[Illustration: AS ALDERMAN AND SHERIFF. From a Photograph by the London Stereoscopic Co.] [Illustration: AGE 38. From a Photograph.] [Illustration: PRESENT DAY AS LORD MAYOR. From a Photograph by the London Stereoscopic Co.] Mr. Stuart Knill, whose election to the Mayoralty this year was invested with unusual interest, is the son of the late Mr. John Knill, of Fresh Wharf, London Bridge, to whose business he succeeded. He was educated at the Blackheath Proprietary School, and at the University of Bonn. He entered the Corporation in 1885 as Alderman of the Ward of Bridge, and served the office of Sheriff in 1889-90. He is a member of the Goldsmiths' Company, and is now Master of the Guild of Plumbers for the second time. In this capacity he has taken great interest in all matters connected with sanitation and hygiene. He is a leading member of the Roman Catholic laity in England. _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes._ XIV.--THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX. BY CONAN DOYLE. In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable mental qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to select those which presented the minimum of sensationalism, while offering a fair field for his talents. It is, however, unfortunately, impossible to entirely separate the sensational from the criminal, and a chronicler is left in the dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which are essential to his statement, and so give a false impression of the problem, or he must use matter which chance, and not choice, has provided him with. With this short preface I shall turn to my notes of what proved to be a strange, though a peculiarly terrible, chain of events. It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like an oven, and the glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of the houses across the road was painful to the eye. It was hard to believe that these were the same walls which loomed so gloomily through the fogs of winter. Our blinds were half-drawn, and Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and rereading a letter which he had received by the morning post. For myself, my term of service in India had trained me to stand heat better than cold, and a thermometer at 90 was no hardship. But the morning paper was uninteresting. Parliament had risen. Everybody was out of town, and I yearned for the glades of the New Forest or the shingle of Southsea. A depleted bank account had caused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion, neither the country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him. He loved to lie in the very centre of five millions of people, with his filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to every little rumour or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation of Nature found no place among his many gifts, and his only change was when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town to track down his brother of the country.