The Hounds of the Internet Meet the Baker Street Irregulars

A bit of a fuss came up in certain Sherlockian circles of late. Tom Stix, head of the Baker Street Irregulars, decided to do a little inventory of just who was an official scion society of the Baker Street Irregulars and who wasn't. As Tom has been tidying up the loose ends of the BSI since he first came into power, this little accounting should have come as a surprise to no one.

But it did. The whole business of scion societies of the Baker Street Irregulars has been handled so loosely for so long that most of us use the terms "Sherlockian society" and "scion society" interchangeably.  Suddenly, however, some groups found that they weren't "scion societies" anymore. You have to have the official paperwork, either from a past head of the BSI or the current head. Suddenly the world of Sherlockian societies had its version of star-bellied sneetches and plain-bellied sneetches, and a lot of people were bothered by it.

One of the places that the bother was most evident was on the Internet, the network of computer networks that is home to the Hounds of the Internet, Sherlockians from all over the place who discuss Holmes through electronic mail. Since there are hundreds of Sherlockians connected with the Hounds, the opinions were diverse and the discussion fascinating. I wasn't connected to the Hounds at the time, but a friend sent me copies of their e-mail exchanges, which I read in one sitting.

And read in one sitting, the whole scion debate distilled down to one essential point: nobody really knows what goes on inside BSI. The Hounds were used to instant information over their electronic pathways, and they had plenty. They had detailed histories of the BSI/scion relationship. They had explicit rumors of the policy's origins. They had the personal experiences and knowledge of a host of solid, intelligent Sherlockians. But the Hounds still didn't have answers.

But what does anybody really know about the BSI?

They meet once a year in New York. Tom Stix sends out the invitations. There's a journal, but its connection to the parent group is as nebulous to the casual observer as scion affiliations are.

To the novice Sherlockian, there is a certain mystique to the notion of a distant and exalted circle of grand old Sherlockians running the grand old organization.  The lack of communication adds to that mystique, and an invitation to the annual dinner strikes like a bolt from the blue. And once you're in the group ... well, things stay pretty much the same, except that the invitation isn't a bolt from the blue.

Back in the early days when the head of the BSI was also editor and front man of The Baker Street Journal, there was a certain presence -- the sort of thing that one finds in smaller groups. Even if you didn't know Edgar Smith personally, you felt like you did, just from reading his Journals. But times change, and the job has grown into two jobs, leaving the editor of the BSJ in a very visible spot and the head of the BSI in a very invisible spot.

Sure, the head of the BSI is easy to see if you're one of the lucky folks who gets to go to the BSI dinner each year -- he's up in the front, behind the podium. But to the rest of the Sherlockian world, Tom Stix, Jr. is mainly a name that mysteriously appeared when Julian Wolfe's disappeared. The Baker Street Journal of that time didn't even introduce us to the man and his credentials, which may have been a mistake. The Sherlockian world is a big place these days, and not everybody makes it to the East coast, nor knows its Sherlockians.

The Hounds of the Internet are not some isolated bunch of computer geeks. They are as much a cross-section of the Sherlockian world as you will find, and fairly representative of that world. Their confusion, frustration, and cries of "Data! Give me data!" should not pass unnoticed. Communication is the key to any human relationship, be it husband-wife, friend-friend, or Sherlockian leadership-Sherlockian masses. And the media for that communication should not be hard to find.