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Contemporary Parallels
Casebook Message Boards: General Discussion: General Topics:
Contemporary Parallels
Author: Jim Leen
Monday, 16 October 2000 - 03:51 pm |        | Hello Anybody,
Although I've alluded to the "Bible John" case in the past, if you bear with me I'll get to the point, I thought certain parallels could be drawn between it and JTR.
POTTED HISTORY
In Late 1969/1970, three young women were killed by an unknown assailant who picked up the monicker "Bible John". He was called this after sharing a taxi with one of his victims and her friend, and making constant Biblical references.
His modus operandi was that of a classic sex-killer. His victims were selected from the clientele of a public dance hall and "Bible John" would later rape and kill them. One curious aspect is that all the girls were menstruating when they were killed.
Now what are the parallels that I speak of?
Well, I would venture to suggest that for us Glaswegians of a certain vintage, "Bible John" is as notorious as Jack the Ripper in his "heyday". An audacious killer that escaped capture even though making few attempts to protect his identity.
But the most interesting fact is that even 30 years after the events, the police are still searching for the killer. (Just a few years ago a dead suspect was exhumed and the remains were subject to genetic testing.) Today I read in the paper that the police are investigating a new lead. What is most astonishing though is that the police authorities receive around FIVE tip-offs per year, each one investigated.
This situation would be similar to the Met. following up lines of enquiry concerning JTR up to the end of the First Great War. But more importantly it would show up in urban consciousness. That is, the locals would talk about the killings. For instance, I have categorically been told the identity of "Bible John". Usually by friends of a friend etc. Naturally, there are very little elements of reality in these apocraphyl tales.
But the point is, where are the apocraphyal tales from Victorian London?
I'm sorry about the spelling and the confused message contained in tha above. Unfortunately I'm writing this whilst trying to teach my neiece the piano!
Yours etc
Jim Leen |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 17 October 2000 - 09:25 am | | Hi Jim,
As you know (but others may not), the third victim and her friend actually met two men on the fateful night, both called John. They paired off for a while to talk, the girls breaking a prearranged pact to stay together. But later the girls met up again, and 'Bible' John called the taxi to take them home, while the other John went off on his own by bus. The friend got dropped off home first, then the taxi driver dropped off 'Bible' John and his victim together.
Do you know anything about this other John? Is it clear whether the two men actually knew one another, and were together when they decided to chat up the girls? And was he ever traced and questioned?
Thanks.
It does seem odd that no one was able or willing to come up with Bible John's identity, unless of course he normally kept his liking for biblical references a closely guarded secret. (I wonder if only his mother knew?)
Interesting case.
Tell your niece good luck with tickling the ivories.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Jim Leen
Wednesday, 18 October 2000 - 04:55 am | | Hello Caz,
Nice to hear from you again. As you say "Bible John" is a most interesting case, and not too long ago either.
From memory I think the other John came forward whilst the killer of Helen Puddock, I think that's correct, disappeared into the mists of history.
At the time the police were overwhelmed with information and quite regularly arresting people on suspicion then releasing them after they proved their credentials. It got so bad for some men, who bore such a likeness to the description, that the police gave them cards which they could present to any would-be arresting officers.
Like you say, the Biblical references must have been a private matter and, shades of Norman Bates, he must have been known to someone.
I'll pass on your good wishes to my niece. Currently she's prospering with her attempts of the works of the Great Classicists Lewis, Penman, Presley and Cochrane.
Thanking you
Jim Leen |
Author: Jeffrey
Wednesday, 18 October 2000 - 11:54 am | | Hello Everybody,
Today, (and this is not thru personal experience) if you are being interviewed by the police in the station, are helping with their enquiries regarding a particular investigation, or you get pulled over in your car, the police can call up your records and know absolutely everything there is to know about you, down to the colour underwear you put on that morning, within a matter of minutes.
In Victorian times, what would the police have to do to get background information on a person they are interviewing or investigating ? Where would a persons criminal records be held and how would an investigating officer know if the person he had in front of him had any kind of criminal (or mental for that matter) history? How would an investigator know if he had the right person in the first place, with the variety of alias' that people would use.
Can anyone help and maybe give a brief explanation of how the police work, how/where they kept records and what they would have to do to get a persons "rap-sheet" ? Where were criminal records held, at the courts, at the police station ?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Regards
Jeff D |
Author: Jim Leen
Thursday, 25 April 2002 - 10:26 am | | Hello Everybody, or indeed anybody,
Recent events in France have overshadowed some strange events of the past few weeks.
My main point, (some self-censorship has creeped in, coward that I am), is that the hoary old chestnut about Jewish witnesses being unable to testify against a fellow Jew in a Gentile Court has, again, resurfaced. It has recently been used in connection with a failed libel case. More self-censorship I'm afraid.
Is it not almost beyond belief that such an ideal can still bitterly prevail even today? Can a modern perspective now be applied to certain aspects of the JTR suspects list?
Thanking you
Jim Leen |
Author: maria giordano
Thursday, 25 April 2002 - 04:53 pm | | Dear Jim;
Did people believe that in 1888? Did Jews believe that in 1888?
Even if it wasn't against Jewish law, it wouldn't be unknown for immigrant groups to refuse to rat each other out to the cops. Then deal with the person in their own way.
Given the hysteria the crimes caused and the already virulent anti-Semitism of the times, I think maybe Lawende had something there. (even though it drives us crazy now)
Maria |
Author: Monty
Friday, 26 April 2002 - 07:57 am | | Jim,
In my line of work I have found that some (when I say some I do not mean Jews, Im referring to any minority) sick together whilst others cannot wait to stick the boot in.
Whether their reasons are born out of jealousy or loyalty I do not know. But you cannot say that one person didnt testify against another soley because they are of the same colour or creed.
Monty
 |
Author: Jim Leen
Friday, 26 April 2002 - 10:26 am | | Hello Maria and Monty,
In the first instance, we have, from the serialised form of Sir Robert Anderson's memoirs, "...the only person who ever had a good view of the murderer at once identified him, but when he learned that the suspect was a fellow-Jew he declined to swear to him."
This was amended, in The Lighter Side of My Official Life, to "...the only person who ever saw the murderer unhesitatingly identified the suspect the instant he was confronted with him; but he refused to give evidence against him."
However, Chief Inspector Swanson, with his now notorious margin entry, personally clarified the issue. Underneath the text he wrote "...because the suspect was also a Jew and also because his evidence would convict the suspect, and witness would be the means of murderer being hanged, which he did not want to be left on his mind. D.S.S."
We can see without any great analysis that there was a common conviction abroad at the time that Jews would never give up one of their own to gentile justice. Palpable nonsense of course.
Now, what about this example. The writer believes that a friend would never have lost a court case if the Jewish plaintiff had recited "...that unifying prayer on Yom Kippur which authorizes that Jews may lie in a gentile court of law."
Incredible isn't it? The scary part is that the words were printed in the London Evening Standard in November 2001. Private Eye, scurrilous but entertaining magazine, this week printed, "...Unsurprisingly the Standard could not find room on its letter page for (the writer's) bonkers claim that all Jews may in religious good conscience break the laws of the land."
So there you have it. Definitive proof that old lies never die. They just hide for a while.
Thanking you
Jim Leen |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Friday, 26 April 2002 - 07:19 pm | | Dear Jim,
What do you really think about the question you pose? Or were you being rhetorically-challenging?
Rosey :-) |
Author: Jim Leen
Monday, 29 April 2002 - 12:18 pm | | Hello Rosey,
What do you really think about the question I posed?
Thanking you
Jim Leen |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Monday, 29 April 2002 - 08:25 pm | | Well Jim,
I swear I provided the semblance of an answer on this thread...somewhere? Why...it was right after
emm...whatsisname?
"Sensiblities", Jim.Or, as I like to term them,
"Psychoses", at the very heart of this very human condition.One day, we may get to the truth of the matter...whatever THAT is.
(PS. The hand that rocks the Casebook rules the world)
Rosey :-) |
Author: Jim Leen
Wednesday, 01 May 2002 - 05:57 am | | Hello Rosey,
I see that some insulting responses were deleted from this thread. So well done to Ally.
With my kind hearted sensibilities I'm only glad I didn't see them. And with my kind hearted cynicism I'm sure I can guess what they said. Mr. Radka's response would, I'm sure, have been intriguing.
There's an element of irony involved here. With the deletion of insulting responses I'm sure, Rosey, that you can see that the heart of the human condition still needs attention.
Thanking you
Jim Leen |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Thursday, 02 May 2002 - 10:39 am | | Jim--Hello. There's another statement of Anderson's that is equally troubling and perhaps goes to the heart of the matter. This is the strange complaint that Anderson voices about the difference between 'moral' and 'legal' evidence. Anderson claims to have known the Ripper's identity with moral certainty, but had no evidence that he could present in court. What on earth did he mean by this? How could he have been certain of the Ripper's identity while at the same time having no useable legal evidence?
From Swanson's statement, it is clear that this refers to the Jewish witness. Anderson evidently was convinced that an identification was made and the witness was merely refusing to testify. This is very dubious stuff, if you ask me. First of all, if Anderson's witness is Lawende--and he certainly appears to be--then the record indicates that Lawende was fully cooperating with the police. He made a statement in October 1888. He came forward again when Sadler was arrested. He came forward a third time during the identifiacation at the Seaside Home. By this time, however, a great deal of time had passed. It seems very unlikely that he could have made a positive identification based on a brief sighting made months [years] earlier in a darkened street. Even back in 1888, Lawende stated that he had doubts about identifying the man again. Besides, I doubt very much that had the witness refused to testify against a Jewish suspect he would have admitted this to the police. The police would have pressured him to testify. It might have even caused him legal troubles. No, it seems to me that Lawende [or whoever the witness was] merely was doubtful about his identification and that Anderson jumped to the ridiculous conclusion that a thoroughly respectable member of the Jewish community wouldn't cooperate with the Gentile authorities.
Ironically, nearly all we know about Kosminski's personality comes from Jacob Cohen, who seems to have willingly given his information to the 'Gentile authorities' at Colney Hatch. True they weren't police, but still. Also, it's interesting that Stewart Evans' theorizes in his paper on the 'Seaside Home' that it must have been someone like Cohen [or perhaps Kosminski's sister-in-law] that first alerted the authorities to Kosminski's odd behavior. This seems reasonable. It would make Anderson's statement rather hypocritical, no? I find it impossible to take Anderson's claims seriously.
Finally, one odd thing. Ever notice that the Goulston Street writing can be read as a paraphrase of Anderson's later slur?!? For 'the juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing', one might well read 'people of that class in the East End will not give up one of their number to justice'. So yes, you're right. Old lies die hard.
If you've read this far, thanks. Cheers, RP |
Author: david rhea
Thursday, 02 May 2002 - 02:40 pm | | | Could Kosminski have written the Ghoulston Street Graffito? |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Thursday, 02 May 2002 - 07:25 pm | | Dear RJ,
Nice piece of textual analysis. Shame you miss the point.
Rosey :-) |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Friday, 03 May 2002 - 05:23 am | | PS. He often spake in parables...remind you of anyone?
Rosey :-) |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Friday, 03 May 2002 - 05:49 am | | | Rosey---Hi. Let me just say that Belloc Lowndes had the ultimate revenge on Anderson's 'mad Jew' theory... If you get my drift. Cheers, RP |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Friday, 03 May 2002 - 09:04 am | | Dear RJ,
But did he know his 'pesher' from his 'para-ble'?
Or which came first?
Rosey :-) |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Saturday, 04 May 2002 - 05:05 am | | Stricter still were the alliterative rules of the Cymric Bardic Academy..."Dychymig Dychymig" loose
translation being 'riddle a riddle'. And the Dechymic pwy yw...'find me!'
Rosey :-) |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Saturday, 04 May 2002 - 12:41 pm | | Hi RJ,
'No, it seems to me that Lawende [or whoever the witness was] merely was doubtful about his identification...'
Not only that, but who did the witness think he was supposed to be identifying? Simply a Jewish man he saw with one of Jack's victims before she was found murdered? I don't know if they did, but if the police ever talked at the time in terms of the witness being the only man to have had a good look at the murderer, they might already have been going too far, if no one was known to have witnessed any of the actual murders taking place.
It's one thing, offering up a fellow Jew to Gentile justice if the witness knows that justice will be done and the true killer convicted. It's quite another offering up a fellow human being to dubious justice, when not only might he be doubtful about his identification after a lapse of time, but when this suspect, for all he knows, could have had absolutely nothing to do with the crime itself. The witness was presumably given no clue as to what other evidence, if any, the police had against the suspect. Perhaps he feared there was none at all, and that his testimony alone would be used to hang a possibly innocent man. At the very least, what other evidence there was wasn't strong enough to convict by itself.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Jim Leen
Monday, 06 May 2002 - 07:03 am | | Hello Everybody,
R.J., you mentioned "the strange complaint that Anderson voices about the difference between 'moral' and 'legal' evidence."
One thought that springs to mind is that the identification at the Seaside Home, if it took place at all, would, I think, be illegal. Theoretically the witness could not identify a sole suspect because it would then prejudice the case against the defendant. So if Lawende, or whomever, agreed the suspect was The Ripper the evidence, i.e. identification, would be inadmissable at any subsequent trial. I think that this fact alone casts a haze over the veracity of the whole Seaside story.
But I could be wrong. Perhaps others, better qualified than I, could offer corrections.
Thanking you
Jim Leen |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 06 May 2002 - 09:29 am | | Hi Jim,
But I remain puzzled as to how any witness could possibly have 'agreed the suspect was The Ripper', if everything he witnessed took place before a victim was actually murdered. This is the problem I have with the police jumping the gun and suggesting a witness had a good look at the murderer, when the best he could have done was to have a good look at the man he saw in the company of a woman that he believed was the same woman found murdered shortly afterwards.
I look forward to hearing other people's views on the legality or otherwise of such an identification. But I still maintain that had the witness agreed to testify, and the identification been admissable in court, the witness could only have identified the murderer if there was some other strong evidence that the man he saw with the woman went on to kill that woman.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Jim Leen
Monday, 06 May 2002 - 10:52 am | | Hello Caz,
There may be a difference between the last person SEEN with a victim and the last person ACCOMPANYING a victim. My apologies, incidentally, the block capitals should actually be italicised. Block capitals do look so DRAMATIC and possibly even ANGRY, don't you think?
Perhaps the witness was scared to testify because, as you say, the intervening years may have brought an element of doubt into their testimony. But the possibility that the Seaside story is apocryphal should not also be discounted. That way one does not besmirch the reputation of Anderson and Swanson and the whole issue does not become complicated by further doubts.
Thanking you
Jim Leen |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Tuesday, 07 May 2002 - 12:50 am | | Jim/Caz--Hi. Interesting ideas and some troubling questions.
A couple more things to consider, perhaps. [I spent a good part of this past week-end reviewing the whole case against Kosminski, so here's a comment or two while it is still relatively clear in my head --if that's possible!]
Concerning Anderson's 'moral certainty'. There seems to be the very real possibility that Anderson's witness [Lawende?] indentified a second man as the Mitre Square murderer--William Grant Grainger--three or four years after the Kosminski identification. Anderson doesn't mention this, of course. If this is true, I hardly need to point out how completely worthless this would make the already questionable earlier identification. It wouldn't make Anderson look particularly good either.
As many people have already noted, there is one glaring contradiction in the whole witness identification. Lawende clearly admitted that he wouldn't be able to identify the man again. Yet, Anderson claims--two years later--that the witness 'at once identified the suspect.' How can this be anything other than a contradiction?
I draw the following conclusions:
If Anderson is being completely honest, then Lawende wasn't the witness.
If Lawende was the witness, then Anderson was wrong, and was probably even being irresponsible.
And this doesn't even address Caz's valid point that Lawende didn't even see the man committing the crime.
Point #2. Lawende's description [30ish, sailor-like} doesn't fit very well with how most of us imagine Kosminski. It does, however, quite possibly describe how Grainger appeared in 1888. Personally, I'm somewhat surprised that Grainger has't received more attention. He seems like an interesting suspect. [On the otherhand, an identificatin seven years after the fact is even harder to accept than the Seaside Home business]
Finally, some have offered the interesting idea that Anderson's witness might have been Levy, who knew a Kosminski family. I see a couple of problems with this. First, Levy claimed that he couldn't indentify the man outside of Mitre Square. So, if we are to speculate that the witness was Levy, we have to start from the uncomfortable premise that he was withholding information from the police. But beyond this, it makes mince-meat out of Anderson's statement, "[the witness] at once identified [Kosminski], but when he learned that the suspect was a fellow-Jew he declined to swear to him." If Anderson is accurate, then clearly the identification was made before the witness was aware that Kosminski was Jewish. It rules out the possibility that the witness was someone who knew Kosminski and was protecting him.
But I do sympathize with how 'wrong' Lawende seems as Anderson's witness. Everything points to him, yet what we know of him seems to make nonsense of Anderson's claims.
RP |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 07 May 2002 - 06:42 am | | Hi RJ,
Thanks for acknowledging my point that no witness ever saw the murderer in action, as far as we know. Whoever the witness was, it appears he only saw a man who may or may not have gone on to kill the woman he was with when seen. We don't know what other reasons the police may have had for suspecting this man was indeed the murderer.
But even you wrote:
'There seems to be the very real possibility that Anderson's witness [Lawende?] indentified a second man as the Mitre Square murderer...' [my italics]
when in fact he could only have identified this second man as the man he saw with a woman the night Eddowes was found murdered in Mitre Square.
I just think we need to be very careful not to fall into this trap of suggesting that any witness could have been in a position to identify anyone as the actual killer. We just don't know that.
Love,
Pedanticaz |
Author: Jim Leen
Tuesday, 07 May 2002 - 08:02 am | | Hello Everybody,
First of all I must point out that the following is rather wordy post.
Some very interesting distinctions to behold. The possibility that the police were trying to railroad a conviction when, as Caz asserts, the witness merely saw a man and a woman together; he did not view an actual attack. Then of course there is the timeframe between the killing and the supposed, legally dubious, identification. And, as RJ states, “Lawende clearly admitted that he wouldn't be able to identify the man again.”
I personally still have doubts that the identification occurred. Purely because such an incident would have leaked down the chain of command and surely have become common knowledge. But this viewpoint, I admit, unfairly sullies the reputations of both Anderson and Swanson.
It may be that events transpired as described but that the suspect was of high patronage, (diplomatic immunity anyone?), and therefore the only people aware of what happened would have been top rankers bound together in silence. Possibly the story has been disingenuously altered to protect someone’s reputation. (Oh dear, Royal Conspiracy anyone!)
So assuming it did happen and that a suspect was apprehended was there other circumstantial evidence that had been held from the public domain? Was the witness perhaps the icing on the cake to shatter an alibi or a bona fide?
But who was the witness? Lawende, I feel, can be excluded almost immediately. Schwartz is perhaps a better bet. He witnessed an attack, after all. It is possible that his testimony was given in camera to the inquest. This air of secrecy, though romantic, could add credence to a “closed door” session as evinced by the Seaside Home scenario. But, the problem is, Schwartz saw two men, which is completely at variance with the sole suspect line.
A better candidate may be Matthew Packer whom, it may be recalled, personally gave a statement to Sir Charles Warren. He would be my ideal candidate. An attention seeker caught up by circumstance. When first interviewed by the police he had seen nothing of interest. When parlaying with the gentlemen of the press, suddenly, he had seen quite a lot. Next, he’s taken along to the top floor of Scotland Yard and backed into a corner.
Wouldn’t it be perfectly reasonable for Packer to refuse to testify against somebody if he had been making his story up all the time?
Thanking you and hoping I didn’t waste your time.
Jim Leen |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 07 May 2002 - 10:30 am | | Hi Jim,
'Was the witness perhaps the icing on the cake to shatter an alibi or a bona fide?'
A very interesting question.
As I see it, we could still be faced with a rather large problem here. Let's assume the witness (whoever he is) was indeed in a position to testify that he saw the suspect (whoever he is) with a woman very shortly before she was found murdered. Let's also imagine that the police had other reasons to suspect this man was there that night, but that he gave them quite a different story. Imagine if the witness had testified, confirming the suspect had lied and that his alibi was therefore false.
Would that have been enough to secure a conviction? One can only hope not, because clearly there are several very good and understandable reasons why a man would not care to admit having been anywhere near a prostitute in the East End in 1888, none of which need involve him in actually murdering one.
My question is how strong could any other evidence against their suspect possibly have been, since the police evidently thought a conviction depended on the additional testimony of someone who never even witnessed a murder taking place? And if this other evidence was just too weak without the witness testimony propping it up, were there ever the makings of a decent case against this suspect?
Love,
Caz |
Author: Christopher T George
Tuesday, 07 May 2002 - 11:39 am | | Hi, Jim and Caz:
This Seaside Home/Jewish witness discussion just keeps rattling round and round with never any resolution much like discussion of the Maybrick Diary. While Joseph Lawende is usually the witness named, or occasionally Israel Schwartz, and the suspect is thought to be Aaron Kosminski, Nathan Kaminski, or David Cohen, I get the nagging idea that the "suspect" hinted at by Robert Anderson may actually be John Pizer aka "Leather Apron" something that most authors who pursue this line of enquiry, including most notably Martin Fido, do not appear to consider. Pizer, whether he was an innocent man or not, and whether or not he was mistaken for another man entirely named "Leather Apron," could have fit the criteria of a man who was not given up to gentile justice, and thus in my opinion the incident could have been misremembered by Sir Robert years later. Just an idea you might like to pop into the mill. 
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Paul Begg
Tuesday, 07 May 2002 - 01:34 pm | | Hi All
I guess it was inevitable that I'd weaken and respond to this thread.
Chris: Pizer died in the London Hospital in 1897 and seems never to have been committed to an asylum, which is a pre-requisite for being Anderson’s suspect.
RJ: You wrote "[the witness] at once identified [Kosminski], but when he learned that the suspect was a fellow-Jew he declined to swear to him." If Anderson is accurate, then clearly the identification was made before the witness was aware that Kosminski was Jewish. It rules out the possibility that the witness was someone who knew Kosminski and was protecting him.’ Actually it doesn’t. It means that the witness did not know anything about the person with whom he was going to be presented. Only when he saw him would he have known whether he was Jewish or was somebody he knew, and only when presented with the suspect and realising that it was the person he’d seen did the witness refuse to cooperate further
Jim/Caz: The very reasons people don’t think Lawende is a good witness are exactly the reasons why he probably wasn’’t the witness, whether or not he was later brought in to identify Granger, which leaves us with Israel Schwartz as the only known alternative (Packer would have to be Jewish to be the witness and I don’t know whether he was or not), and despite deficiencies raised against him, Schwartz almost certainly did see the man who murdered Elizabeth Stride (irrespective of whether her actual murderer was the man who assaulted her or the pipe-man). Schwartz is therefore the only person we know of who therefore could have been legitimately described by Anderson as the only person who ever got a good look at the ‘murderer’.
Two other points worth considering: (1) There must have been a reason why suspicion fell on the suspect in the first place, and the reason was apparently sufficiently serious to justify an extraordinary identification (at the Seaside Home) undertaken ‘with difficulty’. And this seems to have been in 1891 when a lot of the knee-jerk reacting of 1888 wouldn’t have applied. This is also indicated by the fact that the City CID for some strange reason maintained 24-hour surveillance on the suspect; you don’t do that because of a common domestic in which someone made threats with a knife. And (2), one should not rule out the possibility that the suspect reacted or responded to the witness in some way that confirmed the identification, which may be what Swanson meant when he said ‘and suspect knew he was identified’. |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Tuesday, 07 May 2002 - 03:58 pm | | Very good points, Anderson's recorded comments will always be a matter for discussion and dispute, after all, he is the only police officer ever to claim that the identity of the Ripper was a "definitely ascertained fact", a patent nonsense in view of surviving records.
A very good indicator that there is something amiss here is the fact that two of the foremost commentators on the subject, Martin Fido and Paul Begg, have worked for many years from the basis of Anderson's words, yet the two of them cannot reach a consensus of opinion on the result of this theorising. Even after all those years. As a police officer for nearly thirty years I know that Anderson's words make no sense if accepted as totally factual.
I have made a very deep study of Anderson (I have much of his personal correspondence) and I am still doing so, and I have found much new information on him. It is disquieting when learning more of the man to see how much blind faith is put into his words. And, it must not be forgotten he was not a career police officer (as was Williamson), but was a lawyer and civil servant, entering the Metropolitan Police force in an 'officer corps' type system. This is the very reason that Anderson often sought Williamson's advice. Anderson also displayed a failure to accept facts that he did not agree with and which militated against him.
Except for Schwartz, no claim can be made that any witness actually saw a Ripper attack. And there is no certainty that that Schwartz saw the Ripper, nor that he was 'Anderson's witness'. Indeed, all indicators point to Lawende. Also Packer, for obvious reasons, can be eliminated as a valid witness.
Digressing, I am surprised to see that it is still being stated that Packer "personally gave a statement to Sir Charles Warren", this is a proven fallacy. For a start the document in question is not an official statement and, secondly, it was not written by Warren, but was written by the Assistant Commissioner Alexander Carmichael Bruce. It would have been very surprising to see the Chief Commissioner receiving any witness, let alone Packer.
Crucial to the 'Anderson theory' is the 'Macnaghten memoranda'. For there can be little doubt that Anderson's 'Polish Jew' was Macnaghten's 'Kosminski'. Indeed, the two are very closely linked chronologically. In 1894 Macnaghten named 'Kosminski' and in 1895 Anderson was espousing his own theory that the Ripper's career had been "cut short by committal to an asylum". This, of course, agreed with what Macnaghten had written about 'Kosminski'. And, of course, we know that of these named suspects Macnaghten himself preferred Druitt. Macnaghten also tells us that "...no shadow of proof could be thrown on any one", including the three named suspects.
It was only after the passage of many years, when we know that Anderson's memory was not what it had been, that his theory had gelled into "a definitely ascertained fact." i.e. in 1910. So, that he probably supported 'Kosminski' as the best suspect, and that this was preferred theory, in 1895 cannot be doubted. But in 1910 all idea of a theory had disappeared and the "definitely ascertained fact" appeared. And Anderson was a man who would not accept any failure on his part easily. There can be no doubt that he regarded 'undiscovered' crimes as a personal affront when he was in charge of the CID. It may be argued that Swanson supported Anderson's ideas as early as 1895 when the article in the Pall Mall Gazette stated:
"The theory [Note- theory] entitled to most respect, because it was presumably based upon the best knowledge, was that of Chief Inspector Swanson, the officer who was associated with the investigation of all the murders, and Mr. Swanson believed the crimes to have been the work of a man who is now dead."
At this time the three known police 'suspects' were Druitt, Kosminski and Ostrog (all named by Macnaghten the year before) and of these three the only one that Swanson's Pall Mall Gazette statement fits is, of course, Druitt, who had drowned in the Thames. We know, of course, that latterly, in view of the 'Swanson marginalia', it has been presumed that Swanson must have been referring to 'Kosminski' and had made a mistake. But this is presumption, people change their minds and their ideas and beliefs over the course of many years.
As well as 'Anderson's suspect', 'Anderson's witness' has been the subject of much debate and no small amount of conjecture. But what of the facts?
We know that one Aaron Kosminski was incarcerated, never to again be released, at the end of the first week of February 1891.
We also know that only a week later Frances Coles, the last 'Whitechapel victim', was murdered, on 13 February 1891, in Swallow Gardens.
We also know that the following day one Thomas Sadler was arrested on suspicion of her murder and that it was believed by the police that he may have been 'the Whitechapel murderer' ('Jack the Ripper') responsible for the autumn 1888 murders. This is a fact, as we know that the police checked out his sailing times to ascertain whether this was possible or not. In the event it turned out that he could not have committed those murders, although he was probably guilty of Coles' murder. But it is interesting that the police believed he may have been Jack the Ripper, surely showing us that they did not believe the identity of the killer was 'a definitely ascertained fact' at that time.
And then what happens? Lo and behold, Sadler, as a Ripper suspect, is subjected to an identification parade in front of a Jew, Lawende at which the Jewish witness fails to identify Sadler as the Ripper. And all this within a week of the final incarceration of Aaron Kosminski. Well, I have heard of coincidences, but this one really takes the biscuit. Also, one of the witnesses against Sadler was a seaman living in the Sailors' Home (shades of the 'Seaside Home???).
Surely all this must be linked and it must be a possibility that Anderson wove it all into his 1910 writings, suitably 'dressed up'. Unless, of course, we stubbornly refuse to accept that Anderson was incapable of untruths, exaggeration, 'gilding the lily' and confusing his facts. The record shows otherwise.
Finally, much importance is attached to the 'Swanson marginalia', and quite rightly. It has always been accepted at face value and never really questioned. Indeed, in the A-Z it is stated that "Their provenance is established beyond a peradventure, and the handwriting has been confirmed as Swanson's by the Home Office document examiner." Has it? Well, not quite.
I have never been happy with the endpaper notes in Swanson's copy of The Lighter Side of my Official Life, those beginning, "continuing from page 138..." For a start they contain nearly all the points in the 'marginalia' that are contentious, and they end with the very convenient, neat and easy phrase, "Kosminski was the suspect". However it is easy to doubt, especially when there is content that does not rest easy in the mind. And the claimed confirmation by "the Home Office document examiner"? Well, apparently all he saw was a photocopy of the 'marginalia' and a photocopy of Swanson's handwriting. Clearly this is insufficient to give anything more that prima facie opinion. In actuality, document examiners require to see original documents before making any weighty proclamation on a questioned document. Even then the result is, at best, expert opinion.
My feelings about the 'marginalia' were not improved when I closely examined and photographed the original book two years ago. The endpaper note was definitely written with a different pencil to that on page 138. There are, of course, perfectly acceptable explanations for this, such as written at a different time, two pencils in use at the time it was written etc. Also the writing is very slightly different, but again, this can be easily explained as there is much more room to write on the endpaper than in the cramped margins. But, still, it did not answer the questions I have.
Paul, I'm afraid that your argument that Lawende was not the witness is severely dented by the fact that it was undoubtedly Lawende that was used in 1891 in an attempt to identify Sadler as the Ripper. The Daily Telegraph, February 18, 1891:
"Further, it is certain that the police are not neglecting the facts which came to light in connection with the previous murders. Probably the only trustworthy description of the assassin was that given by a gentleman who, on the night of the Mitre-square murder, noticed in Duke-street, Aldgate, a couple standing under the lamp at the corner of the passage leading to Mitre-square. The woman was identical as one victim of that night, Sept. 30, the other having been killed half an hour previously in Berner-street. The man was described as "aged from thirty to thirty-five; height 5ft 7in, with brown hair and big moustache; dressed respectably. Wore pea jacket, muffler, and a cloth cap with a peak of the same material." The witness has confronted Sadler and has failed to identify him."
That there may have been a second witness, and for him not to have been used at this same time, is beyond belief. And if Lawende is 'Anderson's suspect', then we all know the affect that this has on Anderson's theory, or rather his "definitely ascertained fact."
So we may employ semantics and variant arguments using the words "probably", "only known", "could have", "must have been", "apparently", "seems to have", "possibility that", "may be what" (and we all do); but the more we do so, the weaker our argument becomes. For the simple fact is that we do not know, but we must consider all possibilities in the light of what we do know, and clearly stating the points that militate against our arguments. We have to accept, in the end, that it is only another opinion. And opinions don't add up to make facts. |
Author: Christopher T George
Tuesday, 07 May 2002 - 04:25 pm | | Hi, Stewart:
Thank you for your long informative post. I am glad that you agree that there is room to think that Sir Robert Anderson was somewhat mixed up in what he was saying about his suspect. I was fascinated to realize that you think the Anderson story might actually relate to Lawende being brought in to identify Sadler in the Coles murder, an occurrence which to my knowledge is not information I had known before. This does seem to be a great coincidence given as you say Kosminki was incarcerated about the same time, which might mean that Anderson had mixed all these facts together in putting together his memoirs. The main question I have though is that Sadler was almost certainly not a Jew and Anderson appears to clearly state the problem in the identification was that a Jew was being asked to identify a Jew. One other thing, I thought Anderson's 1910 statement was fairly similar to the Blackwood's article of 1903, or are you saying the wording "definitely ascertained fact" only appeared in the 1910 book version?
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Tuesday, 07 May 2002 - 04:37 pm | | The fact that Sadler was presumably not a Jew does not dispose of this scenario. It would be irrelevant if Anderson was confused or engaged in pure invention. Swanson apparently agreed with Anderson which is an argument that may be used to support him. But we know nothing of what Swanson actually knew, or had been merely told by Anderson. As evidence it is carries little weight.
The Blackwood's article was also 1910 (March before the book was published), not 1903. In his 1901 article in The Nineteenth Century, Anderson again stated that the murderer had been 'caged in an asylum', as in 1895, and speaks of his "detention in an asylum" in his 1907 Criminals and Crime. But the "definitely ascertained fact" did not appear until the Blackwood's article, and book, of 1910.
|
Author: Christopher T George
Tuesday, 07 May 2002 - 04:39 pm | | Sorry, I am getting as mixed up as Sir Bob evidently. Thanks for setting me straight.
Chris |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Wednesday, 08 May 2002 - 02:22 am | | Paul--Hello. Thanks for the response. I'm feeling a bit thick-headed, and want to make sure I understand your objection. Are you suggesting the possibility that Anderson's witness wasn't aware that he was to make an identification? Being brought to the Seaside home, he 'at once' identified the witness [just as Swanson claims that Kosminski 'knew that he had been identified'] and thus "gave the game away", so to speak, making Anderson realize that the Jewish witness had been protecting the suspect?
Or am I missing the point?
Fascinating posts. Thanks to Stewart & everyone. RP |
Author: Paul Begg
Wednesday, 08 May 2002 - 06:09 am | | Stewart has presented a strong, ludid and sensible case with which there is little to argue, except on what are ultimately points of personal assessment and opinion. I would diagree that differences between Martin and myself are significant; I think they are of no significance or relevance. Martin believes Anderson’s suspect was Jack the Ripper, I don’t. Martin thinks Aaron Kosminski’s medical records disqualify him as Anderson’s suspect, I don’t. Otherwise we both take the view that Anderson’s statements on the subject are hugely important and demand close and detailed examination. I’m not sure that anyone disagrees with that. And it has been given close and detailed examination by a number of people, but the fact is that beyond theorising we still have a bald statement by Sir Robert Anderson and absolutely no idea of the evidence upon which that statement was based.
As for the witness, everyone has preferred Joseph Lawende and mine has been a lone voice in arguing that it could have been Israel Schwartz. There is no question that Lawende’s services were called upon at other times, but really that is the only indicator that he could have been Anderson’s witness. Otherwise he would have made a rotten witness, as everyone tirelessly points out when seeking to invalidate any testimony he may have given. But those reasons for him being a rotten witness are, I suggest, the very reasons why he wasn’t the witness. On the other hand, if we accept his testimony, Schwartz did see a man assault Stride and that man (or the pipe-man) almost certainly killed her. Schwartz fits Anderson’s description as the only person to have had a good view of the murderer. Lawende comes nowhere near fitting that description.
As for Macnaghten, he presents serious problems for any Kosminskite, but it is strange that he should have advocated Druitt if he knew that his single-minded and opinionated superior favoured Kosminski, which inevitably raises the question of whether Macnaghten did know what Anderson believed. One instinctively rejects any suggestion that he couldn’t have known, of course, but…
Hi RJ
All I was saying is that we should not suppose that the witness knew anything about who he was going to be confronted with before he was confronted with him. In other words, until the confrontation, the witness would not necessarily have known that the suspect was a Jew. Indeed, his refusal to proceed suggests that in fact he didn’t know. So therefore he was confronted with the suspect, whom he identified as the man he had seen, but then – and for reasons we can only speculate about – decided that he did not want to proceed any further. |
Author: Jim Leen
Wednesday, 08 May 2002 - 08:07 am | | Hello Everybody.
At the risk of seeming slow and cantankerous, though genuinely seeking clarification, (and possibly wielding a big wooden spoon for good measure), I have to raise some issues with the preceding excellent postings.
Whilst the following is aimed at the respective contributors I am keen to hear everyone else’s view.
Mr. Begg,
“…It means that the witness did not know anything about the person with whom he was going to be presented. Only when he saw him would he have known whether he was Jewish or was somebody he knew…”
Does this not imply that the witness would have recognised the attacker as a Jew or an acquaintance at the time of the murder?
I also note that you feel that the witness was possibly taken to the identification under false pretences, viz, “…and only when presented with the suspect and realising that it was the person he’d seen did the witness refuse to cooperate further.”
In which case, as he refused to testify further, surely there would be little likelihood of the witness actually speaking to the police at the time?
Mr. Evans,
Would I be correct in stating that, like myself, you have severe doubts about Anderson’s comments? You state, “…As a police officer for nearly thirty years I know that Anderson's words make no sense if accepted as totally factual.” With your experience do you feel that there were faults in the policing procedures, the legality, and so on, of what Anderson claims? And would such matters therefore materially affect his credibility?
I have posted earlier expressing my concerns at the legal validity of the identification. This is because, and I may be fundamentally wrong, that the witness was only presented with one suspect. However you mention an “identification parade in front of a Jew.” Is this, to borrow a phrase, definitely ascertained? Surely an identification parade concerning The Ripper’s
Identity would have leached into the public domain. Either through the volunteers making up the phalanx but mainly from the PC’s on duty. Especially if they were aware of the senior officers assumption of guilt.
Also would a record of the parade not be held in the Home Office files? After all press cuttings and letters have been archived there. Why would something of such momentous importance not be filed away. And what of financial records? Is it not common practice to pay the “volunteers” for the time spent on parade? And if serving police officers were used would this not increase the likelihood of gossip seeping out the Seaside Home’s walls. (I’m probably being presumptive here. No doubt you’ll make me aware of proof of the identity parade occurring!)
If it can demonstrably be shown that the parade was unlikely to have taken place, through legal difficulties, prejudicing a witness etc, then it could possibly be accepted that Anderson wove a compendium of events “into his 1910 writings, suitably 'dressed up'.” Possibly! And if the Swanson marginalia has been doctored then that should put the tin hat on.
On a personal note I’m the fool who wrote the “proven fallacy” that Packer "personally gave a statement to Sir Charles Warren". You can blame two of the “foremost commentators on the subject, Martin Fido and Paul Begg” for that because it came straight from the A-Z. (Sounds a tad bitter but I’m a nice chap really. Genuinely, no offence intended.)
Strangely enough you disparage the reference to Warren by stating that Packer’s, shall we say, testimony “was written by the Assistant Commissioner Alexander Carmichael Bruce.” Is this not an extraordinary demonstration of how highly Packer’s comments were deemed? Why was he taken to see the AC when an interview with a couple of DC’s would have sufficed? (Steady, this lingo sounds like I know what I’m talking about!)
Thanking you if you made it this far down the page
Jim Leen |
Author: Paul Begg
Wednesday, 08 May 2002 - 08:49 am | | | Mr Leen, as you know, not all Jews look like stereotypical Jews and some don’t look like Jews at all, so we have to allow that the witness may or may not have recognised at the time that the attacker was a Jew. He would, I assume, have recognised an acquaintance. I didn’t intent to give the impression that I thought the witness was taken to the identification under false pretences. I am simply assuming that the police would not have described to the witness the person they were taking him to identify, and that it was not until confronted with the suspect that the witness realised that the suspect was indeed the person he had seen. It was only at this point, when realising or being told that the suspect was a Jew that he chose not to proceed further. Whether or not this was the real reason for the witness refusing to proceed remains to be seen. |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Wednesday, 08 May 2002 - 02:34 pm | | Thank you Paul for your gracious words, especially as this comes from someone better versed in this theory than just about anyone else.
The significance of the fact that Paul and Martin have failed to reach the same conclusion, based on the same material, indicates the complexity of the subject matter. It is very significant as they reach opposite conclusions.
Yes, we do have a 'bald statement' by Anderson, but as it was made some fifteen years after his idea of the asylum inmate being the killer was published as a theory, and the fact that in 1910 this had mutated to 'a definitely ascertained fact', means it tends to lack credibility. If Anderson had stated that it was 'a definitely ascertained fact' back in 1895 then it would, perhaps, have not given so much strength to the idea that in 1910 it was changed to 'a definitely ascertained fact' to lend credibility to what was merely another theory. As we know, Anderson's faulty memory and unwillingness to accept that a major series of undetected murders had occurred whilst he was head of the CID has almost certainly resulted in this incredible claim. For it is obvious that he thought that it was better to claim that he really knew the identity of the killer and that he had been incarcerated in an asylum, even if the police had not been able to bring him to court.
Anderson's claim need not have been based on any evidence at all, other than his earlier theory regarding Kosminski supplemented by confused memories and sheer invention. There is not a single indication, from any source, that any other evidence existed.
Joseph Lawende may have been 'a rotten witness' but, even so, there is no doubt that the police did use him in the attempted identification of Sadler in February 1891. There is no evidence at all that Schwartz was ever used as a witness in an identification and it begs the question as to why he wasn't used in the attempted identification of Sadler if he was deemed to be a good witness. Also, it is beyond belief that had there been another attempted identification using Schwartz, that no word whatever leaked out about it from either the press friendly Schwartz or any other person that would inevitably have been involved.
Regarding Macnaghten, it is not at all strange that he advocated Druitt, despite Anderson's ideas, he obviously didn't agree with Anderson. Indeed, Macnaghten comes across in a much better light for the fact that he stated that Druitt was the best suspect in his opinion only. He did not dogmatically state it as 'a definitely ascertained fact'.
To suggest that Macnaghten did not know what Anderson believed can be instantly dismissed as simply untrue. The 1895 article in the Windsor Magazine was there for all to read and clearly stated that Anderson had 'a perfectly plausible theory' that the killer's 'hideous career had been cut short by committal to an asylum'. This major piece on Scotland Yard and its detectives, by Anderson and Macnaghten's friend Major Arthur Griffiths, would have been instantly read by Macnaghten. He accepted that Anderson had his own theory, but Macnaghten maintained his own ideas. It must be remembered that Macnaghten was not only second-in-cammand to Anderson, he was also Anderson's confidential assistant.
Add to this the fact that after Anderson's retirement Macnaghten took his place as Assistant Commissioner in charge of the CID the idea becomes untenable. And, of course, in 1910 when Anderson hit the news with his article and book making the claims about the identity of the Ripper being 'a definitely ascertained fact', Macnaghten was still head of the CID. He would still have access to all the files but saw no reason at all to change his own theory which he adhered to as witness his 1914 book, Days of My Years. He continued to advocate Druitt despite the contrary claims of the garrulous Anderson. |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Wednesday, 08 May 2002 - 03:18 pm | | Jim, it must be obvious to you by now that, yes, I do have 'severe doubts' about Anderson's comments. Taking the words of Anderson with the Swanson notes indicates, if they were true, unethical procedures bordering on the illegal.
My wording in relation to the attempted identification of Sadler, "identification parade in front of a Jew" is badly worded for it is not certain what type of identification it was, a parade or confrontation. The word 'parade' should be omitted. But, as you rightly suggest and as I have previously stated, it would seem to be impossible that such a procedure could have been carried out without a word ever leaking out about it; not in the official records that have survived, nor in the public domain. I believe that Paul suggests that it would have been secret and on 'a need to know' basis, but really, such a procedure would have been impossible to keep secret, and why would there be any need for such secrecy? And certainly Macnaghten, in his position, would have known about such a thing. No there was indeed an identity parade, but it was, as I believe, the one in relation to Sadler, and Anderson appears to have incorporated this into his 1910 story, confusing the facts. As I have already pointed out, Kosminski was incarcerated a mere week before the attempted identification of Sadler. By invention, or bad memory, in view of these very close events, it would take little to substitute Kosminski for Sadler in the story of nineteen years later. As regards the 'Swanson marginalia', I have merely recorded facts, whatever anyone cares to make of that will be a subjective conclusion.
I do not think you are a fool, nor did I suggest that you were. You may not be 'up to speed' however, as later books have corrected some of the errors to be found in earlier ones. The Packer incident is well known and well documented. Packer as a possible police witness was fully addressed by the report of Sgt Stephen White dated 4 October 1888 [MEPO 3/140 ff.212-214] and his real importance to Scotland Yard appears to have been misunderstood. He was taken to Scotland Yard by the two private detectives (one of whom was a convicted criminal) after the press stories, critical of the police, had appeared and suggested little short of police negligence, a serious disciplinary offence.
It is very unlikeley that these three (although they wanted to see Warren) would have been seen by anyone above the rank of Inspector, and a proper written statement, on headed paper, would have been taken from Packer. A few errors have been made in the past, not least of all referring to the document containing Packer's story as 'a statement'. It is not a proper statement; it is not on headed paper, and it is not signed by Packer. It is, rather, notes from a statement made by Packer, probably to assess the strength of his allegations.
It has been stated in the past that this document [MEPO 3/140 ff.215-216], dated '4.10.88', is in the handwriting of Warren but this is another error. It is in the handwriting of the senior Assistant Commissioner, Alexander Carmichael Bruce, and is initialled 'ACB'. So, although you say that this is evidence 'of how highly Packer's comments were deemed', it was not solely because of his status as a witness but was more to do with the serious allegations of police negligence that were being made because of Packer's story in the press. Anything that amounts to a possible complaint about the police has to be taken by a senior officer, usually of at least the rank of Inspector.
I have now rambled, but I hope this helps.
Stewart |
Author: Stan Russo
Wednesday, 08 May 2002 - 08:59 pm | | Stewart,
Doesn't this 1895 article in Windsor's Magazine eliminate Kosminski as Anderson's suspect? He claims that the killer's 'hideous career was cut short by comittal to an asylum'. This could not have been a reference to Kosminski as he remained at large for 15 months after the Miller's Court murder. It is true that he was in an infirmary in July of 1890, yet that lasted only three days.
I have my doubts about Anderson's credibility when it comes to announcing information to the public about 'JTR'. He was a political liason to spies such as Thomas Miller Beach, and never revealed information regarding his activities.
It is unclear why Anderson began to voice his opinion publicly, through the writing of Major Griffiths. It may be as a result of MacNaghten and his memorandum. In the Swanson Marginalia it states that MacNagthen vexed Anderson, and there may have been a resentment towards MacNaghten who did not actively participate in the case.
As far as Kosminski being offered as Anderson's suspect, it would seem that from Anderson's direct quote he was referring to someone other than Aaron Kosminski. |
Author: Richard P. Dewar
Wednesday, 08 May 2002 - 10:27 pm | | Hi all,
The problem I have with Sir Robert Anderson's commentary that the killer was known to officials is that many of his contemporaries who would have as much knowledge as him on the case named other people as likely suspects.
What is odd is that the officers who escorted the "witness" to identify the suspect have never been identified.
If we are to accept Anderson's statement about the identity of the killer being known, we must also accept that others directly involved in the case were either not informed are being dishonest when they name other suspects (example Abberline suggesting Chapman may have been the Whitechapel murderer as late as 1903).
Rich |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Thursday, 09 May 2002 - 03:17 am | | Having said, in my last post, that I should have omitted the word 'parade' I went right ahead and did it again! This is, of course, because the most usual, and the best sort, of identification is a parade where the witness has to find the right suspect from several people of similar appearance. Confrontation relies on the witness recognising the person he sees and carries much less weight in legal proceedings.
To address Stan's point, no the Windsor Magazine article does not eliminate Kosminski as Anderson's suspect, despite the fact that Anderson never mentioned Kosminski by name. I think that, as both Martin and Paul have pointed out in the past, Anderson is clearly referring to the Polish Jew, i.e. Kosminski, in Macnaghten's 1894 list. Although Kelly became generally regarded as the last Ripper victim the actual series of Whitechapel murders, the documentation of which is preserved in the extant files, ended with the murder of Frances Coles on 13 February 1891. And this, amazingly, almost exactly (to within a week) coincides with the final incarceration of Aaron Kosminski.
Major Arthur Griffiths, a high-ranking civil servant (Inspector of Prisons), was a good friend of both Anderson and Macnaghten. He took a great interest in the police, often writing about them. His piece de resistance was his 1898 book Mysteries of Police and Crime in which the three Ripper suspects of Macnaghten's 1894 list are described, merely omitting their names. Obviously in the mid-1890's both Anderson and Macnaghten had decided that it was all right to release this information to Griffiths for him to use in his writings, as long as the names were not given.
There are reasons to doubt Anderson's credibility and these have been given, on these boards, in the past. It is a strange thing that doubt has been cast, by certain writers, upon the word of just about every police officer who wrote on the crimes, except Anderson. Untruths or misinformation apart, Anderson's dogmatic, boastful and bigoted nature combined with his apparent inability to accept easily any sort of failure during his tenure at Scotland Yard do not add up to give confidence in accepting his word. As I have stated in the past, I do not dismiss him lightly, he was a very important person and, apparently, very good at his job. But I do not view him as the paragon of virtue that some people obviously do. I repeat, there is absolutely no evidence for us to simply accept that his words that the identity of Jack the Ripper 'was a definitely ascertained fact' are true. Indeed, much other evidence militates directly against such acceptance. It is clear to see that what was for him a mere 'plausible theory' in 1895 became 'a definitely ascertained fact' in his old age in 1910, when he chose to write some memoirs. These memoirs are full of boasting and name dropping.
So, I do not care if others choose to disagree with this assessment, I have read as much as (if not more than) most about Anderson and these conclusions are inescapable. No one has ever (yet) identified his true position in relation to the murders in 1888, and I will be pleased to see it when some future writer does identify certain crucial points that have so far escaped comment.
Macnaghten did actively participate in the case, the Whitechapel murders case was actively investigated until 1892 and Macnaghten joined the Metropolitan Police in June 1889. He would have had full access to all the files. To suggest that 'there may have been resentment towards Macnaghten' (by Anderson), or that the two did not get on together is a gross exaggeration and does not agree with the facts. This is based solely on the note made by Swanson in his copy of Anderson's The Lighter Side of my Official Life that Macnaghten was the 'senior colleague' who vexed Anderson by 'making undue fuss over a threatening letter'. Macnaghten worked as Anderson's confidential assistant and second in command for twelve years, and then took promotion to Anderson's position on the latter's retirement. If there was such a problem between the two men they would not have worked together for so long, and Anderson must have had a say on who was to replace him. It is absolutely normal, in such a working relationship, that one man or the other should, at times, 'vex' his colleague. It is normal. Indeed, after Anderson's retirement he had complimentary words for Macnaghten.
I find it amazing how people feel they can cast solid judgement on Anderson without having read all the available information on the man. But this, patently, has been happening for many years. To read a few opinionated and biased secondary sources and then to make a sweeping assessment is simply not good enough.
So, please, if we are going to base solid conclusions on Anderson's word, then may we do so taking into consideration all the information that militates against blind acceptance of his word as being the unassailable truth. |
Author: Paul Begg
Thursday, 09 May 2002 - 05:06 am | | I don’t really have much to add to Stewart’s excellent exposition of the serious problems surrounding Anderson’s testimony. As ever he writes with an enviable clarity and puts forward some interesting and thought provoking points, though here and there he is rather more decisive in his conclusions that I feel capable of being. For example, whilst one cannot in any way disagree with the fact that Anderson’s opinion appears to have graduated from a theory to ‘a definitely ascertained fact’, I’m wary of attaching a precision to words and expressions that the author may have never intended; there cannot be anyone here who is unaware of examples of people being so committed to a theory that for them it is an established fact. As I repeatedly point out, there was a suspect, there was a witness and there was an identification or at least nobody has presented any evidence that there wasn’t), and Anderson seems to have been persuaded of the suspect’s guilt. We don’t know why. We have no idea of the evidence on which he based this conclusion, but for Anderson it may have established the suspect’s guilt beyond question. Others may not have shared Anderson’s conclusion (and apparently didn’t). I’m therefore uncertain whether we are in fact looking at growing certainty or a growing boldness of expression, and I am therefore less inclined that Stewart to base a conclusion on this.
I’m afraid that the ‘faulty memory’ argument escapes me entirely. Unless faulty memory caused Anderson to attach to the Ripper case an identification in a completely different case, an idea for which I don’t think any evidence exists, I’m afraid I struggle to see how faulty memory enters the equation. Except, of course, in the argument that Anderson’s mismemory of the identification caused him in later years to attach to it greater significance than it warranted, but here we are talking about significance, not the reality of the events described. But the Windsor Magazine – if referring to the Polish Jew theory, which it need not have been – indicates that Anderson was persuaded of the suspect’s guilt by 1895 and for all we know had been persuaded of it since the identification, and it is difficult to think of what he could have been misremembering. Yes, Anderson’s beliefs could have hardened over time. Yes, Anderson could misremember details. But misremembering the details of a ball game, doesn’t mean you’ve misremembered the game or the result.
I must question Stewart’s statement: ‘Anderson's ‘unwillingness to accept that a major series of undetected murders had occurred whilst he was head of the CID’. As best as I recall, there isn’t any evidence that Anderson could or couldn’t accept this. Anderson is on record as saying that the identity of the Ripper was known. This statement was either true or it was believed to be true by Anderson. Or it was wishful thinking by a self-deluded Anderson, or it was an out and out face saving lie. We don’t know which of these alternatives is true, so we can’t say whether Anderson was unwilling to accept that a series of undetected murders had taken place or not.
Otherwise, of course, we are dealing with fascinating speculation: ‘Anderson's claim need not have been based on any evidence at all, other than his earlier theory regarding Kosminski supplemented by confused memories and sheer invention.’ This is absolutely true. Equally, of course, it could have been a claim based on good, solid evidence. We don’t know, because we don’t know what the evidence was. Which at the end of the day is the problem. We don’t have the evidence.
Mr Russo
That the suspect was ‘Kosminski’ and that ‘Kosminski’ was Aaron Kosminski has always been open to question and also a major problem, not least because Aaron Kosminski was at liberty for a couple of years after the murder of Kelly and didn’t die soon after committal. On the other hand, Anderson tells us that the suspect was male, Polish, a Jew, that he lived in the heart of the murder district and that he had people (a nuclear family?) to look after and protect him. He also says that the suspect engaged in ‘utterly unmentionable vices’ and was committed to an asylum. Aaron Kosminski fits every one of these admittedly mainly unremarkable points, the clincher though being the ‘utterly mentionable vices’, which corresponds with the ‘solitary vices’ attributed to ‘Kosminski’ in Macnaghten’s memoranda and the ‘self abuse’ of Kosminski’s own medical records. This does not rule out the possibility of coincidence and whilst I am of the opinion that on existing evidence Aaron Kosminski was Anderson’s suspect, I cannot urge strongly enough that nobody should treat this as accepted fact (I certainly don’t).
Similarly, I think researchers should be very cautious before accepting or rejecting bits of what Anderson tells us. David Cohen, for example, is not known to have people (except in the general sense of the Jewish population as a whole) or to have indulged in ‘utterly unmentionable vices’, I think his residence at the time of the crimes isn’t certain and that he possibly wasn’t in the country when the first murders were committed. The enormously appealing suggestion that the suspect was Thomas Sadler, which I wish to be true because it would resolve numerous problems, also runs into problems because Sadler wasn’t Polish or a Jew, didn’t live in the heart of the district, didn’t have a family to protect him, didn’t, or as far as we know wasn’t known to, indulge in ‘utterly unmentionable vices’, and wasn’t ever committed. I tend to pull back on the reins a bit when we start altering what a historical source tells us, especially when we do so so that information fits a theory rather than fitting other established historical data.
Overall, David Radka is perfectly correct in what he says about Sir Robert Anderson. He is an enormously difficult man to assess, especially from a modern perspective, as were so many of his contemporaries. I guess that’s what makes these strange Victorians so endlessly fascinating. |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Thursday, 09 May 2002 - 10:47 am | | Not wishing to drag this discussion out to an excruciating or boring degree I will make this my final post on this topic. I am fully aware of Paul's opinion and thoughts on Anderson and, obviously, we are not in full agreement. Until 1910 Anderson's comments on the Whitechapel murders had attracted little attention when compared to the great reaction his 'definitely ascertained fact' statement drew. So, I have to say, that if by stating "I'm wary of attaching a precision to words and expressions that the author may never have intended..." Paul means that Anderson may only have been 'so committed to his theory that for him it was an established fact', as he says, then we have little to argue about, it may be more a case of semantics. But, we can only guess what Anderson really did mean and why he said it. There are other examples of this odd sort of conclusion reaching by Anderson.
However, the argument cannot be that Anderson did not realise the way that his words would be interpreted. For he became embroiled in a debate over these words. In response to Jewish criticism of what he had said, Anderson commented in The Globe of 11 March 1910:-
"When I stated that the murderer was a Jew, I was stating a simple matter of fact. It is not a matter of theory..."
These words are unequivocal, cannot be misconstrued and are very much stronger than anything Anderson had said about the murders over the previous twenty-two years. I fail to see how they can be interpreted as a mere 'boldness of expression'. The words carry a finality that brooks no contradiction. He does not even allow for the possibility that it may be only a theory, signally rejecting such a suggestion quite explicitly.
In the same piece is an example of Anderson's failing memory, or his misleading comments. For he follows the extraordinary comment above with:-
"I recognise in this matter I said either too much or too little. But the fact is that as my words were merely a repetition of what I published several years ago without exciting comment, they flowed from my pen without any consideration."
If these words had been published several years before this 1910 piece, one has to wonder where it was. The simple fact is, there is no record of Anderson specifically 'publishing' the 'Polish Jew' and 'definitely ascertained fact' information, himself, prior to the Blackwood's piece, and The Lighter Side of My Official Life, both also in 1910. As regards the 'Polish Jew' aspect he may have been referring to the Griffiths' piece, as that would have been published with his authority. But, still, there never was any mention of 'a definitely ascertained fact', unless his earlier 'caged in an asylum' remarks are meant to imply that. Griffiths merely lists the three suspects with the statement that, "...against three of these they held very plausible and reasonable grounds of suspicion." In the case of two of the suspects Griffiths describes the case as "...weak, although it was based on certain colourable facts." These two were Kosminski and Ostrog (although not named). However, Griffiths actually plumped for Macnaghten's preferred suspect, Druitt, as, "...the suspicion in his case was stronger, and there was every reason to believe that his own friends entertained grave doubts about him". So, knowing that Anderson's own theory was the one involving the suspect 'committed to an asylum', Griffiths still went with Macnaghten in preferring the deceased Druitt.
We are all aware that Paul repeatedly points out, "there was a suspect, there was a witness and there was an identification." That is the very reason that in the previous post I have explained a possible answer to that.
The suspect was Kosminski (confused, deliberately or mistakenly with the contemporaneously arrested Sadler).
The witness was Lawende (he was used in an attempt to identify Sadler as the Ripper).
The identification was that held in respect of Sadler (just a week after Kosminski had been incarcerated).
Being charitable to Anderson I have suggested that his memory may have confused these events of nineteen years previously. The 'confusion' may have been deliberate.
This is a possible answer to the conundrum of Anderson and Swanson's odd writings of many years later. It is certainly a more likely scenario than the one that a second identification was held, of which no word ever leaked out from any source.
The 'faulty memory' comes in as a possible explanation for Anderson's odd statements of years later, and his misplaced conviction that the murderer was not really unknown to the police.
It is highly unlikely that the 1895 Windsor Magazine piece refers to a suspect other than the Polish Jew. If it does, then Anderson's 'perfectly plausible theory' was completely changed in 1910. But, with the naming of Kosminski, a Polish Jew, by Macnaghten just a year previously I think we may feel fairly safe in accepting that is to whom Anderson was referring. The 'Whitechapel murders' (if not the Ripper murders), had ended in February 1891, the very month that a Kosminski was locked away for good.
The fact that Anderson, on writing his memoirs, could not accept that the unsolved murders of 1888 had totally baffled the police under his command is shown by his claim that the police did know who the murderer was, and he had been locked away. Every other police officer writing of the crimes accepted the fact that the killer had escaped justice, and they could only guess who he might have been. There is also another good example of Anderson's unwillingness to accept such a fact.
However, I think that in Paul's final paragraph in his response to me, that beginning, "Otherwise, of course, we are dealing with fascinating speculation..." admirably sums up the issues as Paul sees them.
What must, by now, be evident to all, is the fact that Anderson did not definitely know the identity of 'Jack the Ripper.' |
Author: Martin Fido
Tuesday, 14 May 2002 - 10:29 am | | Raising my head from grading term papers and looking at the boards for the first time for months, I note the working out of some fascinating and detailed expansion on what I said about Anderson when first suggesting that his was the historical testimony that must be given priority: to wit, "Anderson might have been wrong. He was always opinionated." (This has been in the public domain since 1987).
The observation that Anderson's words, "ascertained fact" pretty certainly reflect his anxiety to explain his description of his suspect to the Jewish Chronicle, and not te degree of his certainty that the suspect was the Ripper, is obviously important. But to suggest that Anderson intended to make a less definitive statement of fact in his earlier statement that "the inhabitants of the Metropolis generally were just as secure during the weeks the fiend was on the prowl, as they were before the mania seized him, or after he had been safely caged in an asylum," is, I respectfully submit, hair-splitting special pleading. Anderson definitely meant to say that Jack the Ripper was caged in an asylum, and this opinion dates back to 1901, when it appeared in an article on policing, before being re-used in On Criminals and Crime. Just as Stewart Evans rightly speaks with confidence about the conduct of the investigation from 30 years experience as a police officer, so I rightly speak with confidence about the connotations and denotations of Victorian English from 40 years as an academic literary historian working mainly in the field of Victorian prose.
And from the same expertise, I offer the certainty that Anderson was not lying, embroidering or consciously distorting when he wrote his accounts. I agree 100% that he was (to put it mildly!) bullish about his achievements. I agree with Stewart that he regarded the idea of an unsolved crime as an almost personal affront. I have always been aware that, ten years after he first openly declared his conviction that the Ripper had been caged in asylum, he could make serious errors of memory with regard to cases on which he had not worked. But in stating flatly that he was not a liar, I was making a necessary corrective to the general tradition prior to 1987 (with Richard Whittington-Egan and Robin Odell the honourable exceptions) that Anderson simply and falsely pretended he or his force had solved the case in order to present a gratifying image. "Trimming the boat" to correct earlier biases is a constant historical duty. One may over-correct, as Philip Sugden for one evidently thinks I did in insisting that Abberline was not privy to information known to the Assistant Commissioner and is not the best historical source. But it was necessary to clear out of the way the hopelessly misleading impression that Anderson was an incompetent braggart.
In fact, after independent and careful study of all the (then) known contemporary sources, Paul Begg and I came to the separate identical conclusion that Anderson was the one who, by any professional historian's assessment, was the best source. This degree of methodological concurrence has always seemed to us far more important than our different interpretations of the subsequently discovered Swanson marginalia, whose clear contradictions of fact necessitate deduction and not just observation.
Most importantly, and largely ignored in this discussion, Anderson's account contains no errors that have as yet been demonstrated, and in this it differs from every other police source except Littlechild. Macnaghten's demonstrable gross errors about Druitt, his chosen candidate, make him from the historian's point of view, a dodgy source and one to be treated with caution at all points. To say that he must have been hand-in-glove with Anderson and privy to all his thinking, and dismiss Swanson's footnote naming Macnaghten as the subordinate whose folly once seriously provoked Anderson into thoughtlessly destroying evidence, is to ignore the (I believe unpublished) discovery Paul Begg and Keith Skinner made when working on The Scotland Yard Files that Macnaghten found the CID so uncomfortable under Anderson that he nearly put in for a transfer to uniform. To hint in a sort of "willing to wound and yet afraid to strike" manner that there may be something suspect about the Swanson end-paper notes is not mere nit-picking: it is muddying the waters by attempting to introduce doubt where there is none. God forbid that the historically invaluable Swanson marginalia become a focus of crazy reasoning in the dark like the Maybrick Diary! Of course it would be a wholly new way of explaining the errors in Swanson's notes to postulate a forger who had read Macnaghten's notes and tried to built up a story from them, having the extraordinary good luck to hit on Kosminsky's having a brother as the Whitechapel relative who looked after him! But the faintest swish of Occam's razor in the distance should send such theorizing packing. At present, except for the suggestion that Swanson misremembered or was misinformed about the data which decisively rules out Kosminsky, the ONLY rational explanation of the contradictions put forward is the suggestion that the man who was incarcerated with his hands tied behind his back and died in the asylum shortly afterwards was Cohen, and the man who was cared for by his brother in Whitechapel and was named Kosminsky was Aaron, and somehow the two were believed by Swanson to be one and the same (or one should say, all the data was believed by him to refer to the one he knew about). I may say that other policemen with long experience have confirmed my view that in case of this importance, an incarcerated lunatic suspect would never go unobserved with a casual erroneous assumption that he had died. I would bet there is a police file today waiting to be reopened for a new entry if Straffen is ever transferred from Broadmoor, and to be closed when he dies.
I would say, too, that American policemen with constant experience of adjacent or overlapping jurisidictions, find completely convincing the hypothesis that the Met followed Cohen and subsequently assumed he was the same man the City had been following, and so added some definite City data on Kosminsky to their information on Cohen. In fact, one American police oficer, on learning for the first time that there was a City Police force, immediately declared his certainty that confusion between the two forces must be the reason the case was never solved. And he said this long before hearing a word about the various theories in the case.
On another board somebody suggested that a search should be made for an alternative to Cohen or Kosminsky as Anderson's suspect. It would be no bad thing if somebody were to repeat and check my trawl through the London asylums looking for poor Polish Jews from the heart of the district. But to the extent that I listed names and data of all Jewish inmates from 1888 to 1890, this work has in essence been done. (Of course I am and have always been in sympathy with those who say that any identification of Kosminski in 1891 would be worthless, and his incarceration could never be taken as causing the murders to stop).
Finally the 1895 newspaper report. This seems to be being used as though Anderson himself regarded his opinion as a theory. I cannot give this credence. Even today, in my experience, police officers who are sure they know about the guilt or innocence of such allegedly doubtful cases as the Guildford Six or James Hanratty treat their opinion as obvious fact and the lucubrations of Ludovic Kennedy and Pul Foot and others as wild moonshine. I very often find myself in agreement with such police officers, but I should still treat their opinions as theories, and might so describe them. I don't think they would do so themselves. In 1890, when Monro admitted to having a theory about Jack the Ripper, he carefully stressed that he held it 'decidedly' and based it on 'a practical standpoint'. I certainly don't think Anderson would have said he had a theory. He would have said he knew - he was, after all, basing his conviction on an ID that convinced him, even if public opinion and professional responsibility compelled him to follow up later Ripperesque cases for a couple of years to ensure that he hadn't been wrong. I think he would have exploded to know that littlechild said he only thought he knew. This statement surely means that Anderson was sure he knew who the Ripper was, and Littlechild thought he was probably wrong.
Ah, what fun to be argung about the Ripper again!
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Peter Wood
Tuesday, 14 May 2002 - 02:09 pm | | Thanks for that Martin.
So you'd still go for Kosminski would you?
Peter
With no ulterior motive for asking the question, don't worry guys I'm not about to introduced some convoluted diary related theory in here about Kosminski and Maybrick lodging together in Middlesex Street.
P.S. Martin, I have a more than mild interest in the Kosminski theory because I have been inside Leavesden Asylum, not as a patient I might add, but in my capacity as an (ex) police officer. That's what raised my curiosity about Kosminski as a suspect, to think that we may have walked the same corridors.
P.P.S. One more thing - is it true that he only spoke Yiddish? If so he couldn't be Jack the Ripper, could he? |
Author: David Radka
Tuesday, 14 May 2002 - 05:52 pm | | Thank you so much for posting, Mr. Fido. I hope you've been feeling well. Unfortunately, you've knocked me down again by what you say, so I'd like to ask you to take a moment to reply to the following question, please:
1. Is there any evidence beyond Swanson to indicate the City police were trailing anyone, and then beyond plausibility of theory to indicate that this in turn caused confusion between them and the Met police with respect to a suspect? Is there for example any document showing suspect 1's name, which thereafter can be linked to another showing suspect 2's name where 1's would be expected?
Until some tangible piece of evidence concerning the confusion turns up, it seems to me we still have a lacuna here of unestimable breadth. Believing in the police confusion is like believing with Edwards in the vesica pisces--it is a plausible explanation, but it includes an epistemological dice roll of which the odds can't be calculated. With what coefficient of reliability could we say that the confusion took place? 85%? 25%? 2%? Thus, maybe it happened and maybe it didn't. The matter remains a likely story.
2. Something we'd like to see someday: A nuts and bolts logical summary of Mr. Begg's, and Mr. Fido's total positions on the identification that we could lay side by side. We could then make up a third column for the Beggo-Fidomanian position taken as a whole; in other words, concerning those matters on which both authors agree.
On behalf of all who post here, welcome back to the Boards!
David |
Author: Paul Begg
Wednesday, 15 May 2002 - 03:22 am | | Hi David
No doubt Martin will answer you himself, which I hope he does as it is always a pleasure to read his clear-sighted arguments here, but his opinions basically differ from mine only insofar as he has rejected Aaron Kosminski as Anderson’s suspect and I haven’t. With minor differences, Martin and I are in broad general agreement about the value and interpretation of the source material and I think it is probably fair to say that neither of us has heard an argument advanced against it that carries weight. Basically, Martin differs from me in believing that Aaron Kosminski is so unlike Jack the Ripper that there’s simply no way Anderson could ever have believed he was. Given that a search of asylum records has thus far produced no alternative ‘K-something-ski’ and believing, no doubt rightly, that Anderson would not have invented the Polish Jew suspect, Martin has reasonably argued that the suspect must have been committed under another name. For various reasons, the most likely inmate in Martin’s opinion is David Cohen, who was committed as a result of police action, apparently in a raid on a brothel (showing Cohen to be a user of prostitutes) and who was committed to an asylum at a time that would explain the sudden cessation of the crimes. If Cohen was Anderson’s suspect then somehow he must have been confused with ‘Kosminski’. How he was confused is not known, but Martin has advanced a hypothesis to demonstrate how it could have happened. That the City C.I.D. had a suspect is supported by Robert Sagar and, of course, Swanson. The confusion hypothesis explains why David Cohen was called Kosminski by Swanson and why some details of the Anderson/Swanson account seem to fit Kosminski and others fit Cohen.
As far as I am concerned, dismissing Aaron Kosminski as Anderson’s suspect is taking the argument further than I feel comfortable about going. Aaron Kosminski fits Anderson’s criteria – male, Polish, Jew, residence, family, committal, and ‘unmentionable vices’ – and I don’t think we can safely go further than that with the evidence currently available. So, I am paddling down the shallow end with water wings when it comes to dismissing Kosminski as Anderson’s suspect and Martin has discarded Kosminski like a Styrofoam mat and swum off with a brisk breast stroke down to the deep end with Cohen. The point is that we are both in the same pool, just in different parts of it. Whether new information will cause Martin to sink or me to chuck away the water wings and go up the deep end, or whether we’ll both get out of the pool and swim somewhere else, remains to be seen. |
Author: Martin Fido
Wednesday, 15 May 2002 - 08:15 am | | Hello Peter!
As Paul almost said, I've NEVER gone for Kosminski since I discovered Cohen earlier: overwhelmingly the likeliest - (indeed, arguably the only possible) - candidate in the London asylums as Anderson's 'poor Polish Jew from the heart of the district' if one takes Anderson's words in isolation from Macnaghten's and Swanson's. When I subseuqnetly discovered Kosminski, I was prepared to change my mind if it seemed his records pointed to his incrimination, but as Paul says, they seemed to me to indicate clearly that he couldn't have been the Ripper, and so I've never shifted from Cohen.
Cohen, it was recorded by the asylum, would only speak German, which I suspect means Yiddish. It doesn't mean he didn't have enough English to say things like "Will you?" (which I believe are the only definitely recorded words of the Ripper known to us), as Cohen was in permanent a state of violent mania by the time he was arrested and probably would have had no control over what language he used. I don't think we have any evidence about Kosminski's command of English or use of any other language.
David - I hope Paul's posting explains where we stand fairly clearly. The historical lacuina is there, in the records. To take the weightiest moment of it, Swanson says unequivocally that Kosminski died shortly after transferring to Colney Hatch. The transfer took place in 1891. Swanson was writing no earlier than 1910 (the date of publication of the volume in which he wrote). And Kosminski lived until 1919. There is no evidence of any kind to show why Swanson made this error. But it is a massive one, which, if you take it as referring definitely to Kosminski and embracing an opinion of Anderson's, contains the extraordinary suggestion that two very senior police officers, one with long civil service experience or preparing for and hiding from public opinion; the other with a tremendous career record of involvement with high profile crimes, from the Mapleton train murder to the great Gainsborough robbery, somehow knew where the perpetrator (in their opinion) of the worst and most damaging 'unsolved' crime of their career had been incarcerated; somehow blinked and let their attention be distracted for a moment, and on finding he was no longer in Colney Hatch assumed he was dead, when in fact he had been transferred to an asylum for imbeciles from which he cold presumably have escaped or even possibly been discharged back to the care of his family - moves one would expect the police to want to monitor. Nonetheless, it is quite possible for a historian to feel (as Paul does) "He names Kosminsky; he must have meant Kosminsky. God alone knows where he got the other erroneous garbage from". And that has the obvious advantage of simplicity. (Occam sharpens up his razor for my throat, and amiably asks Paul whether he'd like any cologne for his nice clean face). Alternatively, the historian may analyse the strands of contradiction, and offer a speculative source for them which is consistent with the way in which we can see that different storied have got confused together. That is what I have done; its vice of complication is (I hope) redeemed by the neatness of the explanation. It is open to anyone to accept either Paul's or my conclusion, or the third conclusion (preferred by Stewart Evand and Philip Sugden) "God alone knows how Swanson got himself into this mess, but it is an obvious mess, and means we can't rely on him as a source", or in a fourth direction, try to offer a new and better speculative sourcing of the error. Nobody, as far as I know, has as yet attempted this. And the only fault to be found with the holders of the Sugden/Evans position is their unfortunate tendency to use a tone that suggests it is folly to hold any other. Provided it is always recognized that Paul's position and mine are both offered as hypotheses to explain a definite lacuna in a crucial historical document, there can be no professional objection to either. And there is an inevitable professional objection to dismissing the marginalia on account of their definite errors. They are the recorded memories of a man who was really up close to the case. The fact that there was a whacking great error in the middle of his recollections is another histyorical fact, and one which screams for investigation and explanation. Anybody who dismisses it out of hand as unimportant 'because the police were so obviously at sixes and sevens' must be suspected instantly of having the ulterior motive of pushing another candidate as perpetrator, and so having to somehow get rid of some of the most important historical evidence we have about the case: the memories of the police officers who actually worked on it. By the same token, I call Macnaghten's memoranda with their gross errors dodgy evidence. But I do not for one moment suggest that they be dismissed - the contemporary notes 6 years after the murders of a man who knew all the principle officers engaged on the case and had access to the important files that are now lost? They are vital historical documents, and their errors themselves are a necessary part of the historical record which, if they could only be properly explained, would be pointing us toward the truth.
With which, I sign off, apologizing to whomsoever was counting the meters on excess postings.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Vila
Wednesday, 15 May 2002 - 09:01 am | | Paul & Martin,
Thank you so much for your posts. Its always a pleasure to see you in the Casebook again. I have treasured memories of meeting you in the original Casebook chat room on a few Sunday chats in the mid '90s. (Good grief, I just realized that I may still have logs of some of those regular Sunday chats! Although I recall sending copies to Spryder for posting in the early Casebook archives.)
To get to the reason I'm posting, I'm about to be able to spend a small chunk of cash on improving my JTR library, thanks to the IRS. Since I'm an old farm-boy who was raised not to waste anything, particularly money, I was wondering if you could post a short list of writer's &/or books whom you both feel have strayed too far from the mark. I'd rather spend my money on books that are more logic & research than imagination & supposition.
If you feel uncomfortable about posting such a list in the Board ( as now that I think of it, it might just *be* a breach of professional etiquette ) please feel free to e-mail me privately at a time of your convenience.
Thank you again for your time,
Vila |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Wednesday, 15 May 2002 - 11:55 am | | Martin,
A few points:-
1. Anderson's opinion that the Ripper was committed to an asylum may surely be dated back to 1895 (by the Windsor Magazine article), not 1901 as you state.
2. You say, "I offer the certainty that Anderson was not lying, embroidering or consciously distorting when he wrote his accounts." How can you be certain?
3. With all due respect you should not flatly say that "he was not a liar" except as an opinion. You write as if this was fact.
4. You say, "...the hopelessly misleading impression that Anderson was an incompetent braggart." No one has suggested that he was incompetent. However, that he was a braggart cannot be gainsaid.
5. You say, "Paul Begg and I came to the separate identical conclusion that Anderson was the one who, by any professional historian's assessment, was the best source." Where does this statement leave Phil Sugden, who does not agree with it? Surely Phil is a professional and qualified historian?
6. You say, "Anderson's account contains no errors that have as yet been demonstrated."
Yet Anderson said, "During my absence abroad the police had made a house to house search for him." This is incorrect, the house to house inquiries were conducted after Anderson's return.
Anderson said, "I will merely add that the only person who had a good view of the murderer unhesitatingly identified the suspect..." The only way a witness could have positively seen the murderer, would have been to witness an actual killing. This did not happen so the statement must involve assumptions and, therefore, is incorrect.
In an interview in September 1908, Anderson stated, "Something of the same kind happened in the Ripper crimes. In two cases of that terrible series there were distinct clues destroyed - wiped out absolutely - clues that might very easily have secured for us proof of the identity of the assassin.
In one case it was a clay pipe. Before we could get to the scene of the murder the doctor had had taken it up, thrown it into the fire-place and smashed it beyond recognition.
In another case there was writing in chalk on the wall - a most valuable clue; handwriting that might have been at once recognised as belonging to a certain individual. But before we could secure a copy, or get it protected, it had been entirely obliterated."
These statements are incorrect.
7. I did not suggest that Macnaghten was 'privy to all Anderson's thinking'. However, he would be aware of Anderson's belief that the killer had been committed to an asylum and he patently disagreed with it. He would have certainly had access to all the same facts as Anderson.
8. You say, "To hint in a sort of 'willing to wound and yet afraid to strike' manner that there may be something suspect about the Swanson end-paper notes is not mere nit-picking: it is muddying the waters by attempting to introduce doubt where there is none..." Sorry, but read what I said. I stated the fact that I have never been happy by the wording of the end-paper notes, and that the phrase "Kosminski was the suspect" tacked on at the end has always seemed very convenient to me.
I also stated the fact that I have closely examined this writing and found that the pencil used on the end-paper was different to the one used on page 138, from which page the end-paper note purports to continue. Also the writing is very slightly different. However, I did add perfectly plausible innocent explanations that may account for this.
I also stated that the writing has never been properly examined to give the best possible opinion on its authenticity. The statement in the A-Z that "...the handwriting has been confirmed as Swanson's by the Home Office document examiner" is misleading as all a document examiner may offer is expert opinion, and to do so properly he has to examine the original documents. All he saw, I believe, were photocopies.
It is no surprise that the document has never been challenged as I believe that the only Ripper students to have examined the 'marginalia', until I did, were you, Paul and Keith. And none of you have ever mentioned the odd use of a different pencil, nor the fact that it is only 'expert opinion' from photocopies that has endorsed the writing as genuine.
9. Your comment that "American policemen with constant experience of adjacent or overlapping jurisdictions, find completely convincing the hypothesis that the Met followed Cohen and subsequently assumed he was the same man the City had been following..." followed by the incredible statement that "confusion between the two forces must be the reason the case was never solved.", is amazing.
You have long beaten the drum of inter-force rivalry but, as I have pointed out in the past, there may have been some disagreement at a personal level, such as wiping out the graffiti, but at force level there was no such problem. American police powers and jurisdiction are totally different to those applying in this country and really should not be compared.
10. The fact that Anderson's opinion that the Ripper had been committed to an asylum was a 'perfectly plausible theory' was recorded by Anderson's old friend Major Arthur Griffiths. The only way that Griffiths could have received that information in 1895 was from Anderson himself. And he received it as a theory, not as a fact. Also Griffith's major piece on Scotland Yard and its detectives must have been cleared by Anderson himself. Griffiths could not publish without clearance, he was also a high-ranking civil servant.
11. The 'Cohen theory' is yours and yours alone. You are an authority on the case and your opinion is entitled to respect. But, it is only a theory, it is only your opinion. Your conclusions are informed opinion and supposition only, they are not fact. Any of us who espouse such theories are subject to the same criteria.
12. You give some of Swanson's remarks as 'unequivocal' fact, whilst others are 'contradictions of fact' (where they can be tested and shown to be apparently wrong). But, surely this is engaging in selectivity to suit your own theorising?
13. It is not a question of 'relying on Anderson as a source', it is a question of testing all sources, not merely accepting them as simple 'fact'. Singularly, in the case of Anderson, you appear happy to do this.
There are many statements of Anderson's that I am happy to accept, recognising him, as I do, as an important and relevant source. However, when his statements become controversial, fly in the face of what many other sources or facts suggest, and suit a particular area upon which he has 'a bee in his bonnet', then yes, I will question him. And anyone else, for that matter, who makes such claims.
No one denies that he must be addressed as a very important source, but please let's not, as in the past, ignore and leave out anything that militates against him.
And let us not forget that when Anderson was appointed as Assistant Commissioner, Lord Spencer wrote:-
"What a queer appointment is that of Robert Anderson! He was utterly careless when employed by Brackenbury, and seemed to be a weak creature in every respect." [12 October 1888] |
Author: Richard P. Dewar
Wednesday, 15 May 2002 - 03:03 pm | | Hi all,
I am truly enjoying the competing theories of the case that have been outlined in the above posts.
I wonder if I might offer some conjecture about the case - it is a suspicion that I have long held but have not seen it entertained by anyone else (and perhaps for good reason!).
Is it not plausible that the suspect identified was Kosminski or Cohen, the suspect was identified by Schwartz in relation to the Stride case, and that Stride was not a victim of the Whitechapel murderer?
Could this explain why Anderson and Swanson seem so certain about Kosminski's guilt - while others involved in the case propounded other suspects?
I have found the commentary of Anderson and Swanson odd in their claim that the case had been solved while other leading investigators said it had not. Indeed, Abberline was specifically dismissive about Kosminski.
My theory would explain that contradiction - the only other explanations I could imagine is that Anderson and Swanson were simply wrong, their contemporaries were kept ignorant of the Schwartz identification, or many police officials were covering up the identification.
Perhaps I am missing something - as I frequently do. I would appreciate any suggests regarding the contradiction I have cited.
Regards,
Rich |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Wednesday, 15 May 2002 - 03:50 pm | | Rich,
Sorry, but Paul Begg has already suggested the scenario that Schwartz was the witness, Kosminski was the suspect, and the killer was not the Ripper.
What has to be emphasised here is that there is no evidence that Cohen was ever a Ripper suspect. He has been elevated to that position only by Martin's theory.
Kosminski, however, was a suspect, as named by Macnaghten and latterly in the 'Swanson marginalia'. That said, the forename of Aaron was never given, but as Paul says, Aaron Kosminski is the only person who could be that suspect - isn't he?
I hope that helps. |
Author: Richard P. Dewar
Wednesday, 15 May 2002 - 04:19 pm | | Hi Stewart,
Thank you very much.
It seems to me that the lack of agreement among other police officials that Kosminski/Cohen was the Whitechapel murderer makes Anderson's and Swanson's declarations highly questionable.
I know that is a simple and perhaps simplistic statement but I think it is true.
And my apologies to Paul for thinking I had an original interpretation that indeed had been his!
Plageristically,
Rich |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Wednesday, 15 May 2002 - 05:24 pm | | Rich,
Yes, I agree with you, but I am sure that Martin and Paul would not.
All the indications are that the witness must have been Lawende. As previously stated, Aaron Kosminski was incarcerated 7 February 1891 and a week later the Coles murder, the last 'Whitechapel murder', was committed in Swallow Gardens (13 February 1891).
Sadler was arrested on suspicion of her murder and was believed by the police to possibly be Jack the Ripper (surely an indicator that the identity of the killer was not known). Sadler was subjected to an identification by Lawende to try to prove he was the Ripper, but he failed to identify him. A check of Sadler's sailing dates then proved that he could not have committed the 1888 murders and he was released. One of the witnesses against Sadler was a seaman at the Sailors' Home. To my mind you have here all the ingredients for a later botch up (by an 'utterly careless' Anderson) of the identification story - all within a week of the arrest of Kosminski, surely more than a coincidence(in my opinion).
Best Wishes,
Stewart |
Author: Peter Wood
Wednesday, 15 May 2002 - 07:07 pm | | Martin
Thank you for clearing that up. I have read your books in the past but just wanted to confirm that you haven't changed your mind in recent years.
Let's hope the discussion between you and Stewart can continue and give myself and John Omlor a rest!
Cheers
Peter.
P.S. The obvious mistake in my post above was to identify Kosmiski as your suspect, when he is in fact Paul's. The reason I wrote that is because I have come to think of "Kosminski" and "Cohen" as one person, taking in all the various 'Davids' and 'Nathans' and 'Aarons' and other Kosminski derivatives. It's almost like trying to prove that that particular suspect is the guilty party, then trying to identify him!
I'm going to stop digging now, the hole is getting too big and the neighbours are giving me funny looks from behind their curtains. Is that the sound of police sirens? I'll get my coat ... |
Author: Richard P. Dewar
Wednesday, 15 May 2002 - 07:41 pm | | Hi Stewart,
My interpretation has been that Schwartz was the witness and he identified Kosminski as assaulting Stride.
However, I do acknowledge that the scenario you present is highly plausible.
This, I suppose, will remain a mystery since the witness was not identified by name - at least by any records uncovered yet.
Rich |
Author: Paul Begg
Thursday, 16 May 2002 - 04:42 am | | Hi Rich/Stewart
No, I actually agree with you both too about Anderson’s claim. I think Martin would agree in principle too. Where we would disagree is the weight we would attach to Anderson’s value as a ‘witness’ (otherwise read source), and whatever deficiencies can be levelled against Anderson, it seems generally agreed that he wasn’t a liar; even Phil Sugden, the most vehement ‘anti-Andersonite’, acknowledges that his assessment of Anderson doesn’t entitle anyone ‘to dismiss Sir Robert as an arrant liar’ and he postulates that ‘Anderson’s errors of interpretation stemmed not from a wilful intent to deceive but from wishful thinking.’ I share this view; I, too, don't think Anderson was an arrant liar or that he was wilfully intending to deceive. However, I don’t and never have agreed with Philip Sugden's 'wishful thinking in old age' hypothesis, which doesn't in my opinion accept the facts; as Martin Fido pointed out, there is every reason to believe that Anderson’s 1901 statements reflect a committed belief in the suspect’s guilt, and even Phil Sugden seems to accept that the Windor Magazine of 1895 does too. If Anderson accepted the suspect’s guilt in 1895, if only as a ‘perfectly plausible theory’ (and I feel we should be wary of attaching too much significance to the word ‘theory’; Anderson could have been 100% committed to the suspect’s guilt, but without a conviction it would still have been a theory, and in 1895 Anderson was still a serving policeman), then I think the wishful thinking in old age theory is dead in the water. So, whilst I share your doubts about Anderson’s comments and share them with bells on, I nevertheless believe that Anderson is a good and solid source whose remarks deserve and warrant serious attention.
Also, I don’t know whether Aaron Kosminski is the only person to be ‘Kosminski’. He is unquestionably the best candidate – indeed, the only candidate – thus far uncovered, but he doesn’t fit all the details (he didn’t die soon after committal), we don’t know that he had homicidal tendencies and a great hatred of prostitutes (as claimed by Macnaghten) and on the surface he doesn’t look much like a Ripper (though we have no idea what he was like in 1888, only in 1892 and later). In my view Aaron Kosminski fits all the criteria of Anderson’s suspect, but until we know why bits of data don’t fit, the possibility always remains open that Aaron Kosminski was not the suspect ‘Kosminski’.
I would dispute that ‘all the indications’ suggest that the witness was Lawende. Lawende’s use in the identification of Sadler and his possible use in a subsequent identification do indeed suggest that Lawende was the witness. But what else does? Lawende doesn’t otherwise fit what we are told – he did not get a ‘good look’ at anyone and there is absolutely no certainty that he saw the ‘murderer’, no matter how loosely that word may have been intended. And if we allow the Swanson marginalia into the equation, it is highly doubtful that a positive identification from Lawende would have had any value in court and almost unbelievable that it would have hanged the suspect – a defence lawyer would simply have pointed to the fact that Lawende merely glanced at a man, that the identification of the woman was uncertain, and that Lawende had several times stated that he couldn’t recognise the man again. He would also have no doubt pointed out that even if the suspect had been the man, there was (a) no guarantee that the woman was the victim and (b) even if it was, he would no doubt have said that the suspect spoke to her for a few seconds and then walked on, leaving her ample time to be accosted and murdered by someone else. Against this, Schwartz did get a ‘good look’ – or at least a better look that anyone else we know about – at a man who assaulted a woman whom he identified as Elizabeth Stride and who was in great probability the man who murdered her. As such, his testimony could have hanged the suspect (depending on what other evidence existed) and therefore I don’t think ‘all the indications’ point at Lawende. Some, and I would contend the better ones, point against him.
As for ‘utterly careless’, any such quote must be judged in context – in this case in the context of what Lord Spencer was talking about and to whom he was talking and why, but also in the context of the history of the period; Anderson came in for a lot of criticism during his career, but also a great deal of praise (‘he achieved greater success than any detective of his time’ for example), and as far as criticism is concerned everyone came in for severe criticism - Harcourt, Jenkinson, Warren, Anderson, Monro, Matthews, all were severely criticised, were disliked, had career problems and genuine enemies. Most of these people were dealing with political crime, there were serious and almost irreconcilable differences of opinion and policy, serious and sometimes debilitating ‘office politics’ and strong personalities clashing with one another, and there was an awful lot of ‘shifting responsibility’ going on! Turning to Lord Spencer’s comment, he was referring to Anderson’s work with Brackenbury, but the two men worked together for less than two months, which wasn’t a lot of time for Brackenbury to have formed an opinion and certainly not enough time to have formed an opinion that can be used to damn the rest of Anderson’s career. And according to Anderson, Brackenbury three times asked him to be his assistant before he agreed to do so. so Brackenbury presumably saw some merit in him. And others didn’t share this view of Anderson; Henri Le Caron stated that his survival as a spy was due to Anderson’s care, attention and constant vigilance ‘he never wavered or grew lax in his care…ever watchful in my interests’.
Briefly turning to Thomas Sadler, if I understand this argument correctly it is not that Sadler was Anderson’s suspect but that somehow Anderson meshed the identification of Sadler with the Polish Jew suspect. The Sadler argument is therefore a variation on the ‘confusion hypothesis’. This being the case, there was a Polish Jew suspect and that suspect was committed to an asylum, but the eye-witness identification was of Sadler, not the Polish Jew. Now, Sadler doesn’t replace the Polish Jew suspect he couldn’t replace the Polish Jew suspect because that would be a completely unacceptable violation of the source material. My problem is that I think replacing the Polish Jew with Sadler as the subject of the identification is an equally unacceptable violation of the source material and also seems to me a violation done for no good purpose other than to replace an otherwise possibly problematic piece of testimony. Moreover, Sadler wasn’t positively identified, so not only do we have to suppose that Anderson mis-ascribed an identification of Sadler to the Polish Jew, we have to suppose that he mis-ascribed a judgement opposite to the actual one. And we postulate this error because…? Why do we postulate it? Because we don’t want the Polish Jew to have been the subject of a positive eye-witness identification and are therefore keen to substitute it with a plausible alternative? If that’s the case, I can see no good reason for it. It’s far less problematic – albeit not easily explainable – to accept that there was a Polish Jew suspect who was positively identified by an eye-witness and that Anderson accepted the suspects guilt within four years of the identification (assuming that the suspect was Aaron Kosminski) and as far as we know accepted it at the time of the identification itself.
On top of which, one reading of Anderson, and I suspect that it is the correct reading (though I suppose I would, wouldn’t I), is that Anderson blamed the witness, not any deficiency in other evidence, for the suspect not being charged and tried*. If this reading is correct, then is it really likely that Anderson would have accused the witness of refusing to testify and held the witness responsible for the police not charging the suspect when in fact the witness didn’t positively identify the suspect and didn’t refuse to give evidence and wasn’t responsible for the police not charging a suspect who was in any case cleared of involvement by his ship’s records?
(* That the suspect would be sent for trial could be an argument against the suspect being either Cohen or Kosminski, both patently insane at the time of their arrest and unlikely to be tried, though they could have been brought before a magistrate, as was Cohen, and been declared unfit to plead and been committed to an asylum. A witness may have been called to give testimony at such a hearing, so a trial does not effectively omit either Kosminski or Cohen. That the suspect would be hanged, as is suggested by the Swanson marginalia (which in fairness says only that the witness’s testimony would be the cause of the suspect being hanged – and objection the police would no doubt have done much to reassure the witness was not an option, assuming it wasn’t), is another matter. Someone obviously insane would not have hanged. Or is unlikely to have done.)
Just a few thoughts. |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Thursday, 16 May 2002 - 08:26 am | | Paul,
I see that we have become embroiled in another lengthy exchange over Anderson, so I hope that I can cover off your points here and get back to my work.
Anderson is, of course, a subject of paramount importance to you and Martin, you based your core reasoning on him in 1987/88 and still do so today. Together you have spent many hours and spilt much ink theorising on him and his words.
It is a subject which, of course, we will never agree upon. The caveats against Anderson are usually ignored in the published sources and where such material emerges into the public domain, such as the remarks of Lord Spencer, they are belittled, trivialised or minimised. Anderson is not the 'solid' source he is represented, by some, to be. As always I qualify that with the proviso that I do consider him important and I do not suggest that he is ignored. But, surely, the fact that no other leading authority on the Whitechapel murders attaches so much blind faith to his word must say something.
It is repetitive, and boring, to keep reiterating the same old arguments. Certain published works propounding Anderson's pronouncements on the murders invariably omit to mention the points that militate against him, such as the interview published with him in 1908 in which he mentions the 'lost clues' of the clay pipe and the writing on the wall. I daresay that if they did they would simply be addressed with the argument that the newspaper 'got it wrong' or 'misrepresented' Anderson, despite the fact that his words are reported in first person speech. No, we can't have Anderson making mistakes and if we have to keep making excuses for him or explaining odd statements and remarks it will, inevitably, cast doubt on him. To ignore or omit such material is not objective and is not even-handed.
I cannot recall that anyone has accused Anderson of being an 'arrant liar', but I have yet to meet the man who has never lied, and that he was capable of lying is evidenced by Anderson himself in his published work. His work in his 'secret service' capacity would have involved much prevarication, deception and 'bending' of facts - of necessity.
No doubt Anderson was committed to his 'belief' in the 'asylum inmate/Polish Jew' theory, in the same way that Macnaghten stuck with Druitt. But Anderson went that one step further by stating it as 'a definitely ascertained fact', a statement which is, of its own inherent meaning, a patent nonsense. It is, of course, very significant that even in 1910, when Anderson came out with this amazing claim (it resulted in much newspaper publicity and comment in the House) Macnaghten still stuck with Druitt, and he was still serving at New Scotland Yard as Assistant Commissioner.
It is an obvious nonsense that the killer's identity was established, the mere fact that Anderson's conviction was based on his nebulous 'moral certainty' and an untenable identification rather than legal evidence proves this. Proof of the killer's identity never existed, anywhere, ever. The moral v. legal nature of the 'proof' is an amazing statement for a man of legal training and perhaps this reflects Anderson's extreme religious dogmatism.
All the indications are that Lawende was the witness - as evidenced by the attempted identification of Sadler. Had there been a second witness he would have surely been used. To argue that Lawende did not get 'a good look' at the suspect, and that the suspect may not have been the Ripper anyway, is irrelevant, because he was used by the police in the role of witness. They were obviously clutching at straws. And, again, I point out - if the police knew the identity of the killer, what was the point in trying to identify Sadler as the Ripper?
Such an identification, had it been made would be virtually useless after a period of over two years had elapsed and any defence counsel worth his credentials would easily dispose of it. The fact that you say, "there is absolutely no certainty that he saw the murderer" merely emphasises the point that I make. That is, there is no certainty that any witness saw the murderer. For no witness ever saw a victim killed. Therefore how could Anderson pronounce the suspect's guilt, confirmed by such dubious testimony???
I do not need the pros and cons of identification explained to me, it was 'bread and butter' for me in my police service. I have been involved in the procedures of many identifications, assessment of evidence of witness identification and the legal requirements for its acceptability as evidence, the rules of evidence etc. and it has been crucial in many of the cases I took before various courts.
For you to explain away Lord Spencer's remarks on Anderson was, of course, expected and predictable. This exemplifies how anything that militates against Anderson is treated by you and Martin. Anderson's word is sacrosanct and should not be challenged. Of course everyone who moves in political circles has friends and enemies, but this does not provide a carte blanche to
dismiss everything out of hand merely because it militates against Anderson. There can be no doubt that Anderson did have his good points and I have never denied this, but, by the same token he also had his bad. However, Le Caron's feelings about Anderson, especially given the nature of their relationship, is hardly relevant to this debate.
Yes, I certainly do suggest, as a possibility, that Sadler's failed identification by Lawende may have provided the base ingredients for the later 'adapted' or 'confused' identification story, which did not emerge until 1910. Especially as all these circumstances fell just a week after the incarceration of Kosminski. To believe that another identification took place and that no public word, even rumour, of it ever leaked out (except for Anderson) is unbelievable, especially bearing in mind the various people that would have needed to be involved.
Fair enough, you can't accept that. That is your right, to accept or dismiss the opinion of others. However, to make the statement about an "unacceptable violation of the source material" is, frankly, incredible. So, is the word of Anderson and Swanson now inviolable??? Surely, on the contrary, it is questionable and should be subjected to various tests and interpretations.
There are many reasons to question the Anderson/Swanson scenario and many of these have already been stated in the past. However, another which I don't believe has been addressed is the fact that surely the witness, if he did identify a suspect but then refused to swear to it, could be forced to give testimony by the service of a writ of subpoena under the 1805 Act.
Points to bear in mind regarding any witness identification are:-
1. No witness ever saw any victim murdered.
2. Any identification would have been questionable because of poor lighting and brevity of the sighting combined with the fact it had taken place over 2 years previously.
Apropos the 'Swanson marginalia', in view of the great importance attached to it I find it amazing that it has never been subjected to proper testing and examination.
In conclusion, all the arguments remain the same, little changes, the punter must pay his money and make his choice.
Best Wishes,
Stewart |
Author: Paul Begg
Thursday, 16 May 2002 - 10:49 am | | Hi Stewart
Like you, I don't want to get into a lengthy discussion and as you know I too am exceedingly pressed for time. However, it might aid future discussion if I briefly clarified some points I was trying to make.
I didn't and don’t belittle, trivialise or minimise the Lord Spencer quote. I simply pointed out that it should not be read in isolation, but must be understood in context. And what I said about Brackenbury is true. He was a reluctant appointee who stayed in office for two months and worked with Anderson for slightly less than that time, which was hardly sufficient time in which to have formed a meaningful opinion of Anderson and especially an opinion upon which Anderson's future career is to be judged. I honestly don’t believe that this is belittling, trivialising or minimising anything. It's simply the truth.
As for Anderson’s errors of detail in 1908 or at any other time, I have always acknowledged them fully and completely. I just don’t see how they are relevant to the Polish Jew. Surely Anderson's errors are only relevant if Anderson's certainty about the suspect's guilt was influenced by misremembering the identification and thereby giving it greater credence than it deserved. But there is no reason to suppose that this is what happened. Anderson clearly believed in the suspect's guilt by 1901 and probably by 1895 and as far as we know he believed it from the day of the identification itself. I simply don't see how mismemory influences a conclusion reached at the time or of shortly after the event. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that this is fundamental to our difference of opinion because you seem to think that Anderson only formed his opinion about the suspect’s guilt over time, whilst I think he probably walked away from the identification believing the suspect guilty. And as yet I haven’t seen any solid argument to say that this isn’t what happened, but I do have the Windsor Magazine article and The Nineteenth Century article which suggest that he did.
Nobody – except maybe Martin – is saying that Anderson was right, therefore Macnaghten may have been perfectly correct to stick with Druitt, but this doesn’t alter the fact that there was a suspect, witness, identification, and that Anderson believed the suspect guilty. And since we don’t have the foggiest notion of the evidence on which that belief was based, we can’t begin to assess it or determine how accurate it may or may not have been. Macnaghten may have been right to stick with Druitt; on the other hand he could have been way off. We simply don’t know.
Finally, Stewart, this isn’t a matter of predictably and expectedly dismissing or diminishing data that militates against Anderson. That is an accusation of bias and I reject it wholly and completely, as I am sure you would be equally affronted were to accuse you of bias. I’ve already addressed the quote from Lord Spencer and need not do so again, except to reiterate that nothing is being dismissed carte blanche and that Lord Spencer’s remarks need to be seen in their full and proper context in order to be fully understood. And no, of course Anderson’s word isn’t inviolable and that isn't what I meant by 'violation' of source. As I understand it, the historian’s job is the orderly and controlled reading, assessment and interpretation of the source material. The historian does not completely change or disregard what the source says simply because it doesn't fit our preconceived expectations, because we don't like it or because we can't explain it. If we do do that then that is violating the source. And that, in my opinion, is precisely what the Thomas Sadler hypothesis does. Anderson tells us very specifically that the suspect was Polish, a Jew, lived in the heart of the district, and was committed to an asylum, Sadler was none of those things. Anderson also placed emphasis on a positive eye-witness identification and on the witness’s refusal to testify. Lawende did neither. The Sadler hypothesis therefore dismisses almost everything Anderson says (and does so to support an alternative theory) and in my opinion that is an unacceptable violation of the source. If faced with a source that tells us something we can’t fit into the ‘known’ history, I understand that it is usual for the source to be set aside until further evidence is uncovered that allows its proper interpretation.
That is my approach to source data and I believe it is the correct approach and it is certainly what I believe to be a proper and unbiased approach. I readily admit that my understanding of what the historian does or its application to this particular situation could be wrong and informed opinion would be welcome, but from all my work and reading, and it is a lot, I think my approach to the data is fair and proper.
But it’s a fine and sunny day, and sadly we both have work to do, and it seems such a pity to be batting about this hoary old ball when I’m sure we could be finding a dozen better things to do before the weather turns nasty again!
Cheers
Paul |
Author: Martin Fido
Thursday, 16 May 2002 - 11:02 am | | Hi Stewart,
Another posting while I was away! I hope I'll be able to comment briefly on it.
But to your earlier numbered pints:
1. So Anderson opined that the Ripper was confined to an asylum as early as 1895. Many thanks for the info: I've been concentrating heavily on non-Ripper things for narly a year, and hadn't ingested that useful fact.
2. I offer the certainty that Anderson wasn't lying, embroidering or consciously distorting when he wrote his accounts because, as I pointed out, I am a professionally trained literary historian specializing in Victorian prose. Between 1962 and 1966 I was immersed in Disraeli, studying the language of his letters in the Brit Mus ADD MSS collection, and in the archive then held at Hughenden, until I had reached the ability to detect passages in his novels by another hand. I also studied his (and other people's) letters and speeches, noting the ways in which they gave themselves away when uttering partisan or flatly untrue statements. This detailed reading, looking for changes in tone and substance, is an extension of the sort of exercise undertaken by honours English students from an early date - dating unknown passages of Shakespeare from internal evidence. It is a trained skill. Having developed and applied it to Disraeli, I went on and applied it to other Victorian writers, and just as you can speak with authority from experience about ID, I can speak with authority and from the experience of having repeatedly proved my observations to be correct by discovering conclusive outside data. To this day I prefer not to interview people as part of my research because I instinctively believe anything I am told face to face, whereas I have a far more searching ability to detect dodgy written statements. I know that, like the painting experts who pronounces on the authenticity or forgery of a given work I am exercising an art and not a science. But given the examination of particular passages in a total context of a writer's known works, I can make confident declarations, which I expect to be truted in this particular field, just as I trust Sue Iremonger's conclusion about particular handwritings, or Melvin Harris's about particular forging techniques. Expertise is acquired by practice - (in Melvin's case, of course, practice in genune restoration of old artefacts, which he then applied to the detection of forgery).
3. Of course I concede without hesitation that "All men are liars", and I am sure Anderson uttered untruths from time to time. (As, for example, when he claimed not to have heard questions that he felt would lead him into revelations of confidential information that even he felt he must withhold). My flat statement is meant to convey that there is no question of his having written anything he believed to be untrue in his accounts of the Ripper case. I base this on a thorough study of his character and personality, going beyond the memoirs and the writing on crime. And, politely returning your due respect, I have as much right to say flatly "he was not a liar" as you have to say "that he was a braggart cannot be gainsaid" - a statement which I should certainly challenge!
In your posting to Paul you say you cannot recall anyone calling Anderson an "arrant liar". The exact words are unimportant. But the impression is certainly one that would be taken by anyone reading Stephen Knight's book - the most widely read and influential book on the case at the time when I wrote mine.
4. "No one has suggested that he was incompetent. However... he was a braggart..." Again, look at Stephen Knight for the suggestions of incompetence, malfeasance, and participation in murder! Look at the TV Ripper Files programmes of the early '70s and their distorted portrayal of Anderson. We maybe differ in the way we use the word braggart, but I should hardly apply it to a man who regarded his own career as highly successful in what it had achieved; took a very firm tone in his own defence (which is not at all unlike yours and mine wheh challenged); and certainly regarded it all as relatively unimportant compared with the christian morality which was an obsession with him. Of course we can all agree that he rated his own success too high. But one could come away from The Lighter Side with the mpression that he was at least as proud of having once lodged in the home of Charles Reade (author of The Cloister and the Hearth and various even worse novels) as he was of anything that had to do withthe Ripper.
5. Where is Phil Sugden left? As a professional historian who concentrated on minutely re-examining the primary sources recounting the history of the murders, and paid far less attention to the source values of those who claimed to know who the Ripper was, and the general 'Hunt the Ripper' conclusions. The clearest proof of this lies in the preface to his new edition this year which has no substantial corrections or additions to make on the murders (though one would have liked to see mention of everyone's difficulty in tracing the article Richard Whittington-Egan once saw making the first mention of the mythical pile of coins and rings, rather than leaving it as the footnoted source justifying the denial that there were any coins under Annie Chapman's body). By contrast there are detailed re-examinations of the standing of the various pieces of police evidence pointing to suspects, including a reassessment of Anderson which contradicts his original main-text conclusion about geriatric self-deception. I believe it was you who were sure that Phil only included a wavering finger pointed at Chapman because the publishers wanted a suspect named. If you were right - (though I believe Phil has since denied it) - this would be absolute and final proof that he was not really professionally interested in the question of historical evidence as a pointer to the Ripper's indentity. My own copy of Phil's first edition has (like Swanson's book) endpaper as well as marginal notes. And of the five endpaper notes, three are remarking omissions which I regarded as important in the accounts of the police sources, Anderson, Swanson and Abberline.
6. May I say that I think the errors you identify in Anderson's account are hair-splitting? It doesn't make a scrap of difference whether the house-to-house took place before or after Anderson's return fromt he continent. As a slip of memory it is completely trivial compared with the enormous error you propose - remembering wrongly that Sadler was positively identified and thinking that he then went into the asylum as Kosminski! To say that the only way a police officer can be certain that an identified suspect committed a murder would be if the identifying witness saw him doing it seems flabbergasting. On that basis you will leave Ludo Kennedy cold in the number of convictions you want overturned! If, as you and I think, the witness was Lawende, then it was not unreasonable for Anderson or anyone else to think that there wasn't time for the man he saw to have disappeared and a new punter to take his place before Watkins and Harvey came to the square. He might have been wrong - but then I've always said that. I don't think, however, that the point you make proves anything whatsoever.
And the pipe and writing - on the pipe I must again confess that inattention to Ripper developments over the past year means that I am not sure what the dispute is about. I am quite sure, however, that again we are looking at a lapse of memory which is incomparably less vast and implausible than that postulated in suggesting that Sadler and Kosminsky got mixed up in Anderson's mind, on no evidence whatsoever except the coincidental facts that Lawende was used to ID Sadler, and Kosminsky went nto the asylum within a week.
7. My point about Macnaghten was that he was not really close to Anderson. Certainly he would have known everything that Anderson knew that was in writing. Certainly he came to a different conclusion, though it is surely significant that he says that many circs made Kosminsky a strong suspect? We don't know, however, what Anderson may have heard in conversation, or seen for himself if he attended the ID, that made him so much surer than anybody else - including, as seems to be habitually overlooked, Swanson. We don't know that Macnaghten knew of any such things. We have reason to think that Anderson would not have confided in him.
Right off at a tangent, I've been wondering for some time whether anybody but Macnaghten ever suspected Druitt. Unless he was misled by the 'Dr' title - (unlikely if Dagonet had mentioned the drowning) - Littlechild hadn't heard of him. Macnaghten talks about evidence that came to him later, and refers to family suspicions. And makes the unexplained reference to evidence at the bottom of the river. I wonder whether Macnaghten was pushing his own theory on a basis of private information. It's only an "I wonder..." - and I can see the clear objection that it would be dodgy to put such a personal view on a filed memo which might be needed politically. Still... I wonder...
8. I really do have to accuse you of muddying the waters here. The provenance of the Swanson notes is excellent. Did you meet Jim Swanson? Can you believe that he would be involved in forgery? Or the maiden aunt who held the unopened book until it came into his and his brother's possession? Have you reflected on the hostage to fortune given by its offer to the News of the World ten years or so earlier? Do you suggest that 'Kosminsky was the suspect' was added to genuine original notes by Donald Swanson? If so, by whom; when; and why do we have a position, unlike the Maybrick diary, where the handwriting is so obviously Swanson's that we have to postulate a forger who has expertise not only in disguising his own hand, but successfully imitating another.
I was always opposed to wasting time and money by sending the book to a document examiner, as I have rarely seen anything more obviously genuine. I have to ask "So what?" if Swanson used a different pencil for his endpaper continuation. That you finds some of the character formations different, and offer that as reason for questioning the notes and demanding close comparison with originals seems to me frankly astonishing coming from an expert on Peasenhall who is willing to maintain (as I believe you are) that a document examiner's rather weakly permissive "might have been by the same person" entitles you to conclude that Gardiner wrote the unsigned letter making an appointment with the murdered Rose, despite the apparent differences in the handwriting. Did that expert have originals to work with?
I fear you will detect a note of asperity in this particular response. It comes because I feel i detect a note of accusation when you say that prior to you only Paul, Keith and I had examined the document, and suggest that we were trying to pull the wool over the public's eyes by our reference to the Home Office document examiner. Check with Keith, who didn't givethe same priority to Anderson as Paul and I did, in any case.
9. You claim there was perfect force co-operation between the City and the Met. I dispute this, noting the Home Office marginal note that the City seemed determined to tell the HO nothing and noting the strong hostility with which Smith greeted Anderson's memoirs, and the putdown of Smith subseqetly made by Macnaghten - (no defender of Anderson: one of the few colleagues he doesn't compliment in his book). I think there was probably excellent co-operation at street level, but mutual suspicion between Scotland Yard and Old Jewry.
10. I disgree with the conclusion that Griffith took his information from Anderson. Regardless of their friendship, his account is so close to Macnaghten's that I have never doubted that Macnaghten was his source, and don't see that the undoubted friendship betwen Anderson and Griffith gives any reason to change that opinion. Given that we know Anderson constantly disregarded the official Home Office demand for clearance of all publications including official matter, in the teeth of Warren's dismissal (or aggravation to the point of resignation) for breach of this rule, why assume that Griffith followed it devoutly?
11. I'm not sure what all this is about? I've never claimed that the Cohen theory originated with anyone else, and I should be shocked if I heard anyone else claiming it. Are you maintaining that nobody else accepts it? I dispute that, claiming the late Bill Eckert, and John Douglas and Mark Olshaker as rather strong evidence that the theory is highly persuasive to experienced crime and crimnal history investigators who have no axe to grind and are not trying to set themselves up as experts on the Ripper; merely commenting on the case as one among many coming to their attention.
12. Swanson said Kosminski died shortly after going into the asylum. This is untrue. Swanson said Kosminsky had a brother living in Whitechapel. This is true. What is "selective" about saying that these things are vitally important in assessing the nature of the document we are examining?
13. I don't see that this goes beyond my original observation that Anderson might have been wrong and was always opinionated. I don't find that these notes of yours indicate serious errors in Anderson's account of the case, let alone flying in the face of other sources. I's have thought my description of Anderson indicated that I thought he practically ALWAYS had bees in his bonnet - and some pretty eccentric ones among them. I have never disguised this, and it has always been included as a part of my assessment of the worth of his remarks.
I can hardly believe that you suggest Paul and I arrived at our conclusion that Anderson was the most reliable conemporary source claiming to be able to point to the Ripper's identity (a) without testing it against all other sources, and (b) with any implication that this meant everything Anderson said must be accepted as unquestionable fact! Of course we have to defend him vigorously when we find attempts to cut him down that don't seem to us properly historically motivated. In this respect, I ask you to look again at Paul's masterly examination of the Brackenbury statement. This far from being a knee-jerk defence of Anderson: it is putting the Brackenbury remark into the full and proper context of history. Refusing to concede that Paul's observations have any value; indeed, saying that it is predictable that he will counter any evidence that would challenge the 'sacrosanct' nature of Anderson's words is, I submit, offensive to Paul and unworthy of you.
In short, the aggro over Anderson, I suggest, really comes from people who are desperate to eliminate him as the important and relevant source you say you see him as, and it may, unfortunately, lead Paul and me to be a little too strenuous with our counter-arguments, as maybe I have been here.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Paul Begg
Thursday, 16 May 2002 - 11:25 am | | Hi RJP
Regarding your first question to Martin, which he'll no doubt answer, my own take is thatwe don’t know and that any attempt to answer that question would be a guess. The best guess one can make is that they couldn’t hold onto the suspect, who was accordingly released and one supposes pretty quickly committed by his family, where he’d have been deemed unfit to plead and could not have been brought to trial. I would likewise assume that pressure was placed on the witness to testify, but that the police perhaps didn’t want a ‘hostile witness’ or maybe the suspect had to be released and was banged away before further serious legal pressure could have been brought to bear on the witness. Some hint that this is what happened comes from Anderson who at various times stated that many unsolved crimes were solved but lacked sufficient evidence to be brought to court, but that they would have been if the British police had the powers of foreign police. At the end of the day, though, if Swanson wrote the marginalia then he presumably knew what he was talking about and, unless we have evidence to the contrary, what he said happened is what did happen.
But I do agree with you, I think, that we are stuck with condemning Anderson’s suspect without knowing anything about him and with the focus being on Anderson himself. But really we are only dealing with a belief, essentially a belief no different from a belief held by Macnaghten or Abberline or anyone else, except that in 1910, perhaps in keeping with his character, Anderson expressed it more forcibly, and if we accept that Anderson didn’t invent the whole damn thing, then what we have from Anderson is essentially a very simple story: the police created a basic profile of the murderer and the person he, Anderson, believed was the murderer fitted that profile. Frankly, I don’t really understand why people have such a problem accepting this story. Accepting the story does mean that one accepts that Anderson was right. For me the real problem isn’t that this story happened as a reality, it’s that we don’t have any idea why the suspect was suspected or why Anderson believed the suspect was the murderer. |
Author: Martin Fido
Thursday, 16 May 2002 - 11:46 am | | Hi RJP!
Your question about the subpoena doesn't arise if we are correct in drawing the inference from Anderson's remarks that the suspect was in the asylum by the time the ID was made. If certified insane, the suspect would be unfit to plead, and so the case could not be put before a court and the witness culd not be subpoenaed.
It is my feeling that that is just what happened, and if you want to rest it alarmingly finely on wording which was probably whatever came to the writer's mind, then there is some support in Anderson's saying the witness 'would not swear to his identification'. But as Paul Begg has always pointed out, Swanson says flatly 'would not give evidence against', which Paul takes to mean 'could have given evidence if he had not refused', and so the suspect must have been capable of appearing in court. In that case your proviso about the possible subpoena does come into play.
Actually, I personally think it likely that Swanson's words were merely hasty ones which might or might not have been intended to bear their full literal court-predicting meaning. (That's only an "I think", of course).Much odder is his continuation to the effect that after the ID the suspect was released to his brother! No policeman I know (except perhaps Stewart?) thinks this remotely likely in a case of this importance, publicity, and one in which renewed murder was predictable. Here is one case where Paul and I really disagree: he thinks the statement so weird that Swanson must have known it was a weird incident and it inevitably stuck in his memory. I think it's weirdness indicates that it never happened: it would seem to me just within the bounds of possibility that Swanson, learning to his surprise that Kosminsky had been sent from his brother's home to the bin in 1891, jumped to the conclusion that "he" must have been released from his earlier asylum incarceration into his brother's care.... but we're in very perilous waters in trying to explain these contradictions in Swanson.
As for the case against Cohen, it's really very simple, although the way I tracked him was complicated and full of snares and delusions. But take Anderson's statement on its own, disregarding Swanson and Macnaghten: we're looking for a poor Polish Jew from the heart of the district who goes into an asylum. Before even having made the comparisons with other people and the facts as laid out at inquests, I had concluded that we had only two real clues to the Ripper's identity: that he travelled in the direction of Goulston Street from Mitre Square, and that something happened to stop his murderous career in London soon after Mary Kelly's death. Previous researchers had done their damnedest, but come up with nothing persuasive to suggest that he moved his base and went on killing somewhere else. So the likely cause for cessation was that he died or was incarcerated. Anderson clearly thought that the incarceration in an asylum ended the risk to Londoners, so it presumably happened soon after Mary Kelly's death, which Anderson took to be the last murder.
So you search the asylum records for a poor Polish Jew from the heart of the district whose incarceration would coincide with the ending of the murders. David Cohen leaps up as the first Whitechapel Jew binned after the murders; the only one whose case notes are compatible with his being a maniac killer. Icing on the cake - he is the most violent inmate of Colney Hatch between 1888 and 1890. Better icing still, he dies within a year of his incarceration, and we know from sources like Abberline (over and above Swanson's notes) that the Scotland Yard asylum suspect was known (or believed) to have died in the asylum.
Stewart's Sadler/Kosminsky confusion theory postulates extremely similar reasoning on Scotland Yard's part, only two years later, with Frances Coles the last victim and Kosminsky the Whitechapel Jew whose incarceration brings the crimes to an end. Of course, Stewart also thinks Anderson and Swanson were wrong, and compounded their error by misremembering the ID of Sadler as having been an ID of Kosminsky.
Where my own thinking gets complicated is not in identifying David Cohen as probably Anderson's suspect - and remember it rests on my having checked all Jewish inmates in London asylums between 1888 and 1890 - but in my attempting to explain how in God's name Kosminsky ever came into the picture!
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Paul Begg
Thursday, 16 May 2002 - 12:46 pm | | Hi Martin/RJP
Who said pressure wasn't brought to bear on the witness? It's an assumption that none was and it is an assumption I don't think the evidence permits us to draw. For all we know enormous pressure was brought to bear, it's just that the suspect was committed before any trial could take place or the witness be forced to testify.
Just one small expansion on what Martin has written, why I lean away from the suspect already having been committed at the time of the identification, isn’t because I think the witness could have given testimony had he not refused to do so, but because Swanson says that the witness wouldn’t testify because he knew his testimony would hang the suspect and didn’t want that on his conscience. If there was any chance at all of the suspect being hanged then he couldn’t already have been committed. I also feel that Anderson laid the blame for the suspect not being charged on the witness’s refusal to testify, which suggests to me that some hope of a trial was entertained, which again suggests that the suspect wasn't already committed. I therefore suppose that pressure was brought to bear on the witness, but that the suspect was put away before charges could have been brought.
For me, of course, this necessitates an explanation of why the police released a positively identified suspect, and I can't offer any rational explanation for that and can only observe that Swanson tells us that this is what happened and that Aaron Kosminski \i(was) committed from his brother’s house.
And if I may, I think the Cohen argument becomes unnecessarily complicated when one starts to analyse it in any detail. As I said in a post above, if Aaron Kosminski was not Anderson’s suspect and if Anderson didn’t invent the whole Polish Jew story, then there must be a Polish Jew suspect in an asylum somewhere and the best one found so far is David Cohen. How he became confused with Kosminski is inevitably hypothetical and just confuses things. |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Thursday, 16 May 2002 - 03:58 pm | | Paul,
I think that your conclusions are a lot closer to mine than are Martin's. The point about the Lord Spencer quote is the fact that both he and Brackenbury actually knew Anderson. You and Martin, obviously, didn't. Brackenbury found Anderson to be "utterly careless", whilst Spencer found him to be "a weak creature in every respect". We don't know how long Spencer, the Irish Viceroy, knew Anderson. You attach caveats to what they say, that is your opinion and you are entitled to it.
Martin,
To address the points in an easy to read style I will again number them, and separate the paragraphs.
1. The Windsor Magazine article of 1895 has been reported on these boards many times in the past. I am surprised that you are not aware of it.
2. If your opinion on Anderson was shared by others, such as Phil Sugden, and there was a common agreement on the 'solidity' of his statements, then I might agree that you are right. However, to the contrary, not many people share your opinion on this at all, including Anderson's contemporaries.
3. We all have the right to our own opinion. We disagree.
4. I was speaking of the debates on these boards and the books of recent years. I concede that Knight and others may have presented an unfairly 'distorted' view of Anderson. This has also been true of other police officers.
5. I simply cannot agree with your assessment of Phil Sugden's standards. I may disagree with one or two of his conclusions, but his standards are set at the highest level. As regards his inclusion of Chapman as 'the best of a bad bunch' suspect, yes I did once state that I thought that it was because his publisher wanted him to state which of the suspects he favoured. He did correct me on that point and it has not been repeated.
6. You stated that there are "no errors" in Anderson's accounts. There are.
7. That such a momentous incident as an attempted identification of a Ripper suspect, as the killer, would be unknown to Anderson's second-in-command and confidential assistant, yet known to a mere Chief Inspector is unthinkable.
8. The query was that, in view of the great importance attached to the Swanson notes why were they never subjected to proper verification tests. It is rather naive to accept anything on face value and, I believe, Paul Harrison later questioned their authenticity. Yes, I met Jim Swanson and spent some time with him. I also subsequently spoke with him on the telephone and corresponded with him. The statement in the A-Z is misleading, the wording reads as if the writing has been subjected to proper examination and that a definite conclusion was reached.
Regarding the Peasenhall case, I have three original letters written by William Gardiner and I have made a close comparison of them with the photograph of the note of assignation. In my opinion, and that of others who have seen the comparisons, they appear to be written by the same person. No, I am not a professional document examiner, nor are you.
9. Please don't put words into my mouth. I don't recall saying "perfect force co-operation". What I did write was, "there may have been some disagreement at a personal level...but at a force level there was no such problem." By all means quote my words, but please don't invent words for me.
The 'marginal note' you refer to that states "They evidently want to tell us nothing" was a minute, not a marginal note. [see HO 144/221/A49301C, f171] It was written by W.P. Byrne and attracted a marginal note by Godfrey Lushington which said, "I don't think so." Lushington obviously disagreed with this comment and rightly so for it is a very good and informative report. What relevance this has to inter-force relations I really fail to see, for it is a Home Office annotation.
Now for two quotes to bring you up to date on the subject:
Inspector James McWilliam, head of the City Police Detective Department: "This department is co-operating with the Metropolitan Police in the matter, and Chief Inspector Swanson and I meet daily and confer on the subject." [27 October 1888, HO 144/221/A49301C, f170]
Melville Macnaghten: "It is needless to say that, for many years past, the most cordial relations have existed between the great London forces. At the Yard we were, at all times, delighted to see any City officer, and to give him free access to any documents in our possession. It is only by such co-ordination that the police work of London town can properly carried on."
Also, I have a large collection of original letters from Anderson's personal files, which you will never have seen, and these include a very friendly letter from Henry Smith to Anderson on City Police headed paper. It is dated 1901 and shows no problem whatsoever between the two men. It would appear that the disharmony arose as a result of the publication, in 1910, of Anderson's memoirs.
This all provides a quite different impression of the relations between the two forces than that you always seek to portray.
10. When Griffiths wrote the piece in 1895 he went to the Yard where he saw both Anderson and Macnaghten. Given that he may have taken the suspect information from the notes made by Macnaghten, the only way he could have known that Anderson favoured the suspect 'committed to an aylum' would have been from Anderson himself. That fact certainly is not to be found in the report.
11. This concerns the Cohen theory, which is yours. The reason I mentioned wast that I know of no other leading Ripper authority who agrees with it. I wasn't suggesting that anyone else claimed it.
12. What I was saying here, or trying to in my crude way, was that you seem to accept everything that is said by Anderson and Swanson as a given fact (unless proved otherwise), even though these statements cannot be corroborated from an independent source.
13. You said there were no errors; there are.
These aren't attempts to 'cut Anderson down', they are a plea for a more even-handed and objective treatment of the subject matter. Statements in the A-Z are selective, tendentious and biased in favour of Anderson. Many agree with me. No-one is 'desperate to eliminate him', all we want to see is more objectivity.
Best Wishes,
Stewart |
Author: Martin Fido
Thursday, 16 May 2002 - 07:21 pm | | Hi Stewart,
Let's go briefly to the points:
1. Do you want a full account of the family and professional responsibilities, illnesses etc which to my great regret caused me to break off reading even your and Keith's Source book before I had finished it? I simply CANNOT keep up with Ripper studies as I might like.
2. What experience has Phil Sugden or anyone else who has done detailed work on Ripper history got of the professional examination of Victorian prose to see what can be determined about the author from internal evidence? Of course I am only offering an opinion, but in this instance it is an expert opinion and until the happy arrival of John Omlor, the only other authority with my brand of expertise who has ever come into this field is the lady employed by the Sunday Times to date the prose of the Maybrick Diary. (Her conclusions on that matter were identical with mine, but are seen as biassed and tendentious by those who defend the diary). I have never seen a word written by anybody but myself that suggests they have examined Anderson's political or theological writing to determine how to assess his veracity and general accuracy; indeed, few people seem to have looked much farther into the Lighter Side and Criminals & Crime than the Ripper paragraphs.
3. No problem.
4. This maybe pinpoints a difference between our approaches. I look at almost everything as it is written in its context. Thus, while I personally feel Phil Sugden over-corrects in his rehabilitation of Abberline, especially as it forces him into what he acknowledges to be the peculiar situation of identifying a 'best suspect' whom he doesn't think likely to have been the Ripper, I nonetheless acknowledge that in the context of about ten years public preference of Anderson's testimony over Abberline's, he was quite right to re-examine it. Remember that the situation when I wrote was one in which it was still believed that the Ripper file was 'closed' at a time deliberately relating to Abberline's resignation from the force. Abberline's goofy acceptance of the womb-collecting American doctor was not generally known. And a corrective to the Knight (and others') view of Anderson was extremely necessary - indeed, some postings within the last few years on the boards suggest that the message still hasn't sunk in! I take even more pride in the work I did to rehabilitate Warren from the detrimental jeers of Ripperologists who hadn't looked further thanthe popular press - something for which his family has thanked me.
5. Sorry, but Phil's extremely high standards, though well in evidence in his narrative of the murders, simply don't appear in his treatment of police officers and suspects where he is by comparison cursory, makes criticism of previous work without having read the primary sources on which it is based, and is evidently not really concerned with Hunt the Ripper. This doesn't mean that he is wrong, or that you are not perfectly reasonable and entitled to agree with his conclusions. But it does mean that I don't have to regard them as the product of the excellent scholarship of which he is capable - any more than I should expect everyone to judge my Murder After Midnight scripts as the serious work of a former fellow of Balliol and authority on certain obscure aspects of Victorian literary history!
As compared with Phil, I WAS compelled by my publishers to go and look for Anderson's suspect, having originally submitted a proposal which went no further than drawing attention to the obvious correlation between Anderson's Polish Jew and Macnaghten's Kosminsky, and suggesting that a search of the asylum records should produce a more plausible suspect than any hitherto suggested.
In my opinion, ultimately, it certainly did. In yours and Phil's, it didn't. That is no problem. But unless and until somebody redoes the research I did to check it, and takes it some stages further, I really don't have to accept any opposition as scholarly refutation, though it may perfectly well be rational, sensible and even correct.
6. Why the tone of schoolmasterly indignation? You stated recently that Anderson called the identification of the Ripper a "definitely ascertained fact," when it suited your argument to interpret the words that way. Yet it was you yourself who showed us that these words far more probably describe the Jewish ethnicity of his suspect. We all make statements which can be shown to contain an element of overstatement from time to time, especially in the context of quick postings on the boards and working from memory. It doesn't alter my point that the lapses of memory identified in Anderson's remarks are utterly insignificant compared with that proposed in the Sadler/Kosminsky confusion theory. I don't think they lend credence to it. You do. History will decide between us (if it continues to interest anyone).
7. Bear in mind that I think the ID took place before Cohen's death, whch allows a substantial period of months before Macnaghten became, not Anderson's, but Williamson's 2-i/c up to the time of the death. Bear in mind, too, that it is Macnaghten who thought the suspect went into the asylum some months after the murders stopped - a statement which had me searching and rechecking the March/April asylum admissions for a long and fruitless time. When I mentioned to Richard Whittington-Egan that I'd found Macnaghten somewhat inaccurate and unreliable, he poured out agreement from his work on the - forget the name (senior moment!) - you know who I mean: the Helen Lambie business and wrong ID in Scotland.
8. Well, do you or don't you think there is any possibility that the marginalia were wholly or partly forged? Do you or don't you think that decisions must necessarily be made on a basis of examination of original documents by a professional document examiner? Have you considered the fact that Don saw the marginalia before any of us, and like me, never considered there could be a shadow of doubt about their being genuine. (And, of course, that Charles Nevin and The Daily Telegraph had seen them before any Ripperologist got near them, and so if you think th words 'Kosminsky was the suspect" were a forged addition, then they had to be written before Ripper people got near the marginalia, and probably before the book ws submitted to the News of the World). If you only want to say that you think the A-Z contains an overstatement, for goodness sake don't leave it sounding as though you think poor Mr Swanson or anyone connected with him could be guilty of forgery. And for the sake of serious history and the avoidance of Maybrick Diary-like arguing about nothing, give us a clear opinion as to whether you think the notes are genuine or not. Your saying that you never liked the last sentence is as clear an example of being willing to wound and yet afraid to strike as I can imagine.
9. Your work on the internal police files has gone far beyond mine, so I'm not getting into dispute with you here. Just as you are entitled to hold a different opinion from mine over Anderson, despite having read less of his works and having less familiarity with Victorian political history and linguistic usages, so I am entitled to incline in this matter to a different opinion from you. But I shouldn't dream of arguing the case with you unless I had time or opportunity to examine all the documents you have seen. I'm not trying to persuade you to accept my views, you know; only asking that you don't try to hector me out of them, or accuse me of holding them in anything ranging from bad faith to professional incompetence!
10. Fair enough: now you're saying that Griffith talked to BOTH of them. And it remains my view that Macnaghten was the one whose tendency he finally accepted.
11. But as I've pointed out, Ripper experts usually have an axe to grind, and want to get rid of all other theories. As Paukl Begg has remarked, if someobody comes up with irrefutable proof of the Ripper's identity, there will be a huge outcry of Ripperologists insisting that they had refuted it. When one moves to general crime historians who are simply surveying cases without necessarily trying to contribute their own orignal research, we find a very different story. And I've picked three for whose expertise I have the highest respect.
12. Simply, I have to deny this flatly! NOBODY can claim or as far as I know HAS ever claimed that everything Swanson says is true: there are demonstrable untruths in his and every other police contemporary account except Littlechild's, and, with the really trivial details you noted, Anderson's. Anderson therefore remains 'best evidence' until the contrary is proved.
13. Throwing brickbats at the A-Z doesn't explain why you felt it necessary to denigrate Paul's thorough, professional and sensible examination of Spencer and Brackenbury in context.
Of course people whose work is viewed critically don't like the A-Z. But in calling it tendentious and biassed you seem to suggest that we should say what we don't believe. I struggled unsuccessfully to have our piece on the Maybrick Diary open with the words 'A forgery'. Do you think we are more or less tendentious and unbiassed because this opinion - acepted now by all but (literally) two or three people who have studied the case - is omitted? We both know one writer who feels it was tendentious, biassed and deeply unfair to him. He has made his appearances on the boards, and I am happy to leave the judgement to the public, who,in turn, are the ultimate judges of the A-Z.
But really, my plea is for disagreement to be amiable and not snippy! We've managed it in the past, and I hope will do so again.
All the best,
Martin |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Friday, 17 May 2002 - 12:02 am | | Martin,
I think that we will have to agree to disagree, I am afraid that I really do not have the time for protracted, circular, argument.
Best Wishes,
Stewart |
Author: brad mcginnis
Friday, 17 May 2002 - 12:09 am | | Thank you gentlemen for a real and worthwhile debate. You have no idea how much we crave real information in regard to this case by people who are genuine researchers. Hopefully this will be the start of a trend and the end of the Maybrick drivel which has been closterol in the arteries of the Casebook.
Once again, thank you,
Brad |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Friday, 17 May 2002 - 04:44 am | | Dear Martin,
On reflection I feel that my response above is terse and perhaps the wrong way to terminate my participation in this discussion. Therefore I am making the time to respond in a more suitable fashion, hopefully, concentrating on the more constructive side of our exchanges, and perhaps focusing more on some of the aspects that we may agree upon.
We all have family and professional responsibilities, and mine have been particularly fraught over the last year. I was sorry to hear that there have been illnesses affecting you, I do hope that all is improving now.
I must agree with you that it has been a particular bonus to see John Omlor's erudite and incisive contributions to these boards. I also have to agree with you that many, unlike us, have not read, fully, Anderson's Criminals and Crime and The Lighter Side of my Official Life. They are informative works.
In looking at the various aspects of the case I do endeavour to see them in their historical context, indeed, one aspect of Anderson, and a very important one at that, has never been touched upon in any Ripper work (including mine), I believe, and it must be very relevant to his actions and attitude at the time of the murders. A similar situation exists with Warren, but I do not intend to delve into that here.
As I have said, I cannot agree with you in your assessment of Phil's work and I do realise that your publishers required you to 'bottom out' your suspect research. And your pioneering work in researching asylum inmates should (and generally is I believe) applauded.
I don't think that there can be any doubt that Anderson's words amounted, unequivocally, to stating that the police knew the identity of the Ripper. Again, I point to the absurdity of this claim.
Macnaghten assumed duties at Scotland Yard on 1 June 1889 as assistant to Williamson who was a very sick man (he died the same year) and the idea was that Macnaghten should replace him, which he did. So Macnaghten was working very closely with Williamson, for a few months, in order to learn all he could. Williamson died on 9 December 1889. Inaccuracies may be found in the writings of many of these men and, I suppose, most of these are a result of carelessness or faulty memory. The case you referred to was that of Oscar Slater.
I refuse to be drawn further on the question of the 'Swanson marginalia'. The main reason being that I am not qualified, nor do I have enough information, to suggest that it is forged. However, what I have stated is fact. Or am I supposed to keep my misgivings to myself and not question the problems I perceive. I repeat that I have never been happy about the actual content of the endpaper note because of its apparent oddness. Written by a retired police officer it describes an unethical and possibly illegal identification, the illogical return of what was believed to be a murder suspect to his family (! and surely this would indicate he was not proven to be insane thus negating the idea that a subpoena could not be served on the witness) and, as I pointed out, the seemingly very pat and convenient "Kosminski (again no forename) was the suspect." These reservations I have had for many years and discussed them with Nick Warren (among others) as long as seven years ago.
When I relatively recently examined the notes 'in the flesh' I found the writing on the endpaper did not exactly match that on page 138 and a different pencil had been used. These factors did not relieve my reservations, they added to them. However, I have, myself, already offered the innocent explanation for the use of a different pencil, and the difference in the handwriting being the result of having a much larger space to write in. The fact that the endpaper note starts "Continuing from page 138." would seem to indicate that it was all written at the same time, though, I guess, not necessarily so.
As a policeman for so many years I have a naturally suspicious mind but these reservations do not amount to a claim that the marginalia is forged. For I would be quite happy for it to be proved genuine and, indeed, some of my own interpretation of it has proceeded from the assumption that it is. You see this as 'wounding', I merely see it as doubt over something as I perceive it and which I would like to see resolved. Don Rumbelow is coming to see me on Monday and I will mention to him to get his 'take' on what I am saying. So I don't know either way, I want to be convinced.
I am not trying to 'hector' you out of anything (heaven forbid!) I am simply disagreeing with your oft-repeated claim that there was a problem between the Met. and the City Police in their working relationship. I produced evidence to the contrary, perhaps you could produce evidence to back your claims. (Apart from the obvious spat over the graffiti which I have mentioned).
Griffiths knew of Anderson's preference for the suspect committed to an asylum in 1895, yet in 1898 when he published his book, it was Macnaghten he agreed with over suspect preference.
People who survey a subject case for which they have no specialist knowledge can only reach their conclusions from what they read about that case. Did they access unbiased prime source material or were they 'led' by literature they read? There are, for instance, factual errors in the Douglas/Olshaker book. Douglas obviously relied heavily on your own writings (which he often quotes) and, surprise, surprise, plumped for your suspect "or someone very much like him". Amazingly, it is stated, in regard to Chapman, "Two farthing coins were also near the body, though this detail was kept secret by the police to help qualify suspects." [!] Where did they get this gem from? Certainly not the official reports on the Chapman murder which clearly prove this to be a nonsense. Other errors include the date of the Smith murder, and her death, defence wounds on Stride's hands [???], Blackwell did not believe she had been killed standing up (he could not say), and Kelly's organs 'thrown about the room'.
I was not throwing brickbats at the A-Z, I was stating fact, it does contain undeniably tendentious and biased statements in favour of Anderson and certain theories. A mere reading will show anyone that. Also I was not denigrating Paul, I was disagreeing with him. Why does disagreement always have to amount to 'personal attack' and 'denigration' in your eyes? I was not aware that Paul had fully examined Spencer and Brackenbury and this statement, perhaps he could enlighten us.
I don't suggest that you should write anything that you don't believe, what I am suggesting is that you should be less partisan and more objective with your assessments in a reference work.
In conclusion let me say that I too like our 'disagreements' to remain amiable and I always enjoy discussion with you. But I am very busy at present and must get back to work.
All the very best (really),
Stewart
P.S. Thank you Brad. |
Author: Harry Mann
Friday, 17 May 2002 - 06:05 am | | Just an ordinary type of person with no self proclaimed skill or expertise to boast about,and whose only claim to knowledge is in what life has taut over some 70 odd years,and whose opinion will no doubt be disregarded in favour of the more talented ripper posters,might I say the following.
While aknowledging that Anderson may have been honest and sincere in most of his comments,he like the rest of us perhaps found it convenient at times to lie.
At the time he made his statement of the ripper being identified,why did he choose to keep the knowledge secret,and continue to do so in later years,when there appears no sound reason for him doing so.
Indeed a truthfull and moralistic person such as he is deemed to be,might feel obliged to disclose the answer to what was probably the most singular event of his life.As a public servant he had a legal and moral right to do so.
That he did not do so,is probably for the reason that he could not do so.That the place of identification,the person identified and the person who identified him were not real.They were a place and people of Anderson's own creation.
That a Jew would not endanger another Jew may be true,but there was one option open that could overide this.George Hutchinson,if the police believed his statement,was a far better witness for identification.There would be no racial problemsin using him.
What I find unbelieveable is that Anderson alone would know of this identification,and in the event of other persons knowing, in the followig years and untill the present day,such information could and would remain secret.
My opinion is that no matter how truthfull Anderson is said to have been,in this matter he failed to live up to expextations.In a nutshell,he lied.
H.Mann. |
Author: Paul Begg
Friday, 17 May 2002 - 07:12 am | | Hi Stewart
Very speedily: I’m sorry but I can’t find where Martin said that I ‘had fully examined Spencer and Brackenbury and this statement’, only where he said that my statement on it was a ‘thorough, professional and sensible examination of Spencer and Brackenbury in context’, by which I think he was referring to what I said in my post to you about the need to judge Lord Spencer’s quotation in context and the fact that Brackenbury had only worked with Anderson for two months, which I argued was insufficient time to form an opinion on which to damn or praise Anderson.
As it happens, Colonel Henry Brackenbury was sent to Ireland to reorganise the police there following the Phoenix Park murders and requested Anderson’s assistance. Brackenbury did not want the job, accepted it with considerable reluctance, only stayed in it for two months, and did little more than set up a separate intelligence bureau. His successor was Edward Jenkinson and he had far more experience of Anderson and was in regular and close personal contact with Spencer (and thus able to influence his opinion), and he didn’t rate Anderson very highly either. Unfortunately Jenkinson didn’t rate anyone very highly and thought Scotland Yard and the C.I.D. corrupt. He just about managed to find something nice to say about Monro, but the two men quickly fell out and the ill-feeling between them was a serious thorn in Harcourt’s side. Jenkinson was eventually fired and Monro took over his responsibilities. Anderson had by this time been edged out into the ‘cold’, but was brought back at the insistence of Monro.
The huge problem we have in assessing all of this properly is that the principal cause of the differences between these men was ideology. Brackenbury, Jenkinson, and Monro were all very well versed in and had good, direct experience of counter-subversive policing. Anderson had less experience, but like Monro he understood the political objections to secret police. It is this difference in ideology that caused friction and criticism. A small example is Jenkinson’s opinion that the British police were inept because they seemed unable to enlist informers. But what Jenkinson never managed to understand was that enlisting informers was against official policy. Scotland Yard would accept information voluntarily offered, but would not actively seek informers. This sort of thing resulted in criticism, but the criticism wasn’t entirely justified. And, of course, all these men were often hit when others were aiming elsewhere; Brackenbury, Jenkinson, Warren, Monro… all fell prey to the political in-infighting. Remarkably, Anderson tenaciously survived. |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 17 May 2002 - 08:44 am | | Hi Stewart,
This must be brief, as a full answer I drafted was destroyed as I got rid of one of those damned pop-ups when I tried to post it.
I think we both state rationally deduced conclusions as though they were facts, when they are sometimes opinions. Thus when you say that anyone will see that the A-Z contains biassed and tendentious matter, many people may take this as a FACT stated by a respected expert, and not a critical judgement that may differ from that of other experts. Likewise your assertions that Paul and I treat Anderson as 'sacrosanct'. I could go on...!
Obviously the A-Z is open to the same objection: it contains opinions that may be misread as facts. For this reason Keith was very keen to keep all opinions out. But would it be fair to readers to write with an impartiality that suggested the Maybrick theory is just as historically reputable as the Druitt theory? Further, if you feel we are biassed toward Anderson, then (allowing for the fact that we finally decided to let some evaluative judgements in, which you are quite entitled to feel was a misjudgement), please let me know exactly who you consider a better and more reliable contemporary source of opinion on the Ripper's identity. I know Phil Sugden gives that weight to Abberline, but he does so without acknowledging the man's admitted ignorance of the nature of Chapman's injuries, and his extraordinary adherence to the long-exploded 'American doctor buying wombs' theory. If he thinks that these are less important than Anderson's small lapses of memory, I for one should beg to differ.
To call Paul's excellent historical placing of the Spencer/Brackenbury comment 'trivialising, debasing, minimising'; to say it was 'to be expected' that he would 'explain it away,' carries opinion right into the realm of insulting denigration of Paul's professionalism as I read it. But the readers will judge.
Please let me know what the files evidence is that there were no coins under Annie Chapman. I'm fascinated by this evidence that Reid wasted his time going to McKenzie's inquest on a basis of incompetently overlooking what had and had not been found while he was on leave the previous year.
I don't blame you for needing to get back to real work. I should be in deep trouble with Karen if she knew I'm "wasting time on the bloody Ripper again!" But it provides a distraction from her and my current crocked state - mine sounds worse than it is; hers is worse than it sounds. In both cases, many thanks for your good wishes,
All the best,
Martin
Dear Harry,
I think Paul has answered you more or less. I would only add the NO ONE has ever imagined Anderson was the only person to know about the ID - how could he be? We postulate (and that is all) that he did not share with Abberline and Macnaghten just what it was that made that ID seem to him such a certain identification of the Ripper.
His 'silence' was enjoined by the Home Office which prohibited publishing information based on officially received data without their approval. I once called Anderson a 'leaky oyster' for his way of slipping out hints of what he regarded as his successes without giving us enough to confirm what he was saying; releasing too much for the enfuriated civil servants; but fooling some of the people some of the time into thinking he was very discreet. None of which goes to challenge his veracity.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Friday, 17 May 2002 - 09:06 am | | Hi Paul,
Thanks for that, I am aware of the history of Spencer and Brackenbury in Ireland, it is covered in several books that I have. Indeed, Anderson discusses it in his own book.
Working with someone in this situation for that amount of time does qualify them to pass comment, in my opinion, and I don't see how it is being used to 'damn Anderson for the rest of his career'. It merely presents alternative views of the man that no-one has chosen to repeat before. To be even-handed all known views should be used, and by all means state your caveats if you wish. In recent times a very one-sided view of Anderson has been presented, perhaps going too far in the opposite direction to that of Knight et al.
As I said, I don't think that these alternative views can be simply dismissed as of no value because they originate from his 'opponents'. Opponents often voice valid criticism. However, you have made your point and it should be taken into consideration.
I suppose the 'trial of the detectives' in 1877, involving as it did practically the whole of the detective chiefs of Scotland Yard, did not create a very favourable impression of that establishment, despite the reorganisation and resultant creation of the C.I.D. afterwards. It stayed in the minds of many and probably partly explains the feelings of Jenkinson. I know that you covered it pretty well in The Scotland Yard Files.
All in all a terrifically complex and broad area of study. |
Author: Paul Begg
Friday, 17 May 2002 - 10:16 am | | Hi Stewart
Many thanks for that. What I meant when I said the Lord Spencer quote damned Anderson for the rest of his career was that it would damn all else that Anderson did for anyone who accepts that Lord Spencer’s remarks characterise him. In other words, if Anderson was careless when he worked with Brackenbury, then he was equally careless about other things such as the identification. Thus something Anderson may have done wrong at one time in his life is used to suggest that he would have done it again at other times, as in ‘To my mind you have here all the ingredients for a later botch up (by an 'utterly careless' Anderson) of the identification story’. Misunderstood, a sentence like that could mislead the unwary into unintended conclusions.
Absolutely right, all views should indeed be represented, which was my point. And I am not dismissing alternative views at all. No serious historian would do that. I’m simply saying that we should try to understand the background to any such comment, be it good or bad, and not treat it in isolation and risk giving it our own bias.
The Trial of the Detectives probably did incalculable damage, but I suspect the criticism expressed by Jenkinson was based more on personal experience and observation, albeit in some case misjudged. But it really is a grippingy fascinating period and in need of a lot more detailed critical analysis than anyone has thus far been able to give it. |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Friday, 17 May 2002 - 10:53 am | | Martin--Many thanks to you & Paul for fielding my questions yesterday. As always, much to consider and reconsider. My nagging questions about Anderson and Swanson aren't really meant to be some final dismissal of the Anderson suspect. I do like the police suspects the best, and your book is one that I find myself returning to again and again.
"Wasting time on the bloody Ripper again!"
Ah, how familiar those words sound...
We've all heard them, no doubt! Best wishes. |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 17 May 2002 - 03:52 pm | | Oh, Stewart,
In my hasty rewrite I omitted the most important point of all. Your remarks on the marginalia seem to me to risk going beyond disagreement over the obvious genuineness of the document, and potentially libelling by innuendo either Charles Nevin or Jim Swanson or both. To explain:
When you say that the document has always seemed fishy (not your exact word I know) and the last sentence seemed peculiarly useful or appropriate (again not your exact word, but the gist of what your words imply), adding that the endpaper note is written in a different pencil and some of its characters are differently formed, the reader may well think your suspicious mind has wondered whether the last sentence at least might have been forged by some one with a vested interest in having Kosminsky named in a further contemporary document. Paul and I are the obvious people with such vested interest, but we know we are absolutely in the clear since neither of us saw the actual writing until long after it had been published in The Telegraph - (I only saw Don's transcript originally). In any case, both of us have been involved in Ripper rows for quite long enough that we should never dream of starting libel actions against other Ripper historians for their criticism or misguided misevaluation of our actions.
But if you use words which are open to the interpretation that the marginalia include a forgery, you are either implicating Jim Swanson in collaborating with interested parties, or accusing him or some associate of his of writing the words with intention to deceive, whether before or after he was put in touch with me, and then Keith, and then Paul. If you suggest that it happened while the book was out of his hands and in Charles Nevin's, you are either accusing Nevin of forgery, of complicity with forgery, or of extreme journalistic incompetence in failing to notice an alteration in a document he had been required to examine and transcribe for the purpose of publication.
That is why I asked whether you had met Jim Swanson, whom I would take to be a man of transparent integrity and, at the time when I met him, with very little information about or interest in the Ripper. This is one of the cases where the provenance is so good that it completely outweighs anything but the most decisive scientific or handwriting analysis tests, and there is no need for any such tests indicated. (Contrast the Maybrick journal, where the provenance was so bad that Robert Smith immediately knew he would have to have some tests carried out, and in my opinion you and Melvin and Nick Warren were absolutely correct to denounce it as a forgery regardless of the reported scientific 'validation').
That Swanson's story is in itself at least partially untrue, and by and large incredible, I agree. But that has always been a part of the package brought under consideration in looking at what, nevertheless, is what Swanson definitely believed he knew in or after 1910. We then have to look to further evidence about Swanson to see whether this can be atributed to faulty memory or habitual inaccuracy, and to other contemporary evidence to see if there is any trace of anything that might have misled him.
(Rather similarly, Paul and I have have always carefully weighed and evaluated all the points against Anderson as they are brought to our attention. The detail with which Paul has investigated Brackenbury is obvious proof of that. Our conclusion has never been that everything Anderson said must be true, nor that the allegations against him were invalid: only that nothing SO FAR raised against him is of sufficient weight to alter his standing as the most reliable contemporary source claiming to know who the Ripper was. You and I may differ over that. You may feel that Brackenbury's remarks, and some of Anderson's loopy theology, and his general intransigence when anyone contradicted him, and his dispute with Monro as to whether he had or had not been authorized by him to make his contributions to the Parnellism and Crime series, not to mention his extraordinary self-protection at the time of the Parnell committe, and the inevitability that a spymaster couldn't have been a whiter-than-white non-liar, all outweigh, in aggregate, Abberline's demonstrable lacunae in his kowledge of the Ripper case. I don't. You may feel that Littlechild's confident declaration that Anderson only thought he knew must represent a better knowledge of the bases of Anderson's opinion than Littlechild chose to reveal. I wouldn't rest anything on Littlechild's postulated knowledge without further evidence. This is far from dismissing new evidence that proves Anderson to be unreliable in what he says about the Ripper. And it is certainly my impression that anybody who thinks that the critical details so far adduced against Anderson justify dismissing his suspect as one of the most plausible perpetrators ever named, has most likely started working from a prior conviction that some other candidate is more probable, or that the case is - (and some people feel should be!) - insoluble. This is not the same thing as weighing all the different people who claimed to know or suspect the Ripper's identity against each other and deciding which carries the most weight, using all the evidence: their own characters, the nature of their claim, and the support to be found in other contemporary documents. This is the duty Paul and I undertook back in the mid-1980s, (unlike virtually everybody else plumping for an identifiable perp, who - Farson, McCormick, Cullen, Odell, Knight - started with a theory and looked for evidence to justify it). Nor have Paul and I ever abandoned the habit. It is a serious distortion of our methods and conclusions to pretend that we say Anderson is sacrosanct and we must believe every word he says. We say he is a better and more reliable source that Macnaghten, Swanson - (at least I do; I'm not sure about Paul) - Littlechild, Leeson, Griffiths, LeQueux, Spicer, Uncle Tom Cobleigh, et al).
All the best,
Martin |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Friday, 17 May 2002 - 04:46 pm | | Martin,
You certainly do have a vivid imagination and a very nasty way of twisting what people say. I have accused nobody of anything, I have voiced my misgivings over something that is very odd to say the least. I really have no time nor inclination to discuss anything with you ever again. |
Author: Paul Begg
Friday, 17 May 2002 - 05:34 pm | | Hi Stewart,
I can’t email Martin because my emails keep bouncing back, but I am pretty certain that you have misunderstood what Martin was saying. I can see why you could have assumed that Martin was levelling an accusation at you, but first of all you must be aware, as I am, that Martin knows you far too well to seriously think you'd do anything like that, and secondly I honestly didn’t read his post the way I suspect you have done. All Martin was actually saying, as I read it, was that if the marginalia was forged then, apart from Martin and myself (and we didn’t see it until after the Daily Telegraph article had appeared), the only people who could have forged it were Charles Nevin and/or Jim Swanson*. Martin rejected this, in the case of Jim Swanson because he was manifestly honest. So Martin wasn’t saying that you were accusing them of forgery in the sense that you were knowingly and wittingly doing it, but that the accusation was inherent in the suggestion that the marginalia was forged. Martin was clearly wondering whether you appreciated this and explained that that was why he’d asked you if you’d ever met Jim Swanson, because if you had then you’d appreciate that he was honest. Martin then explained why this meant that the provenance of the marginalia was so good it didn’t need forensic examination and why we in turn must accept that it's the work of Swanson, even though bits don't make sense. I therefore urge and appeal to you to re-read Martin’s post in the way I think he meant it to be read and to reconsider your closing sentence. The last thing anyone needs is more falling out!
(They could be the only people who forged the marginalia because the marginalia contains material – brother’s house, prominence of0 Kosminski’s name and so on – which wasn’t known before the publication of Martin’s book shortly before the article appeared in late 1987.)
Cheers
Paul |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 17 May 2002 - 06:11 pm | | Hi Stewart and thanks Paul!
Of course I wasn't suggesting that anyone was being accused of forgery: I made the point that the words could lie open to a charge of libel by innuendo - (I speak with feeling, as the victim of two libel suits wherein my publishers and counsel agreed that I hadn't libelled anybody at all, but the breadth of interpretation allowed to the concept of libel by innuendo meant that the cases weren't thrown out by the courts).
All I meant was that, obviously odd as the document is, to draw attention to the change of pencil and character formation with the added comment that the last sentence is "convenient" certainly falls within a legal description of "innuendo". And as the document has always been either in the possession of the Swanson family or Charles Nevin up to its publication in The Telegraph, the innuendo falls on them. UK libel laws are a blackmailer's charter for the dishonest, and I don't think either Jim Swanson or Charles Nevin would ever try to extort money dishonestly. But if anyone reading your words were ever to conclude that you were suggesting the document had been tampered with and asked Nevin what he'd been up to, he could react by visiting his solicitors.
Verb sap!
All the best,
Martin |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Friday, 17 May 2002 - 08:35 pm | | | Harry, Just an ordinary bloke maybe,but one who shows a great deal of common sense and one who knows as much as most.It is ordinary blokes like you who can manage to keep their heads while those around them lose theirs. As for Anderson he is an unreliable source and should be treated as such. Anderson would say one thing one day and change his tune the next.Also he ( like many others )tended to become very confused over the ripper crimes. |
Author: Paul Begg
Saturday, 18 May 2002 - 02:11 am | | Hi Ivor,
Anderson would say one thing one day and change his tune the next.
An interesting observation that completely flies in the face of everyone who has ever studied him, including trained historians and literary historians with extensive experience; on what authority do you base this? |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Saturday, 18 May 2002 - 04:56 am | | Paul,
Thank you for your kind words, but as we can see from Martin Fido's latest post I hadn't misunderstood anything.
I find his ramblings amazing, I have never heard of Charles Nevin let alone accused him of anything. It was Fido's fevered imagination that dragged his name into this. For, how on earth can anybody suppose that someone would approach a respectable journalist with the suggestion that some notes be forged in a book, and to what end??? For a story? Money, what money? I find this incredible and I suggest that he keeps his nasty insinuations to himself. Anyway, surely Jim Swanson had previously tried to get it published with another newspaper (the News of the World?) who turned it down, but would have presumably seen the 'marginalia', which negates the stupid scenario suggested by Fido.
The real problem is that he does not like anything that he bases his theories on questioned. I have seen his nastiness in the past and I have no desire to see it any more. He would do well to remember an old proverb about glass houses.
This exchange merely brings me to question, yet again, why I even bother posting on these boards.
Best Wishes, Paul,
Stewart |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 18 May 2002 - 10:07 am | | Sorry to see that Stewart is still in a high old state of umbrage! I don't know how he expects anybody to interpret his observations that he has always had reservations about the marginalia, that he believes Paul Harrison once questioned their authenticity; that he has misgivings which he would like to see resolved; that despite his having postuled an innocent explanation this is a question he still thinks needs to be settled; that he discussed his suspicions with Nick Warren years ago; and, at the heart of all this, that there is a change in the instrument and appearance of the endpaper handwriting and the final sentence seems too "pat and convenient" to be necessarily genuine. To any reasonable mind this is implanting a suggestion that the endpaper notes may be an inauthentic addition to the original marginal note introduced with a purpoise that was convenient to someone.
If Stewart thinks his words can be read in any other way, he would help us if he explained to whom and in what way he thinks the reference to Kosminsky so "pat and convenient" as to make it a contributory factor in his misgivings? The only alternative that I can see to a vague insinuation of possible tampering with a calculated motive, is that he angrily rejects any piece of evidence that seems to support the Kosminsky theory - and that would be a piece of unscholarly closed-mindedness of which I would not accuse him.
If he doesn't know who Charles Nevin is, then his "misgivings" about the marginalia have never led him to examine its provenance: one of the first vital piece of work to undertake before casting aspersions. Charles Nevin (now Captain Moonlight of the independent) was the journalist assigned by The Telegraph to meet and interview Mr Swanson, examine and transcribe the document, approach Don Rumbelow for his opinions, and write the piece which told us all about it. It appears under his by-line, and I assumed Stewart had this first published transcription of the marginalia in his fils. He is the only person outside the Swanson family known to have held the document prior to its becoming a part of the public Ripper debate, and so his evidence about the state of the words is important, and any suggestion that a "pat and convenient" phrase was interpolated carries with it the possibility that this was done while it was in his care, or with his knowledge. Of course I am aware that the details of the document had previously been offered to and accepted by The News of the World, though they never made use of it. I referred to this in an earlier posting as an obvious 'hostage to fortune' if the phrase were seen as 'pat and convenient' for some purposes of the Swanson family.
Can Stewart clearly explain what 'misgivings' about a 'pat and convenient phrase' in a handwriting that hasn't been properly examined and cleared so that part at least of of the document may be 'inauthentic' amount to OTHER than a suggestion that something has been interpolated, or the whole thing created by a mind other than Donald Swanson's? If he cannot, then I suggest that he is stumping away from debate with remarks made in high dudgeon because he cannot answer the question, and hasn't the confidence that he should have in the unshakeability of his reputation, and so is unable to concede graciously that his wording was misleading; his suspicions can only be fleshed out into what he rightly regards as a fantastic story; and the overwhelming probability is therefore that the marginalia are genuine, even though extraordinary in the story they tell, leaving masses of unanswered questions about Swanson's memory and knowledge.
Martin F |
Author: Vila
Saturday, 18 May 2002 - 11:06 am | | Mr Evans,
Please excuse this unwarrented intrusion.
I feel I need to state that I (as a casual reader, Joe Average, man-in-the-street sort of thing) also intrepreted Mr. Fido's comment to you as a friendly warning that the sentence structure you used could possible be siezed upon by an unscrupulous person or persons unknown as a way to make ready cash from a famous and respected Ripper Author VIA a frivolous lawsuit.
At no point did it appear to me, the reader, that Mr. Fido and Mr. Begg were accusing you of anything other than lack of caution while typing your post. Since the three of you are probably each better versed in the ins and outs of Ripperology than (quite possibly) the rest of we posters on these Boards in aggrigate, you can understand how we amateurs hang on your every word. (No offence gang, but these guys have been at it since before some of us were born.)
I quite enjoy the cut and thrust of spirited debate, so I hope that the level of acrimony now present on this thread can be reduced as being due to a misunderstanding. The lifeblood of the Casebook, and by extension all Ripperology (in a minor way), is research and debate. All of us suffer when tempers flare.
In closing, I offer my abject appologies if I have offended you. I merely hoped to avoid further misunderstandings. Since I don't own a matched set of dueling pistols, I hope you will accept my appology and that your seconds won't be contacting my seconds to arrange a "coffee & pistols at dawn" meeting between us. (grin)
Vila |
Author: Paul Begg
Saturday, 18 May 2002 - 11:36 am | | No offence gang, but these guys have been at it since before some of us were born.
God, that's depressing. |
Author: Vila
Saturday, 18 May 2002 - 01:08 pm | | Paul,
I doubt you're more than 20 years my senior. I was speaking to those Casebookworms that average about 20 years my junior, like Spryder & Ally. Besides, no one lives anything other than one day at a time, so we're all the same age. (OK, so now you know why I write science-fiction instead of scholarly works of Ripperology. LOL)
Vila |
Author: David O'Flaherty
Saturday, 18 May 2002 - 01:32 pm | | The Casebook is well-served by the participation of published authors in this field. It's a privelige to have them here.
Stewart, I sometimes participate in the social chats here and whenever your name comes up, the words "gentleman" and "integrity" are always associated with it. I've appreciated your response to a couple of past posts of mine. Hope you continue to participate here, when time allows.
David |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Saturday, 18 May 2002 - 08:47 pm | | | Paul,Surely you jest with me if not then you should know better. In answer to you question about Anderson changing his tune he once stated: "I am convinced that the Whitechapel murder case is one which can be successfully grappled with if it is systematically taken in hand. I go so far as to say that I could myself in a few days unravel the mystery, provided I could spare the time to give undivided attention to it". Then at a later date,Anderson stated that he had spent a day and a half examining the evidence, which proved correct in every aspect. Then on 23rd October 1888 he wrote to the Home Office, "That five successive murders should have been committed without our having the slightest clue of any kind is extraordinary.He stated 5 murders took place to date, October 23rd 1888 when in fact only 4 murders took place by this date. I am aware of why this was so. Anderson also made the recommendation that every prostitute found on the streets after midnight should be arrested!!!! Such facts speak for themselves in relation to Anderson.The man made the most elementary mistakes that one would expect from a novice. He confused witness information by placing the wrong witnesses on site and he would put one situation from one site onto another.Furthermore you should be aware of such facts.As for your trained historians and literary historians you speak of, are these the same people that stated that the Ripper diary, and Hitler Diary were genuine ?Unlike such people my knowledge of crime,police, and criminals never came out of a book they came from first hand experiences. Also if they were any good they would have solved the ripper case for themselves by now and that stupid bloody diary. Anderson in his comments and actions ( some of which I have quoted ) showed himself up for what he truly was, a bull-shitter and a dreamer.He would not have known the truth if it bit him on the backside.If you and others wish to place your faith in such a person then that is down to you.On the point of literary historians, or experts in this game many such types dont deserve the titles or the respect. Not all people are gullible, or stupid for that matter and many know what this subject is truly like.From my experience of the subject too many have been getting away with too much for too long.It is about time this subject and some experts were sorted out once and for all. Some have been conning a living from the subject at the expense of others for years. Sorry did I say "conning" I meant "coining".I have never known a subject where so many slippery people and underhand methods can be observed. The subject is a bloody disgrace to say the least.And for the record such comments are not only my opinions. |
Author: Paul Begg
Sunday, 19 May 2002 - 03:45 am | | Hi Ivor
Sadly, I don't jest and I think I do know better. Those who have made a special study of Anderson do not believe he was a liar. Mistaken, guilty of wishful thinking in old age, perhaps, but not dishonest, a liar or a fabricator.
1.As has been pointed out, the first quote is from Warren, not Anderson, and in any case betrays arrogance rather than dishonesty, and has nothing to do with changing his mind on a whim.
2. He did not say he had spent a day and a half examining the evidence, which proved correct in every aspect. On the contrary, he said he’d spent a day and a half ‘reinvestigating the whole case’ and that he had found the measures in operation to be ‘indefensible and scandalous’. It helps to form accurate judgements if the facts are right.
3. Thirdly, yes he wrote on 23rd October 1888 to the Home Office "That five successive murders should have been committed without our having the slightest clue of any kind is extraordinary.’ So what? It isn’t evidence of Anderson changing his mind and is evidence of honesty rather than dishonesty.
4. He included the murder of Martha Tabram and wasn’t alone in doing so. It doesn’t show him changing his mind, lying or being dishonest.
5. Anderson also made the recommendation that every prostitute found on the streets after midnight should be arrested! Which he also acknowledged was impractical and proposed instead to warn the prostitutes that if they continued to work the streets the police couldn’t protect them. Common sense advice which in similar circumstances the police of today would probably endorse, but that’s wholly irrelevant because it doesn’t show him changing his mind, lying or being dishonest.
6. The above aren’t mistakes, elementary or otherwise, so your statement The man made the most elementary mistakes that one would expect from a novice still requires substantiation, but even if true it would make him stupid not dishonest or a liar. And Anderson certainly wasn’t stupid.
7. Your views on professional historians, enlightening though they may be, have no bearing on the evidence for Anderson being dishonest or a liar. Trained and professional historians may be pig ignorant dolts, which is not in fact an opinion I would share, and your personal experience may well be superior to research from books, being taught and receiving academic recognition, but either way we still need good, solid evidence that Anderson was dishonest or a liar before that view can be accepted.
8. Anderson in his comments and actions (some of which I have quoted) showed himself up for what he truly was, a bull-shitter and a dreamer. Well, he might have been a bull-shitter and a dreamer, but it certainly isn’t apparent in the comments and actions you have quoted.
9. As for your final comments, as often as you have expressed them I don’t recall them being backed up by any evidence and frankly they are so much at variance with anything I have directly experienced that I can give them no credence and in fact find them so far beyond offensive that I don’t think the English language has a word for it. But you are entitled to hold your opinions and maybe you're right. Either way people will make their own judgements of our opinions and we can leave them to it. But whatever you think of trained and experienced professionals, like Martin, Phil Sugden, Alex Chisholm, and others here with academic qualifications to bolster their assessments and conclusions, it doesn’t constitute evidence that Anderson was dishonest or a liar.
Cheers
Paul |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Sunday, 19 May 2002 - 05:22 am | | I was heartened by the support above and have to record my thanks to those of you above for the words of support and kind comments. I have made many good friends through these boards and I really do appreciate that friendship.
Acrimony is to be avoided at all cost and I have no wish to prolong such bitterness, although some remarks really do need addressing.
It has become increasingly obvious over the past few years that there are some excellent Ripper scholars in, particularly, the U.S.A., Canada and Australia. Scholars whose knowledge is great and their understanding excellent. No longer can so-called 'experts' on the case pronounce their ideas and opinions expect to go unchallenged by a knowledgeable audience. That is why when I am stating my opinion I am careful to point out it is just that, my opinion.
I have no wish, anymore, to debate with Martin Fido, but I have to say that he has provided above an excellent example of his own selectivity in using source material to bolster his ideas. As this selectivity, in this instance, has been used in argument with me I am now going to point it out.
He is fond of quoting the Douglas/Olshaker book as support for his own theorising. The main source for Ripper material, if you read this book, appears to be Fido himself - this is very obvious and I suggest that anyone who does not accept this should read the book. He did not like me pointing out, also, that there are several errors of fact in this Ripper treatment. One of these was the old canard of the farthings found near Chapman's body which we all thought was now well disposed of. The incredible passage in the Douglas/Olshaker book reads:
"Dr. Phillips told the inquest he believed the three personal items had been placed with some care-the muslin and the combs at the victim's feet and the envelope by her head. Two farthing coins were also near the body, though this detail was kept secret by the police to help qualify suspects."
In a response to this he stated:
"Please let me know what the files evidence is that there were no coins under Annie Chapman. I'm fascinated by this evidence that Reid wasted his time going to McKenzie's inquest on a basis of incompetancy overlooking what had not been found while he was on leave the previous year."
That comment may puzzle some so I will explain it. Inspector Reid was on leave at the time of the Chapman murder, 8 September 1888, and did not attend the scene or become involved in the initial inquiries. At the time of the Chapman murder there were one or two unsubstantiated newspaper reports of farthings being found at the scene (and this resulted in the later ritualistic placing of coins nonsense). This was addressed fully by Phil Sugden who dismissed the farthings as another newspaper myth (especially the Daily Telegraph report of two polished farthings being passed off by the killer as half-sovereigns) and showing that the excellent police reports on the Chapman murder did not mention any such farthings. The subsequent evidence adduced at the inquest hearings also made no mention whatsoever of coins, only the muslin and two combs.
Of course the significance of the police reports on the Chapman murder is that they detail the inquiry in confidential police reports but make no mention whatsoever of the 'clue' of the farthings and that they were to be kept 'secret'. So secret that they are not mentioned in confidential internal police reports? A ridiculous suggestion.
However, the point here is to show Fido's source selectivity when he chooses to use it. For he quotes Inspector Reid as that officer attended the McKenzie murder (17 July 1889) and gave evidence at the inquest. In that evidence on McKenzie's death it was reported that Reid said [inter alia]:
"Yes. There was some unburned tobacco. I also found a bronze farthing."
Presumably as a result of the newspaper story of the previous year about the killer possibly using 'polished farthings' the foreman of the jury said: "In previous cases was any similar coin found as that which you picked up in this instance?"
Reid replied: "In the Hanbury Street case two farthings were found."
Foreman: "Is it possible that the coin was passed off in the dark for a half sovereign?"
Reid: "I should think for a sixpence..."
Baxter: "Was there only one case in which a farthing was found?"
Reid: "The Hanbury Street case is the only one I remember"
As an examination of the reports of the inquest on Chapman and the official confidential police reports reveal, there is no mention of any farthings found let alone being "kept secret by the police to help qualify suspects". That such an important 'clue' would be omitted from the reports on the Chapman inquiry in the files is absolutely unbelievable. See Phil Sugden for the full argument.
However, Fido tenaciously clings on to the idea and selectively uses Reid's inquest evidence in July 1889 in support, despite the fact that Reid was on leave at the time of Chapman's murder. Fine, that is his opinion (it is not a fact) and he is entitled to it. But in choosing to 'select' Reid's evidence in support he is not qualifying his source. For, as Nick Connell and I point out in The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper, Reid was not, unfortunately, the most reliable of sources. Fido is quick to point out the dangers to anyone using the statements of Henry Smith of the City Police in support of their arguments. It would be nice if he did the same with his own sources. As may be seen in the Douglas/Olshaker book, they have stated the 'farthings' as unqualified fact. This is inexcusable.
Finally I find it incredible that the name of Charles Nevin was mentioned as the can be no possiblity of anyone making allegations against him. As I pointed out it is ridiculous to suggest that he would do such a thing and as the 'marginalia' had previously been seen in full by the News of the World it would not be possible to add anything anyway.
I have alleged forgery against no one and as Jim Swanson has now sadly passed away I am afraid that we can't ask for his opinion. When I saw that a different pencil had been used on the endpaper I did mention to him but he made no response and I was certainly not prepared to question a gracious and very elderly host.
Recently the authenticity of the Littlechild letter was questioned on another board. Did I scream the possibility of libellous statements? No, I merely pointed out its excellent provenance and informed the person responsible for the remark that proper scientific tests and examination of the Littlechild letter had been made and it had passed with flying colours. No such proper tests were done in respect of the 'Swanson marginalia' and it has been taken for granted that it should not be questioned. If anyone uses it as the solid basis for their theories the onus is upon them to confirm its credentials.
With respect to what Paul says above, a handwriting expert can only give expert opinion and that should be given under stringent assessment conditions. Photocopies should never be used. Paul says above, with regard to libel, that there are 'two people [who] figure as a potential forger' and I would like to know who the two are. Charles Nevin certainly cannot be one as I have explained above. Jim Swanson is, unfortunately, deceased and cannot be libelled, so just who are they? And I hasten to qualify this with the statement that I have accused no-one of forgery, I have merely voiced certain reservations I have over the 'marginalia' which, I know, several others share.
Paul also argues that the 'Swanson marginalia' "actually poses a considerable problem for Martin, because of his Cohen theory, "so that the marginalia being a forgery would actually aid Martin's argument considerably and it would benefit his case if he endorsed the suggestion that the marginalia is a forgery." This is a bit ingenuous of Paul as mere examination of Fido's arguments here patently show. For the importance of the 'Swanson marginalia' to Martin (and Paul) does not merely lie in its content (pro or con) in relation to their theories, it's importance lies in the fact that it is the only piece of other evidence that supports Anderson's amazing claim and without it Anderson stands alone and unsupported. This far outweighs any contrary 'bits' of what Swanson says militating against the convoluted Cohen theory. But, of course, Paul knows that.
Best Wishes to all,
Stewart |
Author: Paul Begg
Sunday, 19 May 2002 - 07:29 am | | Hi Stewart,
I know what you have said about a handwriting expert. My sole point is that everything else about the document seemed beyond reproach - and perhaps Alex can confirm, but I am given to understand that good provenance is pretty high up there on the list of things when assessing genuineness – and that we basically did no more have the document examined by a handwriting expert when the opportunity presented itself. With such excellent provenance, forensic examination simply didn’t seem to be an issue, any more than it has been with other documents unearthed over the years.
I appreciate that you haven’t accused anyone of forgery and for goodness sake let’s accept that as read. We don’t go around flinging out accusations of that sort and it is a sorry state of things that anyone should think we do. But Martin’s view, as I understand it, is that nobody had really made a connection between Anderson’s Polish Jew and Macnaghten’s ‘Kosminski’ until Martin’s book was published. Don, for example, opined that Anderson’s suspect was Pizer and the witness was Violenia, and Don’s view seemed to prevail. And nobody knew who ‘Kosminski’ was until Martin discovered Aaron Kosminski, so nobody would have had reason to suppose he was returned to his brother’s house. Martin’s argument, therefore, was that the marginalia had to have been forged subsequent to the publication of his book, which in turn pointed the finger at either Charles Nevin or Jim Swanson as the forger. Martin didn’t think either likely, hence the exchange of posts which has led to this sorry mess. Martin may or may not be right in assigning such a late date to any possible forgery, but it’s what he did and it’s why he unfortunately referred to inadvertent libel by innuendo (which, as I said, must have been pretty uppermost in his mind of late; no excuse, but an explanation). And which he’s explained wasn’t intended as an accusation but as a warning.
As far as the marginalia itself was concerned, it was the most devastating discovery for Martin and effectively pulled the rug from under the Cohen theory and diminished Martin’s book considerably. The marginalia may support Anderson but it otherwise tells a story that barely anyone – me included – finds believable. This mightily diminishes Anderson’s perceived value and about the only thing that’s good about the marginalia is that it confirms that ‘Kosminski’ was Anderson’s suspect – and that is not ‘a good thing’ for Martin because he believes Anderson’s suspect was Cohen. By all means think that supporting Anderson outweighs the problems the marginalia presents if you want to, but from where I am sitting it doesn’t come within a million miles and I’d rather have Anderson standing or falling on his own and be rid of the marginalia altogether, but as an objective commentator my wishes are subservient to the documentary record and the marginalia has to be professionally acknowledged and dealt with. That, I think, is what Martin has done and I stand by my opinion that it would be better for his theory if the marginalia was fake than it is if it is genuine.
But frankly I think that both you and Martin are people of the highest integrity who have made some of the most important contributions to the subject. Your joint contributions, insights, and comments have been of incalculable value and I value you both very highly as two of the best people in this field that I know. I am genuinely proud to know you both and count your friendship extremely highly. It saddens me that you should fall out over what I think is an error with a foot on both sides, and it saddens me further that other people feel able to call the honesty, integrity and above all the sincerity of either of you into question. Sadly, I think this whole mess has finally settled my decision about further contributing to these Message Boards. |
Author: Yazoo
Sunday, 19 May 2002 - 08:10 am | | A brief intrusion:
Swanson's "marginalia" in no way can reflect upon Anderson's character as an authority, witness, or even as a source for the marginalia's assertion. It constitutes hearsay evidence at its worst. In a courtroom, Anderson would have to confirm the content and the wording of what Swanson apparently wrote.
That the contemporary police -- or better, the records left by said police -- might lead careful, conscientious readers to believe that the police knew more than we now now have proof/evidence/documentary evidence for, and perhaps shaped their actions on this now "missing" knowledge, has been pointed out in the case of Eddowes' apron. The Eddowes apron is a personal bugbear but may be relevant to some topics brought up in this thread.
The surviving list of possessions and clothing worn by Eddowes raises questions as to why it was never properly rewritten and categorized to eliminate ambiguities as to what she wore and what was found later in Goulston Street (including a succinct chronology of the discovery of evidence...when the police knew an article of clothing had been taken away from the body and subsequently discovered and realized the relevance of the discovery of evidence found several streets away); the use of the apron in the coroner's inquest/inquiry to identify Eddowes by every important witness to her last hours...except Lawende, who we are left to think was the lasy known person who saw Eddowes alive and in contact with a man who, therefore, falls under suspicion of being her murderer; the appearance of a lawyer for the police at Eddowes' coroner's inquiry who, at the least, helped steer the inquiry away from revealing Lawende's description of the man Eddowes was speaking with...etc. etc.
So, I for one am sad to say that important (or unimportant, depending on your personal qualifications os armchair slueths) information or "clues" being witheld by the authorites does not seem as far far-fetched as I once believed.
Finally, it is one of the sadder aspects of JtR studies that ideas are far too often tainted or discussed--in either content or tone--based, in part or in whole, on an attack upon the historian/writer/investigator who raises the idea more than on the objective merits or demerits of the idea itself.
Outsiders, such as myself, often learn far too much about the people investigating the JtR murders than we learn about ideas -- be these ideas described in a spectrum from "fact" through to "lie" or, more politely, "bold speculation."
Yaz |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Sunday, 19 May 2002 - 08:40 am | | Hi Paul,
I appreciate what you are trying to say and the fact that the document 'seemed beyond reproach'. We may be satisfied ourselves with any document on the strength of what it 'seems' to us. Indeed, this was the case with the Littlechild letter but, despite whatever I said, it was deemed necessary for it to be tested and I agreed.
We all know provenance is of the utmost importance in assessing the genuineness of any document and no one can disagree that the provenance of the 'Swanson marginalia' is pretty good. However all such things have to be viewed with consideration to all the ambient circumstances surrounding any such item.
In reply to your comments about Kosminski, as a police named suspect he has been around since 1965. Indeed, let us refresh our memory of what Tom Cullen published in his 1965 book Autumn of Terror:
"No. 2 KOSMINSKI, a Polish Jew, who lived in the very heart of the district where the murders were committed. He had become insane owing to many years' indulgence in solitary vices. He had a great hatred of women with strong homicidal tendencies. He was (and I believe is) detained in a lunatic asylum about March, 1889. This man in appearance strongly resembled the individual seen by the City P.C. near Mitre Square."
Now I appreciate that Martin Fido was the first to publish the fact that Anderson's suspect, a Polish Jew committed to an asylum, must have been Kosminski, but it really doesn't take a lot to see that when the Anderson statements are placed alongside what Cullen published. There is no way it could be Pizer. Possibly the pre-eminence of Druitt as a suspect caused a certain amount of neglect in relation to Kosminski.
As regards the release of the suspect to his 'brother', surely it was actually his brother-in-law and it is in the Colney Hatch asylum record that it is stated as his brother, 'Wolf Kozminski'? Surely it was, in fact, his brother-in-law, Woolfe Abrahams, who was married to Betsy Kosminski? Now, surely, this means that the 'Swanson marginalia' contains the same error of relationship as the asylum records. So, is this another aspect to cast doubt on Swanson's notes? Before anyone screams allegations of "forgery" and "libel" yet again, let me say that a possible scenario could involve Donald Swanson himself pulling a few strings in retirement and doing some checking up on what Anderson had written, then adding his endpaper note a later date. In this case it would be important as it would shed further light on the anomalous statements and account for the use of a different pencil (he added after he had made his inquiries). We simply don't know but it would be desirable to find out.
I still cannot accept that the 'Swanson marginalia' was 'the most devastating discovery for Martin', for, as we have seen on many occasion, Swanson is always brought in to bolster Anderson. And, from Martin Fido's point of view, an unsupported Anderson is more easily dismissed than one supported by Swanson. The contra argument really doesn't mean much as Martin Fido simply explains away this aspect with his 'misheard name' and 'confusion' argument, turning it instead to support his theory using the fact that, in the 'marginalia', Swanson's statement that the suspect 'died shortly afterwards' fits Cohen rather than Kosminski.
I can't understand the repeated references to Charles Nevin, first by Martin, now you. How many times do I have to explain that it would be impossible, if forgery were alleged by anyone, to level the finger at him as the News of the World had already seen the 'marginalia' before it ever went to Charles Nevin. Can we at least halt the nonsense of these repeated allusions to an accusation that could never be levelled.
I sincerely thank you for your kind words in your final paragraph for, patently, I am only ever interested in getting to the truth and facts. If Martin Fido's response had been an isolated one, and he hadn't used the libel ploy as a veiled threat that I may be subject to, then I may more easily excuse it. Unfortunately his position is entrenched. But I have seen his vitriolic and aggressive displays in the past. They have no part, as far as I am concerned, in reasoned debate.
I, too, value your friendship Paul, and I hope that we don't (and we shouldn't) fall out over this. However, there is quite a bit that we agree on, and that now includes the suspicion that perhaps we shouldn't be posting here.
Take care of yourself.
Stewart |
Author: Martin Fido
Sunday, 19 May 2002 - 08:44 am | | A lot of interesting comment here!
First, with thanks to Paul for his observations, I have to say that I was pointing out that by his phrasing of the unobjectionable opinion summarized by Ally, which could never be used as a basis for a libel suit, Stewart had unwittingly left himself open to a charge of libel by innuendo. These things can be brought easily and mischievously. One attempt on my work was stopped when I went personally to Parkhurst to visit the threatener, who became a good friend, and muttered threats of GBH against the unscrupulous solicitor who had told him to start proceeedings because, although he had no case at all, the publishers would pretty certainly pay him a few hundred rather than face the expense and trouble of going to court. I have no doubt that Stewart never intended to suggest that Paul or I forged the marginalia; only that we were far too willing to accept a document which chimed in nicely with our own previous deductions and gave it, in hisa opinion, too clean a bill of health in the A-Z. (And I'd have to agree with Stewart that I have found the marginalia more supportive than destructive of my ideas). But Stewart's words would bear the interpretation that we were involved with or complicit in promoting a forgery. I should never have mentioned it, knowing that Stewart's methods of debate include a good deal of irascible overstatement. But if he chose to continue pressing the point that the writing seemed 'changed' and the wording was advantageous to some one, then a possible case would be open to say this libelled Jim Swanson or Charles Nevin since they, and only they to my knowledge, had had the document in their possession, and either might be seen as having an advantage if the document named a suspect. Of course the idea is absurd,and I said so. Far from trying to close the debate, I was, as I pretty clearly said, asking Stewart to moderate his language and be very careful that he wasn't accidentally casting aspersions which, as I know to my cost, can be very troublesome if they come flying back at you.
I'm sorry he doesn't propose to debate any further with me, and withdraws from discussion with a very long abusive piece attacking the integrity of my work. And, for good measure, John Douglas's and Mark Olshaker's, since they paid me the unforgivable compliment of finding my work more useful than any other they read, and thinking my conclusion mor plausible than any other that had been put forward.
But I really do have to repeat my question: what are these 'confidential police files' which prove that there were no coins found with Annie Chapman's body? They don't appear to be quoted in the Source Book. Swanson's long report to the Home Office makes no mention of them, true. But it makes no mention of the undisputed comb and muslin either, so it proves "nothing neither way". I've been in unrewarding debate with Stewart before when he makes a statement which seems untrue in the light of the evidence known to me, but which then turns out to be quite legitimately based on documentation he has found, and either not published, or not published in a source available to me (like these boards before I had access to the internet).
Ivor - many, maybe most of us in academia hope that the one vital message that will be drawn from training in scholarship is the difference between a fact and an opinion. Much of the heat in these debates emerges from people insisting on their opinions under the impression that they are facts, and then demanding that other people change their opinions under the impression that their statements have disproved them.
Allthe best,
Martin F |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Sunday, 19 May 2002 - 11:49 am | | Paul, You have defended Anderson because it is in your interest to do so. If it is shown that any of his statements are untrue, or at least suspect then that brings into doubt the whole question about the Polish Jew at Brighton. It really does not matter if Anderson was a liar or not and the reason being as follows. It has been thought by some that Anderson’s suspect was related to Mitre Square and that Lawende was the possible witness. But Lawende did not take a good look at the suspect and he stated that he did not think he would recognise the man again.This is in conflict with what Anderson stated about the witness having a good look at the man seen.The only site on which we have a
witness who saw a victim being attacked was at Berner Street and I of course refer to Schwartz.When one looks at the known facts surely the event is more likely to be Berner
Street rather than Mitre Square.Prostitutes can have a fast turnover when it comes to clients. The man seen with Eddowes could be completely innocent and may have just left the scene after Lawende and company walked by.The same could be said of the man seen by Mrs Long in Hanbury Street. But Martin, in his walking tour tape of the murders,
stated that the suspect seen with Eddowes was in fact her killer. Eddowes could have been accosted by the killer a minute or so after the man seen in her company left the scene. Thus, this would render the ID ( if related to Mitre Square ) invalid. There is no evidence to show that Jack the Ripper was ever seen by any witness on any site. Police stated that the man seen to attack Stride may not have been her killer because of that 15 minute time lapse. The ID at the seaside home has not been collaborated ( to my knowledge ) by the rank and file. All reports I have read state that the police had no clue as to who the killer was.And none mention anything about a positive ID at Brighton, or anywhere else for that matter. So are we expected to believe Anderson above every other policeman who stated that the killer was never known or identified? I find the whole saga relating to Anderson very suspect. According to the coroner in the Chapman case the killer had medical knowledge Kosminski as far as I am aware had none. The coroner stated that the doctors could not agree on the question of medical experience and surely the last word rests with the coroner for that is what he was there for. Was it not Anderson who stated that unsolved murders in London are rare? Yet, I have ten unsolved murders listed from 1888 to 1891 in the East End alone. I have nine other unsolved murders, including the Whitehall mystery, listed as unsolved. So, there seems to be a conflict between the truthand this statement about unsolved murders. His idea of rare and my idea of rare must be two different things. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Sunday, 19 May 2002 - 12:19 pm | | | Martin, Do you not find it odd that the seaside home story was unknown by the majority of police officers whom worked the case? The story never even got leaked to the press of the day.We must at LEAST ask ourselves, Did Anderson get confused with one case over another ? If one man tells a story, and dozens more (who were more involved ) tell another story then whom should we believe ? A court would have no trouble in deciding such a matter. I find it odd that no evidence has ever come to light to collaborate that Anderson was correct about a suspect ( who may not have even been the killer) being identified at Brighton.And debating on the subject of fact surely the seaside ID story goes against all the known facts of the case. To state that the ripper was identified and that the case was solved is quite incorrect to say the least. Even IF the story was true and a suspect was simply identified as being seen with a victim some time prior to her murder it does not make the suspect the killer. Was he seen to kill the victim, no he was not.Many people have been seen with a murder victim just prior to the murder but that does not make them the killer. Kosminski was a raving lunatic and the village idiot so to speak but the man who pulled off these crimes was no village idiot, or raving lunatic for that matter.If he were then not much could be said of those who have tried in vain to unmask him.. |
Author: Paul Begg
Sunday, 19 May 2002 - 12:57 pm | | Hi Ivor
Of course Anderson’s story is suspect. If it wasn’t suspect, we probably wouldn’t be debating it. But that doesn’t mean he made it up or was other than sincerely and genuinely convinced of his suspect’s guilt. And he made mistakes and no doubt we could compile a catalogue of the things he got wrong, but like everyone else he also got things right. The simple question is: was there a suspect, a witness and an identification? Unless there is evidence that there wasn’t – and I do mean evidence, not some sort of gut feeling – or evidence that Anderson elsewhere invented things, then it is a fair assumption to assume that there was (we mustn’t dismiss a source because we don’t like what it says). And if there was, was Anderson right? We don’t know. We don’t have any evidence on which to base that judgement, but we should all be very careful not to dismiss it because we don’t like it. And it isn’t in my interest to defend Anderson; in saying this you are suggesting that I am biased in his favour. I am not. I try to judge all the evidence fairly and objectively and I have no commitment to any suspect in particular. |
Author: Martin Fido
Sunday, 19 May 2002 - 01:44 pm | | Hi Ivor,
First point - for goodness sake don't take my walking tour tape or anything I've written as necessarily strong objective evidence! That the man attacking Eddowes was her murderer is a conclusion I held when I made the tape, resting on the facts that Schwartz saw a physical attack which included dragging her toward the yard where her body was later found, and the deduction that it was most improbable that she should be attacked agan in the space of about five minutes by another person. I don't think it was a silly thing to say, but you'll have the ceiling pulled down on us both if you cite my conclusions (i.e. opinions) as data with which to challenge people who are absolutely as au fait with the facts and may interpret them differently!
And as for the Seaside Home and the whole story - odd!?? That's an understatement! The fact that we don't have clear evidence about the nature of the ID must be put down to the loss of the Suspects File. There must have been papers on Tumblety and Kosminsky/Cohen, almost certainly there will have been a Ripper-related file on Ostrog, and apart from my very faint little "I wonder" above, there pretty surely must have been one on Druitt. There should be at least three other serious suspects with papers filed against them if we are to trust Griffiths (or was it Adam's?) statement that a list of seven was pared to three.
There's nothing suspicious about the file being missing: none of the 'cover-up' so beloved of conspiracy theorists. We know from other examples that officers took files home with them, either to work on or (in Macnaghten's case) quite possibly to extract souvenirs. Such borrowed files didn't always get returned. But it is a serious loss to us.
The confirmation that at least one ID took place lies (firstly) in the fact that Swanson recalled it (and it is he, not Anderson, who places it in the Seaside Home, which is again odd, as one can reasonably infer from Anderson's 'Blackwood's Magazine' version that the ID took place after the suspect was in an asylum. Maddeningly, the vistor's book for the period at Colney Hatch is a missing volume). There is also weak and potential support from Macnaghten's observation that Kosminsky 'strongly resembled' the individual seen by the PC at Mitre Court. It means that by the time the info reached Macnaghten (and presumably somewhere on the files) the Kosminsky case was seen as having been strenghtened by a sighting, which means the sighter must have seen the suspect to make the ID. Whether that suspect was actually Kosminsky, whether that witness was actually a City PC, and whether it related to Mitre Square we cannot say, given Macnaghten's astonishing garbling of the facts about Druitt. If the witness was really a PC, then Anderson's suspect or witness would appear to be some one quite other, as we certainly don't know of any PC who had a clear sight of the murderer, and we can be quite sure that no PC would have been able to refuse to swear to his ID once he had made it, giving the weak grounds that he was also a Jew or he didn't approve of capital punishmenet!
Explaining all these hiatuses inevitably involves us in a lot of speculation. The evidence is quite compatible with there being more than one ID of more than one suspect. Whose memory ws at fault at any given piece of memorial testimony has to be assessed by a careful comparison of what we can find out about each of the three - Anderson, Macnaghten and Swanson. This includes reading books both by and about them on subjects going beyond police and criminal matters if they exist; looking for contemporary evaluations of them; and tracing descendants who remembered them or their parents' recollections of them when it was possible (in the cases of Anderson and Swanson). My own conclusions after doing all that were that Macnaghten was quite capable of gossippy exaggeration and inaccuracy (though not nearly so bad as Major Smith). Swanson was honest, sensible, rather plodding (as witness his laborious explanations that certain suspects in the surviving file of weak cases were not worth following up), and kept all his marbles. He would certainly have been describing what he either remembered, believed he remembered, or believed from what he had been told. Which make his clear contradictions of fact quite extraordinary. And the evidence that his relations with Andeson were warm and respectful, and the inference we may draw that he thought his notes were endorsing what Anderson had written, make their conflict with what Anderson said in Blackwood's yet another huge problem.
Anderson was more hysterical; inclined to extreme and sometimes highly individual beliefs; very positive and opinionated when crossed. He would be capable of coming to a wrong conclusion as a result of something he saw or read, and then clinging to it come hell or high water. We don't, however, have evidence of his doing this with regard to the major facts of criminal cases on which he had worked. We don't have anything as extraordinary as Swanson's assertion that Kosminsky was dead anywhere in Anderson. And there is copious evidence that he was absolutely incapable of manufacturing a self-adulating story out of whole cloth and wishing it on the public (though this is rarely paid much attention by those who don't think it necessary to take into account things like religious attitudes and known social life when assessing the probity of historical figures).
So of course we all have to theorize in trying to interpret these people's statements. I think the suggested Kosminsky/Sadler confusion theorizes 'a bridge too far', as Simon Wood pointed out to me long ago, my own clinging to Nathan Kaminsky did. But yu will have to make up our own mind on this.
A brief comment on provenance. The line of descent tracing an artefact back to its supposed creator is of primary importance in determining whether it is genuine. In the case of the Littlechild letter the provenance is not 'pretty fair' or anything so weak: it is extremely good. The document was acquired by a reputable dealer among a batch of similar pieces of the correspondence of G.R.Sims. None of them elicited any suspicion that they were anything but genuine. The letter ws bought by an experienced collector with considerable expertise in the field. There was no reason whatsoever on grounds of provenance to suggest that scientific examination was indicated. The surrounding context of other Sims documents, and the concurrence of opinion of two knowledgeable experts could not arouse any suspicion. Nor did its appearance in any way lead to suspicions about its genuineness; and its contents were very much what you might expect the author to have known and said (even though the information about exactly WHAT he knew and said was quite new). I don't imagine anyone would have suggested sending it for examination had this not been the period of Feldmania, when a deeply suspicious sounding and looking document with an outlandish c*ck-and-bull story about the enclosed and unexplained gift of a deceased acquaitance was, as Robert Smith instantly conceded, "about as bad as provenance could get". In consequence he promptly arranged for scientific tests, and by the time the Littlechild letter emerged, these were being touted as 'proof' that the diary was probably genuine, and (quite rightly) as evidence that Shirley Harrison and Feldy were not the dishonest rogues that a really nasty campaign of defamation kept protraying them as. (In this context, let it be quite clear that Stewart Evans, though firm and sensible in denying the possibility that the diary was genuine, played no part in the campaign of personal defamation).
But the provenance of the Swanson marginalia is absolutely perfect. From the hands of the creator it passes, on his death, with the rest of his library to his sister. She, as far as is known, never opens this book. On her death his grandsons inherit the books, and are astonished, going through them, to see that one bears notes in what is obviously the old man's writing, identifying Jack the Ripper. They sell the information to The News of the World - (as I pointed out before anyone else in this discussion: don't be misled by harangues at Paul Begg which seem to suggest that he or I may be suppressing or underestimating the import of this fact) - which then undergoes a change of management and never publishes it. In 1987, seeing the Ripper centenary pother in the press, Jim Swanson first gets the permission of the News of the World to pass on the material, for which they had paid him 75 quid, to another paper, and then calls in The Daily Telegraph. Charles Nevin goes down and takes charge of the book for the period of the Telegraph investigation. Assuming as all of us do, that Jim Swanson and Charles Nevin are completely honest and responsible men incapable of tampering with a document, there is no indication of any need whatsoever for scientific examination, as it must be perfectly genuine, and the suggestion that 'misgivings' about its 'pat convenience' can play any useful part in assessing it are, I fear, very irresponsible muddying the waters - and the fact that it looks as though some people are starting to wonder whethe there had been tampering shows that the waters have, deplorably, been muddied. Especially deplorably, as this is a document whose mysterious errors and contradictions are crying out for plausible explanation, and it is really unhelpful to suggest the erroneous possibility that malign tampering might be part of the cause. All that can be properly made of misgivings about the marginalia and the pat convenience of its naming Kosminsky, is the assertion that Paul Begg, Keith Skinner and I were remiss in not having an even stronger scientific test or documentary examination carried out than Paul insisted on against my opposition, or that we should have made our statements that the document is genuine less decisive. It's not for me to decide whether this is fair criticism or not, beyond saying that I don't at this point feel we have anything to apologise for. In the light of the provenance, and the compatibility of the contents with the sort of information/misinformation, recollection/misrecollection one would ascribe to Swanson, one has to say that the document is transparently genuine, and if Ally really does have misgivings and was not merely showing how Stewart's position might have been worded to avoid (technical) libel, then she is, I fear, woefully misguided and not some one from whom I should expect to learn scholarly method.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Stan Russo
Sunday, 19 May 2002 - 04:03 pm | | Stewart, Martin, Paul, & All
I list these three men due to their recognized work on this all encompassing subject, but I welcome responses fropm everyone. Since beginning using these boards I have found a general openness to share information that would help anyone further their thoughts or writings on the case. That is rare in a competitive field, but very welcome.
With regards to Anderson, I am wondering why no one has mentioned what he really was, an agent in the Anti-Fenian spy network, and from the writings of secret agents such as Thomas Miller Beach / Major Le Caron, a very valuable one at that. Anderson has been described as the Home Office expert on the Irish issue. The 'Irish issue was not simply an issue regarding Home Rule, but also on matters of terrorism. Anderson was a main figure in Monro's 'Special Branch'. Donald Swanson was not.
Swanson was a Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard but it seems improbable that he ever worked for the 'Special Branch. During the 'JTR' murders Swanosn was in reality a 'desk jockey' collating paperwork, and the 'Special Branch' already had their own Chief Inspector 'desk jockey' in John Littlechild. Before the 'JTR' murders, there appears no connective relationship between Anderson and Swanson.
The Swanson Marginalia is beyond provenence. That has been determined and is not the central issue. Swanson's statements regarding the witness, suspect and ID do have historical inaccurracies which over the years have led to debate. But the one issue to my knowledge has never been brought to the table. Was Swanson actually at this ID? It doesn't sound like it. He named Kosminski, but not the witness. It was at least after 1910 when he made his private notes, and the naming of the witness would have done no harm,unless he never met him.
Anderson's credibility has been challenged in the past, even before the 'JTR' murders. This resulted from his series of articles relating to Charles Parnell. Anderson is not beyond the means of stretching the truth to protect the interests of his main duties, the Irish-Fenian battle.
Anderson's comments on this ID was not revealed prior to 1895, so much as I can gather. This is one year after the MacNaghten Memorandum. MacNaghten is the 'Ch. Const. who vexed' Anderson according to Swanson. Anderson may have told Swanson about this ID, truth or not, in response to the acceptance of the MacNaghetn Memorandum at Scotland Yard, to which Anderson would have had access to.
Swanson inferentially excludes himself from being at the ID, and therefore got all his info second hand from Anderson. Inaccurracies arise out of second hand info, truth and fiction. Anderson is not the end all be all that everyone makes him out to be. He knew more about the case than almost everyone, but his loyalties lie within the division he excelled in. If that statement is in question please re-read Twenty-Five Years in the Secret Service, by Thomas Miller Beach, who ascribes his being alive to the diligent efforts of Anderson and his ability to conceal and protect the agents working in his control.
I know this is a very long post, but I hope it will continue the valuable information provided by vital researchers such as Stewart, Paul, and Martin, and make room for the newcomers.
STAN |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Sunday, 19 May 2002 - 05:28 pm | | Well there's so much there that I can hardly take it all in. As I said I am going to refrain from prolonging the acrimony any further as it is pointless and really gets us nowhere.
However, to clarify one point that has arisen, I find it incredible that Martin Fido does not realise that all internal police and Home Office reports are confidential. They were then, they are now. They are meant for official eyes only and to imagine that these reports, as I said, fail to mention a 'clue' such as the nonsense about the two farthings is unbelievable.
I have spent most of my life working with the law, in civil law in a solicitor's office, and law school, until I was 19 and then in law enforcement when I joined the police force at the age of 20. I really don't need the meaning of libel, by innuendo or otherwise, explaining to me. In the scenario suggested by Martin Fido it cannot possibly apply. For Jim Swanson is deceased and cannot be libelled, and because of the early viewing of the 'marginalia' by the News of the World there could be no suggestion of forgery by anyone else. But, of course, I had not even levelled that charge against Jim Swanson, though others thought I had.
Please let that be the final word on this subject.
Anyway, I really do feel that enough has been said, and I will stop now for fear of again saying too much. |
Author: David Radka
Sunday, 19 May 2002 - 10:22 pm | | With respect to what Mr. Russo said about the relationship between Anderson and Swanson:
My take on their relationship is that it either originated or reached the bonding stage when Anderson returned from leave at about the time of the windup of the Leather Apron affair. Anderson received his first substantial information about the murders, the Leather Apron affair, and the house-to-house searches in the form of personal briefings on these subjects by Swanson, in order to get him up to speed. Swanson was in position to do this because he was the chief desk officer in charge of the investigation, so Anderson sought him out for this purpose.
Would someone kindly correct any errors I've made here? Thank you.
David |
Author: Harry Mann
Monday, 20 May 2002 - 06:15 am | | Mr Begg,
The simple,as it has been all along,question of whether there was a suspect,a witness and an identification,does not hinge on the determination of one proving there was not such an event,but on the establishmennt of undeniable proof that there was an I.D.
In the case of a person,whether it be Cohen,Kosminski,or some other person being charged with the crimes,it would be utterly farcical for Anderson to appear and state there had been an Identification and the accused was guilty unless the defence could prove that an identification had not taken place.
The onus is most always on the accuser. There is one exception in British law,but it would not apply in this situation.
So should I prove that Anderson was lying.I do'nt think so,although I think more than enough reasons have been put forward to consider he did so.He had time,means and opportunity to back up his statement,and had he,or anyone of his persuasion,resolved the simple question,then there would no need to write here.
Peter Wood,
Perhaps it,s another case of Baltimore fog.Join in by all means,and I'll excuse any hilarious comments you make.I,m aware of the deformity you were born with,so at least I can make exceptions.
Mr Mann. |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Monday, 20 May 2002 - 07:42 am | | Harry--One thing that bothers me about the identification is that it evidently wasn't an 'identity parade', with the witness picking out a suspect from a line-up. From Swanson's marginalia it seems to have been simply a matter of the witness confronting an alleged suspect. This is the sort of thing that makes trial lawyers squirm, almost like the cliche bad identification wherein the violated school marm is carried down to the local jail, shown a sorry-looking black-and-blue fellow behind bars and handcuffed to the deputy and asked "if this is the bad man that hurt you"?. My comparison is a gross exaggeration, of course, but you get the point. Perhaps not the best method of obtaining justice.
But my main objection to Kosminksi doesn't really have much to do with Swanson, Anderson, identifications, etc. My main objection is that 'homocidal mania' was a myth of the 19th Century. We aren't looking for a violent lunatic. Look at the case histories of similar crimes, such as the French Canadian Lapage who committed two very similar murders in America in the 1870s. [The now forgotten murder of Josie Langmaid]. Within an hour of the most horrible crime you can imagine, he was miles away, creating an alibi for himself by carelessly chatting with neighbors and having a bite to eat. He appeared normal in every respect |
Author: Paul Begg
Monday, 20 May 2002 - 08:15 am | | Mr Mann
You ask if you should have to prove that Anderson was lying. The answer to that is, yes. And the reason is that you are the accuser and the onus therefore rests with you.
When faced with a document that contains data for which it is the only source, the historian has no alternative but to test the document to see if it is otherwise dependable. This is step one in the process of source analysis. If the historians believe the document reliable and you challenge that opinion then you are the challenger and the onus is on you to support your challenge with good, solid evidence or argument. And I'm afraid that you have to provide more than means, opportunity and motive. You have to show that a lie was told.
Nobody to my knowledge who has made a detailed study of Anderson believes that he was a liar; mistaken, confused, and wishfully thinking in old age, but not a liar who would fabricate the identification story. If you disagree, you must provide good reasons for doing so. |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 20 May 2002 - 08:27 am | | Stan - an excellent posting, and I hope you won't think I'm patronizing if I say that you have an unusual grasp of the salient points of the case for someone who has not researched it in full for publication purposes.
I would only add that Le Carre's appearance as a witness before the Parnell Commission (ending in February 1889, not 1887 as incautious wording in the A-Z might lead some readers to believe) blew his cover as a spy. And I am not aware that Anderson thereafter paid greater attention to his Irish problem cases than his other duties. It has always been my opinion, for what it's worth, that the looming Commission must have been in the forefront of his mind throughout the Ripper inquiry, as his contribution to the Times series on Parnellism and Crime would have been ample cause for ending his career had it become known. And of course it was that issue, and not his remarks on Jack the Ripper, which caused the hullabaloo when his memoirs appeared in 1910.
And I'm not aware of any conclusive evidence that Littlechild was ever actively involved in the Ripper case. The only evidence I now of is that he said it was one of the two worst crises hitting Scotland Yard in his time, and this is added to an early observation by Paul Begg that the police (presumably Special Branch) were keeping an eye on poltiical dissidents which could well have included keeping obbo on the Berner Street club, and so Littlechild "must have been" a party to the investigation. Other people may think me foolish for not accepting their 'must have beens' as verified conclusions, and they may think the same of mine. But the fact rmains that as long as any of us is proving a point by asserting "must have been", we are open to valid challenge. I'm not, of course, saying Littlechild WASN'T part of the Ripper investigation: only that I know of no conclusive evidence that he WAS, and this has always led mme to treat his observations with a smidgeon of caution (tempered by the welcome fact that he makes no obvious mistakes of fact).
If I understand Stewart's point aright, he is saying that all the 'confidential documents' have appeared in the Source Book. The only one of these carrying a detailed description of Annie Chapman's body at the scene of crime as its main point is Chandler's report of 8th September. This is the only one I should have expected to mention the coins, and as it doen't mention the comb and muslin which we know were there, I don't think it proves anything either way. There is really no problem in any of us disagreeing flatly about the interpretation of evidence, as long as we know and weigh what the evidence being adduced by the other side is.
I didn't know Jim Swanson was dead when I pointed out that Stewart's words libelled him by innuendo (as they would have done if he were alive). And they still do the same thing to Charles Nevin. The libel laws take no account of what the writer meant, or even the overt meaning of his words. They are willing to consider as possible libel by innuendo any inference that couild be drawn by a suspicious reader. I don't say that a case might be won in court against Stewart (and I don't actually think Nevin would be likely to start one). But the nuisance of having proceedings open, or even solicitor's letters fired across one's bows is, I can assure everyone, tiresome and stress-making. For this reason I gave Stewart what was indeed intended as a friendly warning, and in no sense expected to make his drop his position: only change his wording. A lengthy exposition of teh fact that one can't libel the dead is no more relevant to the way this debate has proceeded than was Stewart's lengthy exposition of the (now) obvious fact that Pizer couldn't have been Anderson's suspect, when Paul had never suggested for one moment that he was: only pointed out quite correctly that Don once thought he ws, and was heartily endorsed and complimented in print by Richard Whittington-Egan.
And with regard to the wording Ally gave, and yt smewhat brusque dismisal of it, I should perhaps expand my observations to explain that it is pefectly reasonable to feel misgivings on first glance at a document which turns up and appears to confirm the latest theory without prior warning. (Thus the Maybrick watch only added to initial suspicions of the Maybrick diary). But when further investigations prove that the document has never been out of the hands of two utterly reliable men, and its provenance on reaching them is immaculate, then the suspicions should be completely jettisoned. Introducing them thereafter is, quite simply,, muddying the waters.
I should add that I have no hesitation in continuing to debate Stewart's points, despite the very ucomplimentary remarks he chooses to make about me, because I know him well enough to know that his anger is not motivated by personal malice. It is only when I sense malice that I cannot resist the temptation to foul up the boards by responding in kind, and so have to withdraw from the argument. I think it a great pity that Stewart has the inclination to withdraw from discussion, sometimes complaining about 'lack of respect,' when he finds that his opponents criticize his views and may use robust language - (as he always does!) - in doing so. These unresolved debates have real use in thrashing out exactly what is being said and on what it is based. Paul Begg and I are sometimes accused of incompetence or intransigence because despite our agreement over the importance of Anderson and Swanson as sources, we have diagreed for 14 years over how to interpret them. But our disagreement (often heated) has meant that we do really finally understand each other's position, and can describe it to others without diminishing it by distortion. This was not true 10 years ago. It took a lot of further wrangling to arrive at this happy position.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Paul Begg
Monday, 20 May 2002 - 08:34 am | | Hi RJP
I have to say that I think you are rushing ahead here. We don’t know whether it was a conventional identity parade or not, or whether the suspect was sitting in a lounge with other convalescents or what. We don’t know and we shouldn’t make assumptions. And again, ‘homicidal mania’ may be a 19th century myth, but does that really have any bearing on Anderson?
The essential argument about Anderson is not the he thought a suspect guilty – Macnaghten and Abberline and maybe Littlechild have done that without arousing such heated scepticism – but that he stated the suspect’s guilt was a ‘definitely ascertained fact’. That’s what folk don’t like and the problem is that we don’t know why the suspect was suspected, or anything about the identification, or why Anderson remained convinced of the suspect’s guilt for the rest of his life, even when he presumably knew that others disagreed. We don’t know if he possessed information the others didn’t. We simply don’t know. So people theorise, sometimes wildly and sometimes even irresponsibly, but usually from the position that Anderson simply couldn’t possibly be right. I don’t know whether Anderson was right or wrong. I haven’t the foggiest idea. But until somebody shows that he made the whole thing up, I accept that there was a witness, there was a suspect and there was an identification, and that Anderson believed (probably at the time of the identification itself) that the suspect was Jack the Ripper. I allow that he may have been – and maybe even that he probably was – wrong, but I don’t know. But he had reasons and I think Anderson was probably experienced and sensible enough for those reasons to be good ones. |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 20 May 2002 - 08:42 am | | David - No errors that I can see.
RJP - I think we've all usually ingested the limitations of 19th century psychology in examning the evidence. We don't, for example, really think that masturbation caused Kosminsky's madness, although it brings the asylum notes partially in line with the police recollections.
The modern psychological interpretation which links Cohen with the Ripper is that the Ripper was relieving the tension of his inner rage by serial killing. (Cf Adrian Stokes's introduction to Master' first book on Nilsen for further exposition). But this tension was building so much (as shown by the increasing violence of the mutilations) that the sufferer could be expected to turn the rage on himself and end by suicide. OR (as it is postulated happened), have a complete breakdown into the raving mania which is hardly ever seen today because it is curbed instantly by drugs. (Cf Dahmer's sudden outburst at the time of his arrest when he ws, forthe first time, totally frustrated in his ability to argue around things and the continuation of his murderous release was obviously ended. Contrast it with his prior cool evasiveness, and the - I suspect - tranquillized impassivity of his couroom appearances).
I don't think any of us have rested anything very heavily on the pretty ridiculous 19c police statements like 'hatred of women'; though the 'obviously a sex maniac' is comparatively impressive, especially in view of The Lancet's accepting a letter postulating a totally different and absurd 'rational' motive.
All the best,
Martin F |
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