MEET SHERLOCK HOLMES

If you see a fellow that could be just hanging around at the time of the next mistake - after all we all make mistakes and half the time they slide by unwitnessed. Sherlock Holmes noticed though. He noticed irregularities. He was that sort of guy.

 
When we think of Sherlock Holmes we all see the icon. In many cases, though it misrepresents the original, the icon is schooled in to society and like the disney version of a story it overtakes the real one. And what is society if not we ourselves? Elementary eh?
The obvious, in plain sight, is that Sherlock had another sense – some call it common sense – or the sense of accessing genius. He is fascinating in as far as we are fascinated by it. And we are.
 
It is aided by seeing and hearing in the first place what you behold. It's more than just focusing and listening. It is some sort of sense of how more dots join. We all have it . It's clear that we all have the genius of the common sense. It is indeed elementary - that's down to the original elements.
 
So there in his museum in Baker Street lies Sherlock Holmes kit and much strange paraphernalia. All his bits and pieces were top level tools - a bit James Bondy.
 
His false hair could turn him into an old man in a twinkling.
 
 
 
 
It is always easier to see what is in front of us than to notice that which is missing – at first. Both these old men could be the appearance of Sherlock Holmes.
 
All that dangles before our eyes we see with a sliver of our entire consciousness. We see the new cars on the roads, we see the latest clothes on other people, we see ads. What don't we see? What we behold – what is there – plain to see and hear in the the genius sense.
 
Here is a well known story:
 
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are camping on an assignment. waiting
for the unexpected, the unknown, and pitches their tent under the stars.
 
During the night, Holmes wakes his companion and says: "Watson, look
up at the stars, and tell me what you can deduce."
 
Watson says: "I see millions of stars, and even if a few of those have
planets, it's quite likely there are some planets like Earth, and if there
are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be intelligent
aliens." Sherlock looked back at him with amazement and replied,
 
"We are lying on the ground currently safe from rain as there are stars
above instead of canvas, from which I deduce that somebody has stolen
our tent".
 
Back to the Baker Street museum. His disguise tools mean that Sherlock often went out looking like this, and this, and this.
 

MEET ISAAC NEWTON

Sir Isaac Newton Challenges Money Fraud

In some ways Sir Isaac Newton was a Sherlock Holmes kind of a guy. His keen observation, powers of deduction and relentless persistence is not so lauded as the cartoon apple story which is his icon. Like Sherlock Holmes he frequented taverns and the haunts of questionable persons in disguise.  He set himself up as a private detective, collecting evidence on the ring of fraudsters who, then as now, met with accomplices over a drink.
 
He achieved something people are killed for nowadays, by more sophisticated and learned criminals. He caught some money thieves red handed and had them hung, drawn and quartered. I can tell you now I never learnt that at school.
 
He took up the position of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great re-coining of 1696, In 1699 he became Master of the Mint a position Newton took seriously, exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. He estimated that 20 percent of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Many eminent people had their hands in the Royal till.
 
Counterfeiting is high treason and in Isaac Newton's time was punished by the perpetrator being hung drawn and quartered. Hence convicting even the most flagrant criminals was difficult because they were very rich or in a rich man's gang. They simply paid witnesses to keep quiet and lie. As it is is today.
 
William Chaloner the head of operations at the time also falsely accused and libeled people as religious and criminal perverts thus terrorising them to cooperate. 
 
Despite all the barriers placed to prosecution, English law had ancient and formidable customs of authority. It still does, despite our schooling that it does not. In one of Newton's cases as as a Justice of the Peace he appointed himself the King's attorney against William Chaloner.
 
Chaloner's crimes, including setting up phony Catholic conspiracies and then turning in the entrapped conspirators, was such a money spinner that he was able to posture as landed gentry. He then accused the Royal Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others) and proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins and circulating them.
 
Newton finally succeeded in putting Chaloner on trial for counterfeiting and had him sent to Newgate Prison in September 1697 and two years later he was hung drawn and quartered. It was said of him by a biographer:
 
'Scorning the 'petty Rogueries of Tricking single Men', he aimed rather at 'imposing upon a whole Kingdom'
 
Newton conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers, and suspects, on the conclusive evidence from his investigations between June 1698 and Christmas 1699. He successfully prosecuted 28 coiners. Again, this is something modern day school curricula pass over. His science discoveries were mighty and many of those are not on school agendas either. We are schooled only in the dates of events to do with battles and promotions for example Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703.
 
1717 in the "Law of Queen Anne" Newton moved the Pound Sterling de facto from the silver standard to the gold standard by setting the bimetallic relationship between gold coin and the silver penny in favour of gold.
During the 20 years from his involvement as sinecure warden of the Mint - he succeeded, with cooperation from the Privy Council, in cleaning up the money and starting England on the road of financial stability for 100 years until the effects of going off the Gold Standard in 1813 resulted in the outbreak of a war that is still being conducted in financial terms. 
 
This he achieved, among many other things, on the foundation of common law.
 
What's this got to do with Sherlock Holmes? It's just a matter of joining the dots.
 
Money is wrongly tagged as the root of all evil. It is a famous biblical mis-quote . The real quote from the King James Bible is ...'For the love of money is the root of all evil'. It is not the foremost thought of a housewife who's buying vegetables for her family. It is lying and stealing for money that's evil. Don't blame the money - sue the perpetrators of evil. Sherlock described his arch enemy Moriarty as follows in "The Final Problem":
 
"He is a man of good birth and excellent education, endowed by nature with a
phenomenal mathematical faculty. ...... But the man had hereditary
tendencies of the most diabolical kind. A criminal strain ran in his blood,
which, instead of being modified, was increased and rendered infinitely
more dangerous by his extraordinary mental powers.......He is the Napoleon
of Crime, Watson, the organiser of half that is evil and nearly all that is
undetected in this great city..."           Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
 
A dark cloud hangs over these passages especially as it could describe both the loud mouthed Chaloner and the shadowy criminal minds at large in our day. There is nothing wrong with money per se - the problem is rooted in the minds of men when they use the very existence of money to make more if it for their own gains at the expense of the men and women who created it - by means of fraud and plunder.
 
We are schooled that this is inevitable and unalterable in human nature. We have come to understand by the use of daily repeating, that lying, stealing, torturing and killing have to be tolerated or we might all lose our jobs - then what would we do? Both Sherlock Holmes and Isaac Newton spent their lives in pursuit of the truth.
 
Malum quo communius eo pejus. (The more common the evil, the worse).
Malus usus est abolendus. (An evil custom is to be abolished).
 
Both in fact and fiction it is seen that one man can do much to sort the mess out.