Sherlock Holmes Jazz Age Parodies Update; “Chaste Salute”

Yes, work is continuing on the last volume in the 223B Casebook Series: “Sherlock Holmes Jazz Age Parodies and Pastiches II: 1925-1930.” The stories have been assembled and the introductions and footnotes researched and written. The manuscript went off to First Reader (Teresa) and came back battered and stained in red ink.

This past week, I’ve been working through her notes, making corrections and writing new footnotes. By the weekend, I should have the new material in her hands, then someone else will check the manuscript for anything missing and we’ll go into production!

This means that we should have both Vol. 7 and the Best-of volume available at Scintillation of Scions in June! That’s been the goal all along, and we’re thrilled to reach the end of this project!

(Note: We do plan on one more book on a very special subject, but we’ll save that announcement for later!)

But What Is a Chaste Salute?

“Mary of the Prairie or, Should She Have Let Him?” from the October 1927 issue of Carnival magazine is not so much a parody of Holmes but of silent movies set in the West featuring honorable cowpunchers and the pure-hearted damsels who love them.

Ever since “The Great Train Robbery” launched the genre in 1903, Hollywood flooded the theatres with all kinds of Western stories, and after a couple decades the genre was looking ratty around the edges and prime for ribbing. “Mary of the Prairie” tells the story of Steve Roughneck, a tough cowpuncher with penetrating and powerful steely blue eyes.

His love, Mary, according to the story:

Mary (of the prairie) lived at Dead Dog Ranch. Except for her parents and five small sisters she was all alone in the world. All day long she would do useful tasks about the house, in spite of her mother’s earnest requests that she should not; while in the evenings she would sit by the fire knitting bedsocks for the cowboys, and gazing at her father with an expression of gentle wistfulness that nearly drove the old man frantic.

When she is kidnapped, Mary’s father visits Gabriel Syme. We see him folded in an armchair, smoking a hookah. When he asks his friend Blotson for his violin, the response is classic parody:

“No, Syme, no,” he shrieked. “You promised me not to. I thought I had cured you of the dreadful habit. I beg you — not the violin. Try the cocaine,” he added, pushing it over.

But once Syme is hired, we’re off and running. In between descriptions of the chase, the author inserts to the producer to insert stock footage to fill out the run time and get them to the end of the story.

The movie reaches its climax when Mary, captured by cannibals and tied to a stake (in a Western?) is being followed by Steve, when there’s one last note to the producer:

You ought to be able to finish this yourself now; rescue in the nick of time; long embrace; close up of chaste salute …

So, what is a chaste salute?

I Suppose You’re Going to Tell Us

It’s a kiss anywhere other than on the lips.

At least, that’s how it was described in 1897, in a court case that appeared in the New York Journal and Advertiser.

The case involved Marshall McDaniells, an elderly employee at a furniture store and Mrs. Viola Dias, the pretty housewife who bought a pair of curtains from the store and was paying it off at 50 cents a week.

Every week, McDaniells appeared at her door, after her husband left for work, to collect his two quarters. This time, something else happened:

“Mrs. Dias gave him a two-dollar bill, and he handed her $1.60.

“ ‘You have given me ten cents too much,’ said she.

“ ‘Oh, that is all right,’ he replied, with a languishing sigh.

“Mrs. Dias marvelled. To this day she does not know whether her elderly [Editor’s note: He was 55.] admirer meant to tender the odd ten cents as payment for the kiss to which he meant to help himself. Possibly it was partly indignation at his presumption in assessing her favors at such a low figure that prompted her to prosecute him so bitterly.

“At all events Mrs. Dias told the jury yesterday that McDaniells continued to chat for a few minutes after giving her a receipt and that when he rose to go he offered her his hand.

“ ‘It seemed a little unusual,’ she said, in telling her story, ‘but I thought he meant no harm and gave him my hand. He grasped it tightly and pulled me toward him. and before I could stop him he had kissed me.’”

The newspaper quoted with admirable accuracy how McDaniells’ lawyer tried to pass it off as “nothing more dreadful than a chivalrous tribute to a charming woman. You know, gentlemen, and I know — ha! ha! — how hard it is to resist such a temptation. He! He!”

McDaniells didn’t help himself by taking the stand, either. He stammered a sad attempt at a compliment towards Mrs. Dias, “but his wit had deserted him, and he was dumb.”

The prosecutor, too, wasn’t having any of this “boys will be boys” defense. He told the jury McDaniell was “a villain of the deepest dye, who would insinuate himself into a happy home, ostensibly on business, and try to wreck it. The jury, Benedicts to a man, and many of them the installment purchasers of chenille portieres, found McDaniells guilty.”

How seriously should we take this? Clearly, Mrs. Dias was offended. Was the reporter? One wonders if the reporter decided to have some fun with this small domestic drama — which appeared in the back of the newspaper, next to the real estate ads — not only quoting so much of the vital testimony directly, but throwing in the Shakespearian reference to Benedicts — the lover in Much Ado About Nothing — and a jury of chenille portiere-purchasers.

Postscript: Another newspaper reported that the defense attorney also tried to play the “she was asking for it” defense: