In the previous post, I discussed how a medium, Eva C., fooled Arthur into fondling her ectoplasmic phallus. I mentioned that as the first example of Arthur’s unbounded gullibility because it’s my favorite. My second favorite I’ll describe here. It has to do with Arthur concluding, based on zero evidence, that some unknown number of dogs have brain power equivalent to humans.

Long after Louise dropped Holmes down Switzerland’s Reichenbach Falls, long after she was dead even, Arthur toured the world with his second wife, Jean, to spread the word of spiritualism, the belief that we can communicate with the dead via gifted people known as mediums. Regarding his trip down under, he recorded the events in his book Wanderings of a Spiritualist (1921). In that book, he recorded his encounter with particular fox terrier that had “a power of thought comparable, not merely to a human being, but even […] to a clairvoyant.” The dog had, allegedly, often demonstrated his remarkable ability by barking out the number of coins in a person’s pocket. When Arthur put it to the test, the dog began barking but would not stop. Arthur nonetheless expressed confidence in the dog’s supernatural abilities, attributing its poor performance to age and excitement. Arthur concluded his anecdote with a distinctly non-Sherlockian musing: “One wonders how many other dogs have human brains without the humans being clever enough to detect it.”

Though Arthur witnessed not a scintilla of evidence that the dog was in any way exceptional, he concluded nonetheless that the dog was not only as smart as a human, but clairvoyant as well. He based his conclusion on nothing more than the amazing claims of a dog owner he had not previously met.

Had Nigerian princes been trolling for easy marks in Victorian times, Arthur would have been at the front of the queue.