chambers of the great”
During the Victorian era, cribs referred to houses in general. Later, it meant houses of prostitution, particularly at the lowest level. The meaning shifted back into dwellings after World War II, and was revived with the MTV reality show Cribs in the early 2000s.
Brown study: In a state of deep thought. The phrase appears in a 1532 book, A Manifest Detection of the Most Vile and Detestable Use of Diceplay, and other Practices Like the Same: “Lack of company will soon lead a man into a brown study.”
Coffin nail: This phrase for cigarettes was recorded as early as the 1880s, but it first appeared in print in O.Henry’s story “The Higher Abdication” in 1907.
Macadamized pike: A road laid with materials pioneered by Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam (1756-1836). His process created a hard smooth surface with a layer of crushed stone mixed with stone dust and water, forming a strong vehicle-resistant surface. With the arrival of motor vehicles, tar was substituted for water to form tarmac and asphalt.
Highest-browed: In the pseudoscience of phrenology, a “high” forehead signified intelligence and a “low” one stupidity. While discredited as a scientific theory by the 1840s, it continued to survive through the rest of the century, and its influence could be seen in racial eugenics, in which certain races were considered inferior.
Chop suey: A mix of odds and ends (which is chop suey’s literal meaning) consisting of meat cooked quickly with vegetables and bound in a starchy sauce and served over rice. There are many origin stories for it, but it most likely was developed in China’s Guangdong province as tsap seui (“miscellaneous leftovers”) and brought to America by immigrants from there.
Elsie Sigel: Sigel (1889-1909) was the 19-year-old granddaughter of Civil War Gen. Franz Sigel and a missionary in New York’s Chinatown. She was found strangled inside a trunk in the apartment of “William” Leon Ling, a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. Leon vanished and was never found, but love letters from Sigel were found in his apartment, along with letters from other women. At the same time, Sigel was seeing a manager of another restaurant, who told police that he had received an anonymous letter threatening Sigel’s life if she didn’t end their relationship. The murder was never solved, and the revelation that white women were having sex with Chinese men caused a sensation.
Third degree: Once over: A milder examination than the third degree, which involved mental or physical torture. The phrase, first seen around 1900, might have been inspired by the practice at Masonic lodges, where at the third degree of membership, master mason, the candidate undergoes interrogation and performs physically challenging acts.
A story in the Tacoma Times described in vivid language how Alice Sing was given the third degree after she was shown her husband’s body:
“The ‘third degree’ was given in a stockyards morgue in the presence of several detectives who had the woman in custody…
“Christian training and civilization fell way, and she turned all Oriental.
“‘Charlie,’ she whispered, slipping into pidgin English, ‘you no dead, Charlie—tell me you no dead!’
“Then the ‘third degree’ began. The place of mourning changed to a twentieth century inquisition. The detectives raised her and pointed accusing fingers,
“‘You killed him, didn’t you?’
“‘You saw him killed?’
“‘You know who did it!’
“‘You were there, weren’t you?’
“She listened in apathy. At last she moaned:
“Oh, go away. I not know anything. I not know he dead. Please go away from me!’
“For nine hours the pitiless probing of her soul went on, but her acquired Oriental calm stood the ordeal. Then they led her to jail and charged her with the murder of her husband.”
Muskoka: Kawaba is fictional, but Muskoka is a district in central Ontario, about two hours north of Toronto. Known as “cottage country” for the long-held family homes that surround its 1,600 lakes, it draws millions of visitors a year to an area that has 60,000 residents and 100,000 seasonal property owners.
Toronto-Onters: Raggs’ traditional salutation and most likely a reference to Ontario, the province Toronto is in.
Bathing stockings: Women who wanted to swim had to wear a bathing costume, the shape of which changed over the years. By the Edwardian period, they could wear a heavy wool chemise over bloomers or dark silk stockings with shoes. Over time, the outfit became more form-fitting, and by the mid-1920s the stockings and shoes could be abandoned.
Footling: Trivial and irritating. It is derived from the Old French footle, meaning “have sex with,” which somehow transmuted to the French foutre for “worthless thing.”
The Smart Set: A literary magazine founded in 1900 by Col. William d’Alton Mann (1839-1920) who also blackmailed New York City’s elite in his other magazine “Town Topics.” For more details, see “The Adventure of the Society Dame” in volume 3 (1905-1909).
Has a Meaning of Its Own: A joke on the popular song “Every Little Movement (Has a Meaning All Its Own),” written for a musical in 1910. It has been recorded by many artists, including Doris Day and Judy Garland.
L’homme c’est rien—l’oeuvre c’est tout: “The man is nothing—the work is everything.” Holmes quoted this line, from a letter from Gustave Flaubert to George Sand, in “The Red-Headed League.”
Steveston Car: A reference to the streetcar that ran from Vancouver to Steveston, a small town on the Pacific coast. It had been founded by the Steves family in 1877-78 and became a major center for salmon canning and boatbuilding. The place, nicknamed “Salmonopolis,” also drew a large percentage of its population from Japanese, Chinese, and First Nations fishermen.
In the dark: A reference to “I’m Afraid to Come Home in the Dark,” a popular song written by Egbert Van Alstyne (1878-1951) and Harry Williams (1879-1922). It was a perennial favorite. In 1930, Fleischer Studios released a cartoon version of the song in their Screen Songs series where you could sing along by following the animated bouncing ball.
Eburne News: A Vancouver newspaper founded in 1908. After a series of sales and mergers, it is now the semiweekly Vancouver Courier. Eburne was also the name of an island on the Fraser River between Vancouver and Richmond. It disappeared in 1951 after a channel separating it from the larger Mitchell Island was filled in.
Tiger of San Pedro: A reference to the deposed dictator Don Juan Murillo, discovered hiding in Britain in “The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge” (1908).
Townsend and Eburne: Townsend is a port city on Puget Sound in Washington state. As mentioned earlier, Eburne was an island on the Fraser river south of Vancouver, so Keys is talking about two locations about 75 miles apart.
Bartholomew Sholto: In The Sign of the Four, Sholto was killed by a poison dart from a blow-pipe.
Universal Educator: The Barmsbirth edition is fictional, but there were several Universal Educators published. They were huge books (the Gately’s edition ran to more than 1,000 pages) with such chapters as natural history, astronomy, geology, history, statistics, and law, that promised a sound education to anyone dedicated enough to work through it.
To command success: The phrase is not from Shakespeare, but Joseph Addison (1672-1719), who used it in Cato, A Tragedy (1712).
General strike: The growth of the industrial age led to growing conflicts between workers feeling exploited and abused and the business and government leaders exploiting and abusing them. Labor history is filled with workers attempting to organize into unions and businesses battling to stop them. Particularly feared was the threat of a general strike. The last one in Britain was in 1842, but news accounts of strikes in the U.S., and the Russian Revolution were enough to keep the fear alive of a general strike in England. It became the subjec
t of a number of contemporary thrillers, including Agatha Christie’s second novel, republished by Peschel Press as The Complete, Annotated Secret Adversary.
National Gallery: An art museum in Trafalgar Square founded in 1824. Its small but wide-ranging collection makes it the fourth-most visited art museum in the world.
Aesculapius: In Greek mythology, Aesculapius was Apollo’s son and the god of medicine. He fathered five goddesses: Hygieia for health and sanitation (from which we get the word “hygiene”), Iaso for recuperation; Aceso for healing; Aglaea or Aegle for beauty and glory; and Panacea for the universal remedy (another word which is used today, although in a negative sense). His symbol is the serpent-entwined rod, which is frequently confused with the caduceus, which has wings at the top and two snakes. This confusion was created by an officer in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, who ordered that the caduceus be used as that branch’s symbol.
Siamese twins: The phrase for conjoined twins was born when Chang and Eng Bunker (1811-1874), brothers born in the kingdom of Siam (now Thailand), were exhibited in the 1830s, including stints with P.T. Barnum’s circus.
Trollope a doctor: Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809-1894) was a Boston physician, polymath, and poet. W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) studied medicine while secretly harboring ambitions to be a writer. He abandoned the profession after the success of his first novel Liza of Lambeth (1897). William Osler (1849-1919) was a Canadian physician who revolutionized the teaching of medical students and helped found Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. However, Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) had no medical experience. The error probably arose because he had published a satirical dystopian novel The Fixed Period (1882). It is an early precursor to science-fiction, because it’s set in 1980 and deals with a nation that used euthanasia to solve the problem of an aging population. In 1905, Osler gave a farewell speech at Johns Hopkins in which he referred to The Fixed Period in a humorous manner. The popular press chose to interpret his speech as support for euthanasia! Sic semper erat, et sic semper erit.
And many others: Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), was a highly successful physician as well as a natural philosopher and poet. Paracelsus (1493/4-1541) pioneered the study of medicine during the Renaissance, promoting the value of observation and received wisdom in treating patients. He also helped create the field of toxicology by theorizing that anything can be a poison depending upon the size of the dose. John Keats (1795-1821) was the great Romantic poet who displayed an aptitude for medicine, becoming licensed to practice, but abandoned it for poetry. He still retained enough medical knowledge to diagnose his tuberculosis the first time he coughed blood into his handkerchief.
Hamlet or Absalom: Let us pass over Hamlet; if you don’t recognize him, your next step is to dip into Shakespeare. Absalom was a son of King David who rebelled against his father and was killed by his captors after losing the battle of Ephraim’s Wood. David, whose order to keep Absalom alive had been disobeyed, cried out when he had been informed “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” Absalom was not used often by authors, so it must be assumed that it was his story, and David’s suffering, that Carstairs found so affecting.
Operating theatre: We call them operating rooms or suites, but they were first called theatres because they literally were. Operations were performed in public by the early 19th century because they were a convenient way to teach medical students or demonstrate procedures. Operations were advertised in newspapers, tickets were sold, and the surgeons could even receive a round of applause at the end.
Axillary abscess: A tender, sometimes painful, mass under the skin filled with pus and debris. It is generally caused by germs that get under the skin and cause the body’s defenses to attack it. This creates liquids containing dead cells and bacteria that have to be drained before the area can heal. The axilla is the medical name for the armpit.
Knighthood: While Watson never came within a sword’s length of being knighted, in “The Adventure of the Three Garridebs” he remembers the date of the case as being “in the same month that Holmes refused a knighthood for services which may perhaps some day be described.” He places the date as during June 1902, the same year that Conan Doyle was knighted by Edward VII for his services during the Boer War.
Musician’s head: “Why is it that so many musicians, foreign musicians especially, wear long hair?” The Strand asked in 1907. The author, composer and conductor Frederic Cowen (1852-1935) offered several theories: rising musicians hope that mimicking the long locks of Paderewski, Sauer, and Holmes’ favorite Sarasate would bring success; that long hair looks impressive while performing; or that long hair has been associated with gods such as Apollo, the god of music, Biblical heroes such as Samson, and mystics who refuse to cut their hair until a religious vow has been accomplished.
’Cellist: The apostrophe to the left of the word indicates it is a contraction of violoncello, an Italian word meaning “little violone.” It was a member of the viol family of stringed instruments that were played upright. The popularity of the violin led to the rest of the family fading from use in Europe by the middle of the 18th century. However, amateur musicians and early music enthusiasts and societies have spurred a revival of interest in viol instruments.
’Bus: A contracted form of omnibus, the Latin word meaning “for all” that was applied to a wagon with benches that cruised the streets of French cities in 1828. Its original name was “voiture omnibus,” but by the time it reached London the next year, the word was shortened to omnibus, then ’bus.
Review: No magazine has been found with this title. There was the British Chess Review (1853-54), the Maryland Chess Review (1874), and the U.S. Chess Review (1933-1969), so it could be an in-joke to a local newsletter, or no joke at all.
Goddess Caissa: A dryad created by Italian poet Hieronymus Vida (1485?-1566). The 658-line poem “Scacchia Ludus” (1527) describes a game of chess played between Apollo and Mercury. In 1763, Sir William Jones (1746-1794) used the dryad in his poem “Caissa,” in which the game is invented to help Mars seduce her.
Rice Gambit: A popular chess opening at the time in which White offers to sacrifice his knight in order to get his king to safety. The move also moves the rook into place to attack Black’s underdeveloped position. The gambit is named for German-American businessman and chess fan Isaac Rice (1850-1915) who financed a group dedicated to promoting it. Later analysis has shown it to lead, at best, to a perpetual check, so it has been abandoned by serious players.
Queen’s Hall: A concert hall in the Westminster section of central London that opened in 1895. Visitors to this 2,500-seat palace were treated to cramped conditions but near-perfect acoustics. Many of the great composers and musicians performed there, including Richard Strauss, Edward Elgar, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. It was destroyed in 1941 during a German air raid on the city.
Simpson’s Divan: Simpson’s is a restaurant in The Strand, near the Savoy hotel, that since the 1850s features traditional English food such as roast meats. Originally called Simpson’s Grand Divan Tavern, it devoted rooms to chess-playing, making it the home of English chess. For more than a half-century many grandmasters played there. When new owners acquired the restaurant in 1904, they deemphasized its status as a chess venue.
April Fishes: All Fools’ Day is an old custom with multiple origins. April first is near the end of the vernal equinox, which was celebrated during the Middle Ages as New Year’s Day. The lightheartedness of spring, and its deliverance of people from a harsh, cold, winter, might have acted as a spur to festive merriment. The day is known in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and French-speaking parts of Canada and Switzerland as poisons d’Avril, or April fishes, and can be celebrated by trying to tape a picture of a fish on the back of a victim.
Harmon place: This neighborhood on the western edge of downtown Minneapolis was a prosperous neighborhood, a mix of mansions, townhouses, and residential hotels. But the popularity of the aut
omobile was turning the area into the city’s automotive district, with showrooms, service stations, repair and parts shops, and manufacturing.
News of Mexico: The month before this story appeared, nine American sailors were arrested in Tampico, Mexico, when they entered a fuel-loading station that was off limits. They were quickly released, but President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) demanded an apology and a 21-gun salute. Mexico’s dictator Victoriano Huerta (1850-1916) provided the apology but not the salute. This was not enough for Wilson, who had imposed an arms embargo on the country during its ongoing civil war. Learning that a German steamer loaded with weapons and munitions was due to arrive in Veracruz that month, Wilson ordered U.S. troops to occupy the port despite not asking for a declaration of war nor a blockade. The occupation lasted for six months, the German steamer was briefly held by the U.S. but released, and off-loaded its cargo elsewhere. Huerta himself, who had taken power in a coup the previous year, was deposed in July, and the civil war would continue through the rest of the year.
Chief Martinson: Oscar Martinson was chief of police from 1913 to 1916. He later became Hennepin County sheriff.
George B. Frankforter: Frankforter (b. 1860) was professor of organic chemistry at the university from 1893 to 1925. A university history described him as “genial as a deacon, aloof as a monk.” He was credited with building up the chemistry department from a single student to more than 400 within a decade.