By BOB WARD

Pee ee oT ae oY wT

Slugging Private ‘I’ replaces
Sherlock Holmes and Poroit

S a long-time reader of Who-

aunits we’ve noted numbers

of significant. changes over

‘ the years in the style of
detectativing.

When we first met Sherlock
Holmes, Hercules Poroit, and
sundry other crime detectors
we were, of course, younger
and had more hair to stand on
end than we do today. For
what it’s worth we had more
teeth to get into the plot, too.

But we do recall certain pat-
terns of the slippery sleuth
which were the familiar and,
to be sure, guaranteed methods
cf tracking down the criminal
types.

The “old fashioned,” if we
might use the term, detective
never used a gun, blackjack,
or any other type of “per-
suader.” He sat in his den,
sucked his curved pipe, and
worked out the crime scien-
tifically. We might say right
here that the “curved pipe”
was very important. Any
detective who didn’t smoke a
curved ‘pipe; why we knew
right away that he never
would solve the crime.

Everything was done with
logic. It was easy to tell the
victim had been stabbed with
an ancient family heirloom.
“Look,” the detective would
say, “there are seven hundred
gashes in the body and besides,
there’s the handle of the
ancient family heirloom pro-
truding from between the vic-
tim’s shoulder blades.” And, of
course, there it was.

Sherlock Holmes, particular-
ly was a master at deducting.
He was so good at it, in fact,
that he could make a modern
payroll machine look quite
amateurish. And one has to
admit that this is quite a de-

~rducting feat.

Of course, Hercules Poroit
was no slouch either. Why,
the only thing Hercules feared
was a dentist.

We imagine that between
Holmes and Poroit they solved
more cases in their day than
E. P. Taylor has on stock right
at this minute. And most citi-
zens will agree that’s a fair
number of cases.

And all of these .cases were
solved without resort to fire
arms, physical violence,

e : * anything else of that kind. It
Hn was all done bydeduction.

A favorite device was to as-
‘ semble all of the characters in
ae aroom. This always happened
at the end of the book. Then
the Great Detective would
we ba pace “slowly up and down”
‘ : and “re-trace all of the events.”
: We would thrill and squirm

’ in our chair as the case un-
folded and logic would catch
up With the killer.

More often than not it would
be the butler, who more often
than not wasn’t really the but-
ler at all; but just disguised as
a butler so that he could slip
a mickey of hemlock into the

Ret wind master’s evening drink.
ay a ae Possibly the identity of most

A killer-types has influenced our
living habits coz to this day we

‘

Or.

absolutely refuse to hire a

butler.
x * x
Nowadays, though, the who-
dunits are vastly different. The
Private “I” has replaced Sher-
lock Holmes and Hercules.

Now this Private “I” is
usually called Mike, Steve,
Slugger, or some other hardier
type name. -

And right from the first
paragraph the Private sad Se
shoots practically every
character as fast as the author
of the book figures out a name
for them.

The modern Private “I” be-
lieves in epuality, too. He’d
rust as soon shoot a woman as
a man.

Another feature of the cur-
vent crop of detectors is that
they have a disdain for
science — and most everything
else. The way we figure it
out their approach is one of
killing everyone who pops up
in the story and the law of
averages, being what it is,
they’re almost bound to get
the criminal. The only time
this doesn’t hold is when the
Private “I” is also the crook,
and more often than not, this
is quite hard to figure out
anyway.

Private “I’s”, too, must have
a tremendous capacity. for
liquor. Coz they’re either
shooting a slug of lead into
a victim; or a slug of liquor
into themselves all the way
hrough the book. Dead bodies
and dead bottles are the hall-
mark of the modern whodunit.

Whereas the “old fashioned”
Getective solved every crime
in his den or study; the modern
Private “I” only comes into
his office when he needs a
crink. His filing cabinets are

singularly devoid of letters
written in invisible ink which
Sherlock could read by rub-
bing with a smudge of Gorgan-
zola cheese. Only item kept
by the modern “I” in his filing
cabinet. This is a bottle of bour-
bon, filed quite naturally un-
der “H” like for hootch.

All of the female characters
in the latter day whodunits
have more curves than bosses
have reasons for turning down
a wage demand. And . the
Private “I”, even when un-
sheven, is pursued through
the book by a great galaxy of
curvaceous blondes, brunettes
and redheads, most of whom
he shoots, strangles with their
own garter belts, or drops into
a warm bubble bath of.quick-
lime.

* x. *
Maybe we’re just a square;
but we still feel that Sherlock
and Hercules are the greatest. -

Our love for the old-time
type snooper was greatly en-
hanced recently when we
heard about a local Private “TI”
agency which was advertising
for “red-blooded he-men who
wented adventure, romance,
intrigue, thrills, chills, etc.”

So this fellow applied for
the job. And what did they
want? Strikebreakers, that’s
what.

So this is what modern de-
tectiving is coming to.

One thing we can say for
Sherlock and Hercules, they
never once hired out as strike-
breakers.

@ Reprinted from Cana-
dian UE News.

H
'

Male cheesecake

RENEGADE HOUSEWIFE,

Vancouver, B. C.: I was shock-
ed to see a picture of an al-
most-nude man in our paper,
used aS a come-on in a picnic
advertisement. I suppose you
people think that the sight of
that chest or that thigh
(mmmm!) will bring us
women flocking to the picnic.
Nick Kozak for the women,
pony rides for the kids — why.
not a pony line for the men ?-_

OPEN FORU

Women don’t h@
lascivious minds ™
male cheesecake
them. Not much, *

As one of yOu
dents writes, let
our paper by SUPE
picture, each &
test, “Is it for P&
independence an®
It is obvious, SITS
ture of Nick B
meet this test.

(P.S. I’m only-
lows, Pll be the”

~ Hal Griffin

HEN our centennial year rolls around,

how will our history be presented ?

Will it perpetuate the legend, created by
“constant repetition over the years, of
Governor Sir James Douglas

as the

“Father of British Colum-
bia” — the man who saved
the colony for Canada. Or
will it give belated recog-
nition of the men who really
prepared the way for British
Columbia’s entry into Con-
federation by their clamer-
ous opposition to Douglas’
autocratic rule?

* will it present Douglas
as the man who stood out
against the influx of miners
from the California gold-
fields — the “tide of demo-
cracy rolling -north,”~ as
Earl Grey, secretary of
state for the colonies, des-
cribed it at the time? Will
it depict Victoria as “a min-
iature of San Francisco,”

with even its first news-
paper, the Victoria Gazette,
owned by three Americans
(ignoring the fact that this
newspaper had little support
Douglas) ?

This is how Willard Ire-
land, provincial archivist,
presents Douglas in his
lectures, recognizing the
threat of annexation by the
U.S. that hung over the in-
fant colony but seeing the
miners as the instrument ‘of
that threat rather than as
the force that stayed it.

Or will Douglas be shown
as an autocrat who never-
theless was a “democrat at
heart,” as James K. Nes-
bitt, the Vancouver Sun’s

legislative correspondent,
presented him last week.

Nesbitt was commenting
on the fact that this Sunday,
August 12, is the 100th an-
niversary of our first legis-
lature. On this day in 1856
the first elected legislative
assembly of the colony of
Vancouver Island met in
Victoria,

As Nesbitt should know
from long experience in re-
porting speeches at Victoria,
what politicians say fre-
quently -has little resem-
blance to what they do —
and Douglas was an astute
politician: His speech to the
legislature was couched in
democratic terms, but his
conduct of the _ election,
forced on him by the British
colonial office, made a
travesty of it. “The lower
orders,” as Douglas contem-
ptuously referred to com-
pany employees and miners,
were disfranchised and the
men elected were his hand-
picked councillors. -

Years ago, another Vic-

toria newspaperm
Higgins, described '

legislature as 4
parliament.
* *

Douglas was 8%
a Hudson’s Bay

the company ©
perial policy he
well. But by his
responsible govel
endangered the —
British  Columbi#
province of Cana’

It is because ti
andthe colonists.
responsible govel™
because they 1%
men as Amor Dé %
voice their aspit@™
Canada today —
from sea to sea —

In the coming
shall hear @ ?4
about Fort Lane
in the history of
ince Fort Rupert
first miners §
first strike, is ®
portant, and
and Yale are the
our democracy

&

August 10, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBU