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Mark Andrew Pardoe
Detective Sergeant
Username: Picapica
Post Number: 65
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 7:01 pm: | 
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Whatho all,
If the Ripper was included in the lighter side of Sir Robert Anderson's official, what the Hell would he have put in his darker side?
Cheers, Mark |
Chris Phillips
Detective Sergeant
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 77
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 10, 2003 - 5:59 pm: |
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I thought these paragraphs shed a little light on Anderson's better known comments on "low-class Polish Jews" and French police procedures (from pp. 144, 145):
[in a discussion of the rarity of "undiscovered murders" in London]
And Mr Herbert Gladstone added that, in some of the cases where no one was made amenable, the criminals were known to the Police, but evidence to justify an arrest was not obtainable. One of the 1908 murder cases, for example, was in this category, both the witnesses and the victim being low-class Polish Jews. This element, I may add, of offences by aliens against aliens, is not a negligible one in considering the crime of London. And even among our own people, it sometimes happens that the murderer is known, but evidence is wholly wanting. In such circumstances the French Police would arrest the suspected person, and build up a case against him at their leisure, mainly by admissions extracted from him in repeated interrogations.
I recall a case in which I allowed myself to be goaded by popular clamour into taking a first step in French procedure. It was a murder that excited unusual interest, and the murderer, a near relative of the victim, sided with the newspapers in a sustained outcry against Scotland Yard. So
I sent for the man, my ostensible object being to satisfy him that the Police were doing their duty. As I examined him on the case he gave himself away over and over again. In any French court a report of that interrogation might have convicted the criminal. In an English court it would have raised a storm that might have brought my official career to a close! I never tried that game again.
Chris Phillips
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Jeffrey Bloomfied
Detective Sergeant
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 67
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 10, 2003 - 10:20 pm: |
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Hi Chris,
One man's rarity is another man's surplus. Anderson would naturally underplay the number of
unsolved murders, or relatively unsatisfactory
trials. The very year that THE LIGHTER SIDE
was published there were at least four cases
(three still recalled) that ended in convictions
that were less than fully appreciated by the public. I am referring to (in 1910-11) the trials of John Alexander Dickman for killing John Nisbet on a train; the trial of Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen for the murder of his wife; the trial of William Broome for killing a storekeeper; and the trial of Steinie Morrison for killing Leon Beron. In all four cases the evidence was controversial (even Crippen's), or (in Crippen's case) there was tremendous sympathy for the accused. But they were all convictions, so Anderson would consider they were police success stories, and more telling than unsolved cases. But the unsolved cases still occurred. While people talked of Crippen's trial and conviction, they had to watch as Cornelius Howard and Mark Wilde stand trial one after the other for the murder of George Storrs at Gorse Hall, and both get acquitted despite damning evidence. Earlier, in 1902, William Gardiner was tried twice (and
acquitted twice) of murdering a woman at Peasonhall. Similarly 1908 saw the conviction of
Oscar Slater for the murder of Marion Gilchrist - a killing that he was all but framed for, and which was not undone until Slater spent 20 years in prison. 1908 also was the year that Mrs. Luard was shot and killed, and her husband driven
to suicide. But Anderson (presumably) would have dismissed all these. Probably he would have
also dismissed the problems connected towards the
Hounditch killings of the three police officers, and the subsequent Siege of Sidney Street in 1910.
By the way, the 1908 murder involving "low - class Polish Jews" may be the case of Noah Woolfe, an elderly Jew who had converted to
Christianity, and murdered another Jew in an
old age home. According to Frederick Wensley,
Woolfe was mistreated for converting, and killed
out of built-up anger at this treatment. Wensley
said he always felt sorry for Woolfe (who was
executed).
Best wishes,
Jeff |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 263
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 11, 2003 - 7:22 pm: |
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Hi Chris
If you have the book, I don't suppose it has a cover, does it? I was wondering if there was any JTR blurb. I'm curious as to how strong a selling point JTR would have been in 1910.
Robert |
Chris Phillips
Detective Sergeant
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 79
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2003 - 4:56 am: |
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The closest thing to a blurb is in the preface (which begins 'A book of this kind needs no preface...').
This says that 'It has been pressed upon him [the author], moreover, that they must be of exceptional interest, seeing that they were made the subject of a "full-dress debate" in Parliament; and that, too, at a time when opportunity could not be found for any adequate discussion of great questions of national importance and gravity.'
Obviously the criticism of Anderson in Parliament still rankled. But the debate was almost exclusively about the Irish aspects of Anderson's career (with only one brief reference to his revelations about the Ripper).
Chris Phillips
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Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 266
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2003 - 8:47 am: |
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OK, Chris, thanks.
Robert |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2681
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - 1:03 pm: |
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The following is a quote from Sir Robert Anderson in this volume when he is discussing the Whitechapel Murders:
‘For may I say at once that ‘undiscovered murders’ are rare in London…’
Now, this quote is from the man who was in charge of the CID between 1888 and 1892, therefore I find it implausible that he discounts the 17 ‘undiscovered murders’ that took place in 1889, none of which resulted in conviction, as quoted by The Times in the Metropolitan Police Report of the year.
What planet was this guy living on? |
Sir Robert Anderson
Chief Inspector
Username: Sirrobert
Post Number: 562
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - 1:13 pm: |
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"What planet was this guy living on? "
Religious zealotry coupled with the mindset of the bureaucrat.
Sir Robert
'Tempus Omnia Revelat'
SirRobertAnderson@gmail.com
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Chris Phillips
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 1529
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - 1:19 pm: |
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AP
Though to be fair his statement was coupled with a claim that "if the Police here had powers such as the French Police possess" the Ripper could have been brought to justice. So it may be that he took the view that the police "knew" more than they were able to prove in court regarding the "undiscovered murders".
Chris Phillips
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Sir Robert Anderson
Chief Inspector
Username: Sirrobert
Post Number: 563
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - 1:35 pm: |
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""if the Police here had powers such as the French Police possess""
I've always taken this to mean "if we had the ability to beat the living $h!t out of a suspect to get a confession". Am I wrong ?
Sir Robert
'Tempus Omnia Revelat'
SirRobertAnderson@gmail.com
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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2686
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - 5:33 pm: |
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Fair enough, Chris, but he should have known that 17 murders took place on his beat in 1889 and he didn't solve one of them.
That doesn't make murder rare, it is blue.
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c.d.
Sergeant
Username: Cd
Post Number: 34
Registered: 9-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - 9:41 pm: |
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AP,
When Anderson's book came out and people read what he had to say about the Ripper, I would expect that Scotland Yard would have been besieged by inquiries asking for confirmation and details of Anderson's account. I am wondering if they would have made some statement to the public or had interest in Jack completely abated at this point?
c.d. |
Stanley D. Reid
Inspector
Username: Sreid
Post Number: 467
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 18, 2005 - 10:05 pm: |
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Hi c.d.
There may have been some lulls but I don't think interest in the crimes was ever completely abated. If that had been the case, Anderson would probably have chosen to cover his failure by not bringing up the matter at all.
Stan |
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