Date of Meeting: 20th June 2022
Location of Meeting:
The Sherloft, My House, Portsmouth, UK
Attendees:
"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller)
Apologies:
"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) was unavailable for comment.
Motions:
"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) moved.
Toast:
"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) toasted The Tapanuli Fever:
Pardon me Holmes, is that the Tapanuli Fever?
Oysters all multiply. Holmes, you can't really die
It's just whack to contract the Tapanuli Fever
I'll, I'll fetch Culverton Smith, then find Holmes's taking the piss.
etc.
Presentation:
"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) gave a long meandering talk about something or other:
Mr. Cross's Emporium
The following article which appeared in The Era on Saturday 9th January 1886 may interest the Holmesian zoologist. I have reproduced it word for word but have emphasised the words which highlight the Sherlockian importance of Mr. Cross’s emporium. Personally, I do find the content interesting as it gives an idea of the sort of things being traded around the globe with little regulation at the time.
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MR. CROSS’S EMPORIUM.
The address of this well-known importer of foreign animals and birds is familiar all over the globe. Sports-men, either upon the prairies of Western America or in the Indian jungles, know where they can find a ready market for such living trophies of their valour as can be placed on shipboard. At Yokohama or Valparaiso, at Auckland or Zanzibar, any product of the animal kingdom, safely caged and labelled " Cross, Liverpool," would, save through the malign influence of some of the many mysterious agencies which are duly notified in the current shipping note, arrive safe and sound at the Earle-street depot. Eastern and Western cable companies alike could testify to the frequency of the recurrence of this address, in connection with such advises as "Three lions, per Sumatra," "Elephants, per Ganges, this date," "Buffalo and bears, ex Brussels," "Forward giraffe first steamer, urgent," "Want two well-marked full-sized tigers." The weekly announcements of the arrivals at Earle-street rarely fail to record consignments of some hundreds of birds and animals. The visitor to Cross's will not find the same animals caged at Earle-street two weeks together. Herein is the explanation of those apparently incredible announcements of arrivals which most readers of The Era are familiar with. The business carried on is a transit business, the stock being received either "on order" or for sale, rather than for permanent exhibition, as in the case of ordinary menageries. Still, the capacity of the Earle-street depot is such as to afford housing room for a larger quantity of livestock at any particular time than most menageries can boast of. Among the larger animals noted at a recent visit were one male lion, four Russian wolves, one Prussian ditto, one polar bear, one full grown zebra, exquisitely marked; two antelopes, nine bears, nine pelicans, two ostriches, and a crane; a host of civet and tiger cats, goats, monkeys, birds, and snakes. In the yard stood the latest importation, in the shape of a full-grown Cape buffalo, which had just come off ship- board. This "specimen" was boxed up in a strong wooden structure, itself a novelty in the way of West Coast productions, and weighed altogether upwards of two tons. Had the stock which was out on exhibition been at home, it would have increased the above list by two full-grown lions and cubs; seven Russian bears, one river elephant, three antelopes, one llama, one hyena, one panther, one black tiger, one giant rat, two ostriches, twenty-five monkeys, and a multitude of vultures, eagles, small birds, and sundries. For a "snake study," Cross's cases, stocked as they generally are, would rejoice the heart of any budding naturalist, The cost of large full-grown animals is as high as 500, £800, or even £1,000; the difficulty and risk of transit being proportionately great. Still, the amount of stock passing safely through Mr Cross's hands in one year, received from all parts of the world, represents a very respectable animal kingdom. As "Secretary of State to the Animal World," Mr Cross's position is unique. America can boast of her Barnum, and England still possesses her Sanger; but the mammoth establishments of these celebrities combined would scarce afford storage room for the living specimens of natural historical interest which pass through the Earle-street depot year by year. As a matter of fact, Mr Cross often supplies the greatest novelties to exhibitions like those of Barnum and Sanger. Should either of these gentlemen desire a pair of full-grown elephants - white or ordinary - a pair of lions, tigers, or panthers, they have simply to wire "Cross, Liverpool," who, should he not have the goods in stock, will pass on the message by an Eastern Tele- graph company to his agent in the locality from which the animals call be obtained. Thus, with the greatest expedition the goods will be put on shipboard, bound westward, and will be handed over to their respective purchasers with as little delay as possible. Or should any zoological gardens desire to add to its existing stock, or to stock new premises, Mr Cross would undertake to supply the want in a space of time which to ordinary people would seem incredible. The character of his business is best gauged by a perusal of Mr Cross's ledger. In it are to be found accounts which have been opened at one time or another with the flower of the English aristocracy, from the Prince of Wales downwards. Coming into a more useful and commercial region, accounts are found with the best known naturalists, gardens, and circus proprietors. It is owing to this world-wide connection that Mr Cross has been announcing for years that he is always open to purchase any living curiosity, and, on the other hand, that he has such a marvellous weekly importation. At Earle-street may be gathered the latest information as to any members of the animal kingdom which may be on sale at home, or as to the most expeditious means of securing specimens of such as are abroad. Steamboat, rail, and telegraph are alike impressed into the work of supplying inhabitants for the aviary of the nobleman, the caravan of the showman, or the tiny wicker cage of the working man's home.
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The mention of a "giant rat" and imports from Sumatra naturally put me in mind of the untold story briefly mentioned in The Sussex Vampire: “Matilda Briggs was... a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.” I had never considered that importing giant rats might be a legitimate business activity before. This discovery led me on to investigate Mr. Cross’s Emporium of Earle Street, Liverpool a little further.
Earle Street is a very short street in the major port city of Liverpool. It currently contains just one building with an Earle Street address: the small Cross Keys pub at number 13. From adverts placed by Mr Cross's Emporium, we know it was at 16 and 18 Earle Street, so it must have been more or less opposite the Cross Keys in the site now occupied by Orleans House which now faces on to Edmund Street.
The above adverts were taken from The Era of Sunday 26th September 1880. Note that “giant rat” appears to be a common item of stock.
I did a little rooting about and managed to turn up the following about the Cross Menagerie. William Cross had been operating as an animal importer since 1865 and by the mid 1870 his firm was probably the biggest animal importer in England. He moved into the Earle Street premises in 1880 and in 1882 they began to admit paying visitors to view the animals they had in stock. Business continued in this way until 1898 when the premises suffered from a serious fire. At this point the public side of the business ceased trading but the import business continued until 1912 – being run by Cross’s children after he died in 1900.
By my calculations, the Matilda Briggs case must have taken place sometime between June 1876 and 19 November 1897 (that is, sometime between Holmes leaving university and telling Watson about the case during the adventure of The Sussex Vampire). Such timing makes it incredibly likely that Mr. Cross’s Emporium was involved with the importing of The Giant Rat of Sumatra – he was England’s main supplier of such animals, after all. From the way Holmes tells Watson about the case, it seems Watson was not involved in Holmes’s work at the time it took place. With Morrison, Morrison and Dodd stating they had not forgotten the Matilda Briggs case, they imply that enough time has passed that it would be possible for them to have forgotten. As such, I am inclined to believe that this is one of Holmes’s Montague Street cases, that is, pre-1881.
Of Matilda Briggs I can find no record other than a character in a short story title “Not So Bad After All” which appeared as a column filler in many newspapers around the world in 1878 and 1879 and a Mary Matilda Briggs who married Joseph Henry Bell in Leeds in 1879. (Sadly this was not the same Joe Bell who had once taught the literary agent.) Certainly, no ships of this name seem to have existed at the time. No doubt Watson supplied the ship with a pseudonym when he wrote about the giant rat in order to protect someone’s privacy, but among Watson’s many talents dissimulation finds no place and it is possible to deduce the name of the real vessel. You see, as well as being the name of a country, Sumatra was also the name of a barque. More than likely, at some point the Sumatra was conveying goods to Liverpool for Cross. In which case, Watson may have tipped his hand when he wrote of “the giant rat of Sumatra” – the rat came from the barque Sumatra – not the country, and was destined for the Cross menagerie.
I note that the chief officer of the Sumatra died at 226 Beaufort Street in Liverpool on 16th February 1880. Further, the Sumatra had been the subject of some mystery prior to this – in 1876 it caught fire and the crew abandoned it despite having the means to put the fire out. However, it was soon back in business, and I can find records of it in shipping columns up to at least September 1879.
Morrison, Morrison and Dodd were a firm specialising in the assessment of machinery, which rather complicates matters. What involvement might they have had in the shipping of exotic animals? For them to fit into this story, I believe they must have been brought in to assess the faulty machinery which led to the mysterious ship fire of 1876. Some special mechanism was on board that ship and, judging by their own and Holmes’s guarded talk about these matters, that mechanism was highly confidential.
From these identifiable fragments of story, I think it is possible to construct an approximate explanation for the “story for which the world is not yet prepared”. Cross, remember, imported animals for all sorts of clients and for all sorts of reasons. And Holmes spoke of the case not being ready for the public in 1897 (the year SUSS took place). This was a time of military secrets in the build up to the Great War. It seems evident to me that the story of the giant rat is very likely to be another matter of top secret military intelligence such as we saw in BRUC and NAVA. It follows, then, that the British military were using Cross to import giant rats in special circumstances for a secret military application.
The only explanation I can produce which explains all of these factors involves one of mankind’s worst innovations – biological warfare. We don’t know which country the giant rats were being imported from, but the Victorian age was one of great global exploration and conquest - more than likely they came from a new part of the Empire which also produced some hideous disease such as Tapanuli fever or the black Formosa corruption. The use of disease in warfare was by no means a new idea – texts indicate that as early as 1500 BC the Hittites would drive infectious sick people into enemy territory in order to cause epidemics. Throughout the 1700s “civilised” nations were using smallpox infected goods to conquer new colonies. Certainly, biological warfare was used in the Great War – anthrax being the most well-known weapon. So appalled was humanity at itself, that biological warfare was banned under the Geneva Convention in 1925.
It is no great leap, then, to suppose that British intelligence agencies, in the build up to 1914, had been looking for potential microbial weapons to assist in the inevitable world conflict. Having identified one in the form of a tropical disease somewhere in the Empire, the problem became how to safely transport it back to England to be experimented upon and weaponised. Rats, of course, are well known for their ability to transport disease. For this reason, the local giant rats were recruited. Once an infected individual was captured, it had to be safely taken back to England. Cross was brought in for his expertise in this field, but that was not enough. Special containment units would need to be constructed to keep the rats alive but segregated from the crew. These would require fresh air, despite being below decks. Some sort of pump would be in order, along with some sort of “air-lock” method for feeding and watering the creatures without coming into contact with them. Here we have the machinery which Morrison, Morrison and Dodd were concerned with. It seems to have failed twice that we know of. The first occasion was in 1876 when it started a fire. When this was investigated later in the year, the authorities seem to have been slightly perplexed as to why the ship had been abandoned, when it could have been put out easily with on board pumps. The secret reason, of course, is that the risk was not just of fire, but of the containment units being breached and infecting the crew. My belief is that this is when Morrison, Morrison and Dodd first entered the scene – they were consulted on how to avoid the same problem again – and they succeeded.
The second incident is likely to be the one which saw Holmes brought in. On 16th February 1880 Mr. Cowell, the chief officer of the Sumatra died aged only 26. Panic spread through all involved in the giant rat/biological weapon programme. Blame was thrown at Morrison, Morrison and Dodd for their inadequate containment unit designs. Morrison, Morrison and Dodd employed a rising young scientific investigator to clear their name and Holmes (possibly granted access to classified information by his brother) was able to defend the reputation of the firm by proving Cowell’s death was entirely unrelated. Remember, this is around the time Holmes is beginning to make a name for himself in official circles – little over a year later, when he first moved in with Watson, Holmes was already being consulted by policemen on a regular basis. Seeking an outside agent who could be trusted at this time would very likely have led MM&D to Holmes’s door.
Naturally, in 1897, Holmes would still have been guarding the secrets of this case carefully. The authorities would fear public outrage at the inhumane practice of using disease as a weapon and the enemies of England would not be given the opportunity to defend themselves against Britain’s arsenal. So there we have it – the real events behind the affair of the giant rat of Sumatra.
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