Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 January 1902 — ABOUT SHERLOCK HOLMES. [ARTICLE]

ABOUT SHERLOCK HOLMES.

Swiss Guides Show the Spot Where He Died. Swiss guides are gravely pointing out to British tourists the exact jspot at which Sherlock Holmes met bls death. A well-known traveler last evening told an Express representative the funny way in which this tradition began; “It began shortly after Conan Doyle had written the story telling of Holmes’ death at the hands of Professor Moriarty. I and a friend- who had been very interested in the series of the detective’s adventures were traveling in Switzerland. We had been crossing the IJruoig Pass from Lucerne toward Interlaken, and we stopped over one night in Meiringen. “The next day we were going over the Grosse Schiedegg, and what was more natural than to make a little detour from the regular path to see the Falls of Reichenbach, where Professor Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes had their fatal encounter, according to Conan Doyle? We took a guide to show us the place, and we had no difficulty

,in imagining the exact spot where Holmes fell, and we even picked out the last piece of ground on which he stood. Meantime our guide stood by, apparently stolid and not paying any attention to what we were saying. “Last September I was again in Switzerland, and got to Meiringen again. At the edge of the village I saw the customary army of guides, and among them the chap I had patronized some years before. I hired him again, and he pointed out to me the various places of interest. But you can imagine my surprise when he suddenly turned and said: ‘And this, sir, is the place where Monsieur Sherlock Holmes, the great English detective, was died.’ “To my astonishment, he went over the whole story, and finally picked out the spot where my friend and I, in speculation, decided that Holmes and Moriarty had vanished.” The guides very soon will be relating the story from the point of view’ of an eye-w r itness.—London Express.