The Centenary Plugs & Dottles

If you've ever partaken of that certain perverse pleasure that comes with watching a car's odometer turn over at the 100, 000 mile mark, this is the issue of PLUGS & DOTTLES for you. Whether it's finding a staircase with just seventeen steps or winding up at a house numbered 221, the fascination with numbers evidences itself in all mankind, even Sherlockians. From that love of numbers we derive a good deal of our celebrations -- birthdays, anniversaries, the hundredth issue of PLUGS & DOTTLES ...

Sure, the Rascally Lascar will try to modestly play down the significance of this occasion. "P&D really wasn't P&D for a full hundred issues," he'll say. But though it may have passed a few issues under the name of "Hansomemos" or with no name at all, the spirit was still there. PLUGS & DOTTLES began with issue number 1 like any other publication; it's just that nobody knew that it was called PLUGS & DOTTLES for a while. The newsletter's destiny was upon it, even as editor Burr hand-lettered the words "The Hansoms of John Clayton" at the top of the first issue.

"The Hansoms of John Clayton" was ably coined as the name of our scion society by our founder and most famous member, Philip Jose' Farmer. The title of our journal, WHEELWRIGHTINGS, soon followed from the brain of its original editor, George Scheetz. But the name of our newsletter-that was the work of Mr. Robert C. Burr, the man who has held every office the Hansoms of John Clayton has found need for: secretary-treasurer, jouraal editor, "Big Wheel" (the less said about that last one, the better -- some things are best left to the "opalescent London reek"), and sergeant-at-arms (every time he blows that whistle).

Just why Bob chose "Plugs & Dottles" to be the name of the Hansoms' newsletter is something that has never really been explained to anyone. Such being the case, perhaps it is time we did a little Sherlockian investigation into the matter. In these days when many noted Sherlockian scholars are spending time trying to discover just why Conan Doyle gave a character or town one name or the other, a more local study into the inspiration of our own Rascally Lascar does not seem like such a bad idea.

At first glance, the name "Plugs & Dottles" does not seem to have any kind of connection with hansom cabs or John Clayton, as the journal title WHEELWRIGHTINGS does. Looking again, however, one might remember that "plug" has been used as a slang word for an old, worn-out horse. Certainly there must have been many such nags pulling the hansoms of London, so we have found one connection. But what are we to make of "dottles"? Other than in the sense of tobacco leftovers, "dottle" really has no usage. Unless, of course, we refine it down to its origins ... and there we find something that may shed some light on Bob's arcane thought processes.

The word "dottle," used as it is to describe pipe tobacco leavings, is thought to have its beginning in the Middle English sense of the word "dot," which at that time meant, basically, "lump." Now, if we take "plug" to mean an old horse, and we find a "lump" immediately after it, as we do in the title "Plugs & Dottles," we can only assume that the lump is one thing-the same stuff they make the Moriarty Memorial out of each year in Moriarty, New Mexico. We thus discover that "Plugs & Dottles" does have a hansom-related origin, and that the mind of Robert C. Burr is far subtler than that of the average lascar. But what comment does this analysis leave us as to the contents of each issue of PLUGS & DOTTLES?

As contributors to the last forty-some issues of this newsletter, we would rather not consider that possibility. Rather, we would turn your attention to "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb." There we are told that Holmes's first pipe of the morning was always composed of the "plugs and dottles from his smokes of the day before, all carefully dried and collected on the corner ofthe mantelpiece." In that, the title PLUGS & DOTTLES surely finds its best source. Even to the seasoned pipe smoker such a pipe of plugs and dottles as Holmes smoked would surely be the stoutest mixture he could find -- a smoke with a real bite to it. As the month goes by, Bob, too, collects and "dries" the Sherlockian pleasures of each previous day. Consider the meeting notes, the tidbits and trivia, the letters from Holmes, the groaners, the relentlessly on-time publishing schedule, the comments on the Sherlockian scene, and that something more that always seems to turn up in each issue. When publication time comes, Mr. Burr definitely has one of the stoutest newsletters around.

So congratulate that rascal of lascars on one hundred issues of P&D the next time you see him. And while you’re at it, ask him just why this publication is named PLUGS & DOTTLES . . . just to be sure.

(Printed in Plugs & Dottles, January 1987)