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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Archive through April 5, 2000
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Suspects: Specific Suspects:
Contemporary Suspects [ 1888 - 1910 ]:
Chapman, George (a.k.a. Severin Klosowski):
Archive through April 5, 2000
Author: Neal Glass
Sunday, 02 April 2000 - 07:39 pm |        | As a minor footnote to what I have said Israel Schwartz, the only witness to actually see the person who without doubt was Stride's killer, was a Hungarian immigrant. I assume by his name "Israel" that he was Jewish, and certainly the man who called him a name thought so.
There is a very good article on Swartz and his story in the Casebook Witness section. It is interesting to note that the other two major witnesses of that night, Marshal and Lawende, are obviously describing the same man. But the reader will notice different subjective impressions each witness might have about age and that sort of thing. The person they saw was Jack the Ripper, and where we hear about someone looking entirely different we may be sure that it is not the Ripper that is being descibed. And by "Ripper" I can only honestly mean with certainty the killer of Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Liz Stride and Kate Eddowes.
These four were all killed by the same madman. The M.O. is unmistakable and does not allow for a copycat. This is true in every instance except Stride, but that the witness Lawende can place the killer in Mitre Square at the time of the second murder in the double event can only mean that all four women lost their lives to the same creature. The Stride killing was cut short by too many interruptions. So it just involved some pushing and shoving and a knife to the throat by someone who was probably left-handed.
The question from there is how many other women did this lunatic kill? |
Author: Simon Owen
Monday, 03 April 2000 - 05:36 am | | Neal , I completely agree with you about the ' mad Jew ' theory , it seems strange that people are still believing in it. Talmudic law states strictly that a Jew must not mutilate a dead body so it seems unlikely that it would be a Jewish person commiting the crimes. Anderson suggested it might be a ' lapsed Jew ' who had commited the murders but then he would not be sheltered by his own people on the grounds of religion , which is what the police feared. Besides , a lapsed Jew is not a Jew anyway ! As an example of the way Martin Fido is going , he appeared on British breakfast television ( GMTV ) late last year talking about the Ripper murders. Fido stated that the case was solved , Kosminski did it and that was it , to which astonished presenter Penny Smith stated that she thought ( correctly ) that it was an unsolved mystery. No , Fido replied , the Ripper was shut up in an asylum and that was it. It is a case of a writer getting carried away with his own theories again sadly , as so many have before but it is a shame with Fido as he was a very good writer and researcher on the case. |
Author: Neal Glass
Monday, 03 April 2000 - 12:48 pm | | Simon, please keep me informed of any British media events relating to the Ripper, especially any change in Fido's temperament. I am only commenting on this one essay because it is current and it is very bad. I'm not sure if Fido wasn't undone by the fact that he went looking for the real Kosminski and could not find him. A writer puts in a lot of work, and it must have been humiliating that he had to come up with someone else to fill the bill for the mental patient mentioned on the Mcnaughten list. It may have been doubly demeaning to him that Phillip Sugden, someone relatively new, has been lionized--especially when you consider that the real Kosminski was one of the hallmarks of the Complete History of Jack the Ripper in terms of new information and new research. Sugden simply succeeded where Fido failed, and this might be very hard for him to accept.
As always thanks for the update, Neal |
Author: David M. Radka
Monday, 03 April 2000 - 01:44 pm | | I just glance at these posts daily during tax season, but what Simon says above really got my candle lit. If MARTIN FIDO now says Kosminski did it, this is big Big BIG!!! An "S" I know might be interested. Either Mr. Fido knows something we don't know, or else he's popped his twinkie in his old age. I am very interested in hearing all about his current theory. Has he self-abnegated concerning his David Cohen theory?
I am now going to self-abnegate myself, going back to my cave to work on tax returns. I'm not having much fun, but I am making money.
David |
Author: Neal Glass
Monday, 03 April 2000 - 06:58 pm | | Judge for yourself, David. His essay is in The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper. It's available in the larger bookstores. It's called David Cohen and the Polish Jew Theory, and it's a study in failure and bad logic and blind faith.
Anyone who cares to defend it can drop me a line on this board and we'll settled it on the Cohen board, if there is a Cohen board.
Is there a Cohen board?
Does anyone believe in this stuff? Anybody?
Good luck on the taxes, Neal |
Author: NickDanger
Tuesday, 04 April 2000 - 02:48 am | | Neal,
Perhaps before trashing and psychoanalyzing Martin Fido, you should read his book 'The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper'. It may not change your mind, but it might add some credibility to your rant.
Nick |
Author: Neal Glass
Tuesday, 04 April 2000 - 11:17 am | | Nick, I have not read The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper. I have read what I have critiqued. It is badly written. If Fido wrote something better, I wouldn't know. But what I did read doesn't much encourage me to read anything else he has done. And your recommending something else he wrote is not a valid defense of what I did read.
I went after somethng that is current and on the shelf that was not in my view responsible writing. In his essay 'David Cohen and the Polish Jew Theory' Fido's passing remarks about Klosowski were misleading and meant to cast Abberline's good judgement in a bad light in favor of Anderson. Sugden has another view of Abberline, one that I tend to share. If you want to write your own "rant" against Abberline or Sugden in favor of Anderson and Fido, go for it.
But even if you did, Fido's interpretation of Anderson is probably wide of the mark of what Anderson really meant when he was talking about his mad Jew. His own mad Jew, distinct from Fido's mad Jew, was most likely Aaron Kosminski, a figure Fido went hunting for and could not find. He admits he failed. In fact that is his word, not mine. And he is right. He did fail. That's honest. But to substitute Cohen for Kosminski because he could not find Kosminski and then to cling to a convoluted premise that justifies his research is not to psychoanylise anyone. It is just to point out what seems to have been the situation.
Neal |
Author: Neal Glass
Tuesday, 04 April 2000 - 11:36 am | | Nick, I have not read 'The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper'. I have read what I have critiqued. It is badly written. If Fido wrote something better, I wouldn't know. But what I did read doesn't much encourage me to read anything else he has done. And your recommending something else he wrote is not a valid defense of what I did read.
I went after something that is current and on the shelf that was not in my view responsible writing. In his essay 'David Cohen and the Polish Jew Theory' Fido's passing remarks about Klosowski were misleading and meant to cast Abberline's good judgement in a bad light in favor of Anderson.
Sugden has another view of Abberline, one that I tend to share.
If you want to write your own "rant" against Abberline or Sugden in favor of Anderson and Fido, go for it. But even if you did, Fido's interpretation of Anderson is probably wide of the mark of what Anderson really meant when he was talking about his mad Jew. His own mad Jew, distinct from Fido's mad Jew, was most likely Aaron Kosminski, a figure Fido went hunting for and could not find. He admits he failed. In fact that is his word, not mine. And he is right. He did fail. That's honest. But to substitute Cohen for Kosminski because he could not find Kosminski and then to cling to a convoluted premise that justifies his research is not to psychoanalyze anyone.
It is just to point out what seems to have been the situation.
Obviously you like Fido. But obviously people who like him have been around for a good long while. Myself, I am new to this and am just looking at what I see as it hits me. And how this essay hits me is how it would hit anyone who is looking at it objectively.
If you want to defend it, then defend it. But address yourself to the issues I have raised. Write an elaborate rebuttal that has to do with what I said and why I am simply wrong, not why I am a bad person for having dared pointed out that the emperor is wearing no clothes lately.
Thank you, Neal |
Author: Neal Glass
Tuesday, 04 April 2000 - 01:18 pm | | As you can see two drafts of my post show how new to message boards I really am. From here on out I'll endeavor to click the correct tab when posting a message. And in the interests of peace I'll search these boards to get some measure of where you are coming from, Mr. "Danger".
At least I'll know better who I'm talking to.
Neal |
Author: Neal Glass
Tuesday, 04 April 2000 - 02:13 pm | | TO ALL,
Here's something Nick and I can agree on. It's a quote of his I dug up. He wrote this some time ago in another discussion (and someone who was once new to the boards and sometimes not sure of what he was doing). This quote here was about a year ago when he was a very polite poster who was very cautious about committing himself to any one position. And even though he and I are bound to give one another a hard time now and then, let me say that he does seem to me to have always been a nice guy.
He said in those days, and I quote:
" . . . many people have invested a lot of time, sweat and ego in developing particular theories and they can get quite prickly and defensive when any aspect of it is called into question. It's a normal human reaction . . . "
Yes, he's psychoanalyzing, but he's right. And the sentiment he was expressing on that long ago day in December of the last century, this very thing is exactly what Fido's essay in 'The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper' seems to me to have been about.
Emphasis on EGO, and might I suggest a touch of sour grapes?
Neal |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Tuesday, 04 April 2000 - 08:07 pm | | It just so happens to turn out that I bought Fido's book last week. It's good. I recommend it. His section on "The Police" is fascinating, and I personally found the chapter on 'Royals and Masons' both hilarious and disturbing.
RJP |
Author: Neal Glass
Tuesday, 04 April 2000 - 09:34 pm | | Well, all right. I'll get around to it. But I can't say that I cared for the essay in the Mammoth Book. These Ripper books are not that easy to come by over here. I'm shelling out over THIRTY DOLLARS for a used copy of Howells & Skinner just so I can keep up with you guys on the Druitt page. Actually I would have to get it even if not for that.
AND THE THIRTY BUCKS WAS THE BARGAIN COPY!
Later, Neal |
Author: Wolf Vanderlinden
Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 03:02 am | | I have no personal reason to either support or denigrate Martin Fido but I have to wonder at the attack on him by you Neal. You have stated a couple of times that you are new to this, yet you seem to have taken some personal affront from both Martin and Sir Melville Macnaghten. I was just wondering about this passion which, excuse me for saying, comes across as a little arrogant.
Now don't get your knickers in an uproar but I have noticed that you tend to post things based on nothing but your feelings on the case and not from knowledge. Like Simon Owen, you have the conviction of the newly converted, not a bad thing but one that should be reined in while you are just starting to study the Whitechapel murders. Posting pages of ideas without any evidence to back them up can be a bit tedious to read and although you acknowledge that you are only brainstorming, what is the point for me, the reader? Pardon me for saying so but if you really believe that mutilation was not the reason for the murders then you have lost what little credibility you had to begin with. Brainstorming is one thing, brainstorming from a position of ignorance is quite another (this is why you have to read everything you can get your hands on).
I cannot comment on where Chapman was living in 1888, whether Whitechapel or near by in the East End but was Fido lying about this when he brought Inspector Abberline's knowledge into question? I personally don't have the proof to question it, so I won't. As for the death of Carrie Brown, it is very unlikely that Chapman was her killer.
If the Ripper had murdered Brown, it was the first time that he had gone with a prostitute back to her hotel room and allowed himself to be observed by one of the staff (it was only around 11:00 p.m.). It was the first time that he had left his knife at the scene, a ground down or broken kitchen knife that in no way fitted the type of weapon that the Ripper had used. What about the description of the man with Brown? One report mentions a tall blond sailor, obviously not Chapman, but the official police description states: "apparently about thirty-two, close, Chapman was 26 in 1891, five feet eight inches in hieght, Chapman was described as being "A weedy little man, not tall and handsome." of slim build, with a long, sharp nose and a heavy moustache of light colour, again close, Chapman had a undeniably heavy moustache but of a dark colour. He was clad in a dark brown cutaway coat and black trousers, and wore an old black derby hat, the crown of which was much dented. He was evidently a foreigner, and that the impression was that he was German." Much like the Ripper eyewitnesses, we are not told what exactly made the assistant housekeeper believe that the murderer was either foreign let alone German since he never opened his mouth so this must be taken with a grain of salt.
One interesting fact is given by Jay Robert Nash, he states that a certain resident of the small town of Cranford New Jersey who was in the habit of visiting New York and who was away from his work and home on the night of the Brown murder, left town shortly after her death. Inside his room was found a key with the number 31 on it, the same room number that Carrie Brown had occupied. Their suspicions aroused, the hotel owners in Cranford sent the key to the New York police who fitted it into, and opened the lock of Brown's room. This man was never found but he was also not George Chapman.
As for Fido pointing out that Inspector Abberline was not in charge of the case, he is only stating a fact. I understand that you feel that Fido is trying to hoodwink the uneducated by downplaying Abberline's role in the Ripper murders but since there is absolutely no proof that Severin Klosowski was ever involved, we have to wonder why did his name come up? The answer lies with Abberline. If Abberline had never stated that he was intrigued by the conviction of Chapman and that: "I cannot help feeling that this is the man we struggled so hard to capture fifteen years ago.", Chapman would be the merest blip on the radar screen, another Frederick Deeming. The theory remains because of what Abberline said in his retirement so in order to question what little theory there is, one has to question Abberline.
What did Abberline say?
That the murders started soon after Chapman's arrival in London. Well, over a year after he arrived in London.
That they stopped after he had left for the U.S.. He left almost two and a half years after the Kelly murder, whom Abberline himself stated was the final victim.
Chapman had studied medicine and surgery and the murders were the work of an expert surgeon. None of the doctors who had examined the bodies could agree on the degree of surgical skill, and it has been pointed out to us here on these boards by qualified medical men, (where is Tom Inch by the way?) that no surgical skill was needed.
Chapman had attacked Lucy Baderski with a long knife. Actually she had seen a knife under his pillow but he hadn't attacked her with it.
Chapman had lived in George's Yard when Martha Tabram had been killed there. He had not.
The killer had been removing Uteri from his victims in order to sell to an American doctor and that similar murders had taken place in the States when Chapman lived there. Total fallacy. Abberline was wrong on all counts concerning this.
In the end we really have only smoke and mirrors concerning Chapman and all of that provided by Abberline. Now I'm not saying that Abberline was some idiot or useless second stringer but that he was wrong about Chapman, that's all.
One quick note about Sir Melville Macnaghten and his list. Sir Melville was giving notes, probably to the Home Secretary, about an article in The Sun newspaper, (Feb. 13th, 1894) in which Thomas Cutbush was named as Jack the Ripper. Macnaghten States:, "I may mention the cases of three men, any one of whom would have been more liable than Cutbush to have committed this series of murders..." he was not giving the world the identity of Jack the Ripper, but merely refuting the news article. No need to attack a man for writing something that you or I were never meant to know existed, let alone read.
Wolf. |
Author: Neal Glass
Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 05:10 am | | Not much that you're saying is news to me. None of it that might be valid.
But Carrie Brown and all that is for another day.
My "knickers" are not up. Are yours?
As far as mutliation not being the motive, I abandoned that and said so. It was just a thought. And since I really have already said that, I have to wonder how closely you were reading anything I might have been chewing over one way or another.
I won't retract anything I have said about Fido. His statements about Klosowski were misleading. If there was not a plurality of Ripper-like slayings in New York, there was one that was played up that way in the papers, which puts Abberline in the ballpark, as I've said. And whether Klosowski actually lived in Whitechapel or not, he did work there, which is documented and not my "feeling" about it, as you unfairly accuse.
My passion on the matter is simply that it is very frustrating to read one book that says one thing and then another that says another and on and on, which tells me this whole area is just some cultish thing where the reader is left not knowing who to believe.
Fido's essay featured a glaring example of this. Most books maintain that Klosowski was living in Whitechapel at the time of the murders. It would be real sporting of Fido to let us know his source of infomation on just how it is that these other books are inaccurate on this point. He doesn't do that. He just blithly states that "new" research has shown Klosowski wasn't living in Whitechapel at the time. This gives an impression that Klosowski simply could not have committed the murders, and this in turn gives an impression that Abberline was so out of the loop that, well, we can turn to Anderson.
And my information on Anderson comes from Sugden, not from some existential void, as you suggest.
As for your own thoughts on Abberline, they go beyond the scope of anything Fido was talking about in his essay, and it was his essay I was talking about, not your own take on Abberline. I can easily go over what you are saying in terms of objecting to Klosowski. That seems to be as much your point as that Fido is not being as condescending toward Abberline as he actually is.
So Abberline. If we take things as early as Ada Wilson, then it was not a year before the violence of the Ripper's sort started in Whitechapel. But, of course, Abberline said "soon" after, so I concede your point, a small one, that Abberline could have had his facts a little straighter, fine.
But again this was not Fido's argument in the essay, and it was the essay that I attacked and the misleading nature of what he said about Klosowski.
As for Abberline, he was simply going on newspapers. Blame the papers. Neither he nor Anderson would have known much about Klosowski one way or another. But what Abberline did know of him felt right.
Give him that.
The thrust of the essay was that Anderson knew the identity of Jack the Ripper, which seems to be a point of blind faith for him and perhaps for you and all sorts of people who frequent these boards. He knew everything? He knew exactly who the Ripper was? And if we just find his mad Jew, well, then we'll have him, by Jove?!
It gets so old. Anderson. This is the same man who was going to solve the murder in a week. This was the same man who was gone pretty much for the first month of the investigation. And this was the same man who claimed to stop the murders by taking all the prostitutes off the streets.
I'm not making all this up, Wolf. The problem you or anyone else is going to run into with me in terms of refuting Neal is that I stand by Sugden. My frustration is that it would be nice if I could stand by someone else as well, if only once and awhile, when that does not seem to be intellectually possible.
In the last analysis Ripperology may be simply a cult thing outside the domain of this one exceptional author. Sugden just seems to be all there is. You accuse me of having the zeal of the converted, but check out your own broadside. You have a lot to defend here, maybe too much in fact. You're upset. You've got all this saved up and now it's spewing. It really does feel like this is some kind of heavy religious thing for you.
As far as Abberline's other misconceptions, they were not serious. They were not outrageous, and, no, Wolf, he was not wrong.
He could have very easily been right. He did not have Klosowski down the way he should have, but he had been close enough to the case that the guy did fit the description of the man who attacked Stride and was seen by Lawende and Marshall. And as you go down a list of specifics about why Abberline had no clue, I have to wonder how well informed you even are of Klosowski. Did you even read my quotes from Sugden in what I was saying? Kloswoski beat his women. His history of violence toward them was very documented. He is the only name that has come up in any of this who is known to have actually killed women in a series. He was in New Jersey when someone was mutliated in New York. He does fit Minter's description. I realize I am not doing justice to the Carrie Brown side of this, but here you choose for some reason to attack everything I have ever said, even the things I have moved away from, anything to simply put me in my place. So going too much into Carrie Brown is for another day.
Anderson just wanted a mad Jew. This was not very rational. I have raised the point that a Jew would not have called another Jew a "Lipski". You have nothing to say about that, Wolf. Your remarks just go off. There's no focus. No consideration. You're just reacting to my personality and saying you don't like Neal, but that's not really an argument, is it?
Obviously the man who killed Stride was not a Jew. Obviously Fido's search for a mad Jew and Anderson's belief in a mad Jew flies in the face of what Schartz had to say about the Berner Street incident.
How is what I am saying all emotion and empty feeling without any facts?
This is not about discussing what I have said. This is about your not liking Neal. On that score I have two words for you. And they are not happy birthday, but so long as we are talking, let's talk about what I have actually said, not how you feel about Neal.
That could get really boring.
So Fido went looking for his mad Jew and could not find Anderson's mad Jew so he settled on another mad Jew and he is probably not the same mad Jew that Anderson was talking about.
We have a word for this in the U.S. It has two syllables. It starts with a "B". Look it up.
You go to your church, I'll go to mine.
For anyone else reading this, I am very interested in the Carrie Brown factor, but I'll deal with that issue on another day. I am not avoiding anything Wolf is saying about it. In fact, if nothing else, having provoked a hard core Macnaughten List person like Wolf with his mad Jews and harmless suicidal special pleader gives focus to what to take up as I go.
Arrogant or not, I am going to take Wolf's miserable list and the Witch Hunting Jew-Baiting Mentality and do with it in print (beyond this board and beyond this audience) and do with it what should have been done with it a long time ago. Nothing I saying ends here. This board is for chewing things over and getting my bearings. There are going to be people a year from now who will read Wolf's last message who will view what he is saying in a way I'm even sure he understands. He just doesn't get it. He doesn't see how a larger public would respond to "evidence" drawn up from this piece of paper from somebody who didn't know what he was talking about. He has lost sight of how morally offensive this is to anyone on the outside looking in. Going after Jews because somebody's name is on a list!
What does anyone think that sounds like?
The Macnaughten list. What is this list? And where have you been all this time to be saving all this up in one long broadside anyway, Wolf? You could have said something about these things as they came up. This list of yours, this sacred relic, was put together by someone who was never involved in the case. The facts about both Druitt and Kosminski are inaccurate.
Try denying that, Wolf. Just try. I am coming from zero facts here? Don't make me laugh! Druitt was not 41 years old. He was not a doctor.
What is this list?
You don't even understand the issue.
If the research of Stewart Evans has any relevance, then the list is incomplete, which would seem to indicate that the person who put it together was not just inaccurate in his facts but never had anything resembling a complete understanding of the overall investigation in the first place. And yet here on the weight of this list one Ripper crowd accuses Druitt and another much smaller crowd (maybe a one man crowd?) led by Fido accuses someone of the crimes simply because the person was a Jewish mental patient and, uh, because Anderson wouldn't mean that particular Jewish mental patient over there so he must have meant this uniquely suited mental patient over here; the logic being all the while that, yes, Anderson was all-knowing on just who the killer was. Sure, he was. Right . . .
Case solved.
I would say that objecting to this Witch Hunt is for getting passionate about. Have you even read the Fido essay that I attacked? Is this really disagreement or disapproval coming from you, Wolf? You simply disapprove of my tone and so I'm getting lectured about it?
'David Cohen & the Polish Jew Theory' insulted my intelligence and I said so. I have a real love for history, a real interest in it, and I know bad history from good. And I'll certainly pit nine years university education against whatever you think you have going for you, especially if it's about a piece of writing like this.
If all I'm going on is Sugden, it seems to me that's all there is to go on! I say that with a note of despair. I read the rest of this stuff very clinically, I'm afraid.
It's quite disappointing.
Jakubowski and Braund mention that the objections to Klosowski as a suspect are not unanswerable with the right hypothesis. They offer no hypothesis because that is not their interest, but I agree with them. They're right. Of course, that hypothesis is not achieved in a day. If you want to scoff, go ahead and scoff, but you're not scoffing me, you're dismissing Sugden. He's the one who pointed me to Klosowski in the first place.
I was just looking for someone plausible. He says Klosowski is the least implausible of the established suspects, so I trusted his judgement on that. And I'll always trust his judgement over that of the author of 'David Cohen & the Polish Jew Theory'.
I just don't respect what Fido wrote. I can't understand how anyone could.
As far as your snide personal judgments about me or about Simon, I have to laugh. Simon is a good guy. I think everyone likes him. If he wants to go off and running on things, he does so honestly, which is more than I can say for you.
But let's say you don't know how you come off sometimes, so fine. Maybe I don't either. But this line of study does get very frustrating, Wolf. Even from your own vested cult point of view you'll have to owe to that much of what I am saying.
That you defend the Macnaughten list speaks for itself. There's nothing there. Standing by it is at best parochial. The end of your message is just a lot of babble about a meaningless newspaper article. You're rambling and not even making very much sense. Simon is supportive and he certainly doesn't babble. So where you get off saying things about the guy is just for shaking my head about. I have never spoken to a person on this board the way you are speaking to me and never spoken about a person the way you so casually speak about Simon. My attack was against an essay, an idea, not against any person present, not any personal jab one way or another.
You don't like my opinion? Don't read it.
You don't like me? Ignore me.
Why even bring Simon up? What has he to do with this? The more I think about it, the more I think you should apologize to him.
I really do.
Neal |
Author: Simon Owen
Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 08:47 am | | Wolf , you are being a grumpy and boring old sourpuss ! I must defend Neal here in that he has brought a great deal of energy and enthusiasm to these boards , and they would be a good deal poorer without him. He doesn't just write from his feelings , he does write with knowledge of the case as well and he has made some interesting and important suggestions and criticisms. He has made me look at Druitt and Chapman again , as well as others , surely that is a good thing ? Why should we , who want to say something about this case , rein in our enthusiasm just for you when we send in our views - it is this enthusiasm that makes the board lively and worth posting to , whether you agree or not with what we say. People who are newcomers often don't know every fact about the case - so what ? We don't mind being corrected by the experts. I personally welcome criticism of my views on the case ( as long as its polite ! ) as it makes me think again about things I'd simply assumed to be true ; I'm open minded enough to revise my opinions if neccessary. You seem to accept speculation and brainstorming are bad Wolf. So look at it this way. No-one in 112 years has solved this case , and it may be because we are all so hidebound in our theories that we have overlooked something : we may need new ideas to solve the case or at least inspire us to look again at something , or re-research something. A newcomer to the case may suggest a theory or a new slant on something which might be truly inspirational , because they are not predjudiced by the weight of opinions that the experts are burdened with. Besides , speculating on things is fun and you seem to have forgotten the meaning of that word. Without taking away from the gravity of the issues involved of course. If you find my stuff boring to read , then don't bother to read it. Even better , instead of criticising Neal and I , post your own theory about who the killer was to these boards. Or why not set up your own board to which only experts can contribute and where no speculation or brainstorming is allowed , then see how long you can sustain it. Not for long I imagine , it would be too boring. My ' knickers ' are not ' in a twist ' as you so quaintly put it , but I felt I had to write because you have made an unfair attack on Neal , who has only brought good to these boards and who has always been interesting to read and never tedious in my opinion. |
Author: Simon Owen
Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 09:05 am | | Sugden , p.364 , on the Victorian police on the case : " ( The A-Z contends that )...the police investigation was ' professional and competent '...Nevertheless in one respect the criticisms of the Victorian press were probably justified. The Telegraph spoke at the time of a lack of imagination in the detective department , and a study of the Whitechapel crimes certainly does suggest a want of innovative spirit at the Yard " Plus ca change...among certain Ripperologists. |
Author: Simon Owen
Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 09:38 am | | Back to the case now folks : Neal is right about Fido's essay , it is very poor and the conclusions drawn are tenuous to say the least. Its my impression that Fido has got carried away with his own theory and , like the Emperor , he can't see he is wearing no clothes. The story about the Cranford man was only revealed ten years after Carrie Brown was killed , this has to make it suspect. The man who was seen with Carrie Brown apparently looked foreign , like a German , and had sharp features as did the Pole. Its definitely not conclusive , but it could have been him. As Sugden says , how many men in Victorian London were capable of serial murder ? Chapman certainly was. If we believe the Ripper was a serial killer , then he had progressed from killing prostitutes in dingy yards and streets to killing prostitutes in their rooms (MJK). Would it not be a logical step to next kill a prostitute in a room in a public building ? Abberline may have got his facts wrong on Chapman , but he did question Lucy Baderski in person so he did make an effort to get to the truth. Finally , Wolf , I notice you did not write ' don't get your knickers in a twist ' as I assumed , but ' don't get your knickers in an uproar '. The correct phrase is ' don't get your knickers in a twist ' - if you have an uproar down there then you are in serious trouble ! |
Author: Christopher-Michael DiGrazia
Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 09:41 am | | Certainly, Simon, Neal has brought a touch of energy to these boards. However, in my opinion (and only my opinion), I do believe my friend Wolf was objecting in part to what seems to be a somewhat intemperate screed by Neal against Martin Fido.
Neal, I have read both Fido's book and the "Mammoth" essay. I love his theory, but I readily agree it simply does not hold water. But whose does? Not even the almighty Sugden could bring more than a limply-argued "not proven" against Chapman. I honestly do not know - other than your claim of "bad history" - why Fido's essay has riled you so much. Would you not agree that his piece is far from being the worst in that collection? Is his "Cohen" essay really no better than the laughable case against Dr Barnardo in the same book?
From what I have read of and by Anderson, he appears to have been a man who greatly hated to retreat from a position once he had staked it out, and his continual proposal of the "polish Jew" theory - in its orginal form and subsequent modifications - demonstrates this. However, there are those who believe in Anderson's veracity and those who do not. Fido did, hence his search. Later research by Begg, Beadle, Evans and Sugden have thrown doubt on the "solution." But Fido continues to promote his theory as the end of the quest.
How is that different from those who promote Maybrick, Barnett, Carroll or any other suspect in the face of evidence? Is it because Fido is the co-author of the "A-Z" and hence ought to be more circumspect in his pronouncements? Or is it because this essay offended your sensibilities (each author saying a different thing and Ripperology having the appearance of a cult)? As you noted in an earlier posting, Fido may simply have been frustrated at his attempts to find the right Polish Jew, and having found one is now adamant about not letting go. But that is psychological assumation. For all you or I know, Fido may honestly believe he is correct, just as Richard Wallace is absolutely convinced Lewis Carroll was the Ripper.
I will freely admit I hold no brief for Chapman; in fact, I am not fully aware of the evidence for or against him, and I shall not attempt either to support or dismiss him as a candidate for the Ripper's mantle. I did, however, wish to note that your thoughts on Martin Fido and response to Wolf appear rather inflammatory, and that while your enthusiasm is commendable, perhaps a bit of circumspection might be warranted, in the interest of keeping the peace on these boards.
If you're looking for a slanging match, you'll get one. I'd rather we didn't have one and had - as Simon notes - pleasant debate and polite criticism. But if you feel I am out of line, no doubt you will also give me "two words."
And on a lighter note - as you say you live in the States, are you planning to attend the Ripper Conference in New Jersey this weekend?
Regards,
Christopher-Michael
N.B. - if you care to read Stewart Evans' excellent new book "The Man Who Hunted JTR," you will find a rather persuasive case - IMHO - that the silly boast about being able to solve the case in a week actually proceeded from the mouth of Warren rather than Anderson. |
Author: Neal Glass
Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 02:20 pm | | I am happy to keep peace on these boards. Wolf inflamed me and I am not used to his tactics as apparently some of you are. Yanks have something to learn from Brits in terms of good manners. We seem to be a good deal more open than one thinks of the British as being (generally), but then that is what makes us so completely rude at times--and arrogant.
I will hang up my sword if Wolf does.
The hour was late.
I am unable to attend a conference at this time, but I do look forward to some future date.
In the interest of peace I will apologize to Wolf for calling his last paragraph "babble". It was late at night, and this infernal list obviously bugs me.
Wolf said:
"One quick note about Sir Melville Macnaghten and his list. Sir Melville was giving notes, probably to the Home Secretary, about an article in The Sun newspaper, (Feb. 13th, 1894) in which Thomas Cutbush was named as Jack the Ripper. Macnaghten States:, "I may mention the cases of three men, any one of whom would have been more liable than Cutbush to have committed this series of murders..." he was not giving the world the identity of Jack the Ripper, but merely refuting the news article. No need to attack a man for writing something that you or I were never meant to know existed, let alone read."
It seemed to me when I was reading this on top of this mountainous barrage that Wolf was implying that Macnaughten could only say so much and no more. I still think Wolf is saying that, but it is not babble. It is just the same faith that so many have that the police knew anything at all, which has to be challenged rationally both on logical and moral grounds.
So if I may logically and politely revise my remarks allow me to re-iterate that Macnaughten had the age & profession of one suspect wrong. His original draft mentioned a PC witness, an idea that was put to rest on the Druitt board to my full satisfaction in my exchange with Stewart. There was no PC witness. I am not saying that Wolf believes there was, I am just pointing out that Macnaughten had apparently thought there was and then thought better of it because he probably was just not sure of his facts. And he wasn't.
I've said that before.
So, now allow me to calmly explain my ire. The thinking that has come of this list is unworthy of intelligent people of any conscience. It is grimly reminiscent of the Red Scare in the America of the 1950s. It does lead to a Witch Hunt mentality, which anyone of conscience who knows what comes of this orientation would find morally offensive and rationally indefensible. A trouble young man who committed suicide is not allowed to rest in peace because his name is still dragged about because he appeared on this list. The memory of two Jewish mental patients, long dead, are brought before the court of opinion as scapegoats on the prejudice of a bureaucrat who obviously did not know who the Ripper was one way or another and whose opinion ignores the most important eyewitness account.
As far as Anderson not being the one who boasted of solving the case in a week. I am going on Sugden and need sources to justify revising Sugden--and I mean very solid and good primary sources. At this point I will not take the word of any other author on its face without proper documentation.
Why my passion?
It is very wrong to scapegoat people just to rest easy about an unsolved crime. It is simply wrong. It is not a good thing. It is a bad thing. I am not just on these boards for the sake of sounding off. I am write something that will be some people's only exposure to this moment in history, the only thing they will go by because they are not that vitally interested in it and just want a good story. I am connected to the Writer's Extension Program at the University of California at Los Angeles, (UCLA). That may not mean a lot to someone English, but UCLA is the major film school right there by West Hollywood. I am at the nerve center here. The pop culture is simply manufactured here. We control the horizontal and the vertical. Rightly or wrongly it is whatever is made of something here that becomes the popular perception.
I have a responsibility to the truth in this that I do take very seriously, and when it touches on moral or social issues that I have always felt strongly about all my life, then I am going to get passionate about it when someone comes forward who just seems oblivious of the principles that are sometimes being ignored in this debate.
Furthermore the willingness of the authorities to point fingers at social scapegoats becomes a necessary flashpoint, one that even the most cynical of my colleagues would exploit, when writing about that era.
Now, at this point in time I do not see myself depicting Abalone as superhero, but you have only to read what I have written to know what I have in store for Anderson.
If someone wants to come forward and defend Anderson, then by all means do so.
That's why I am here. I do not have to be here. I could write a story where Mickey Mouse is the Ripper, and as long as it was suspenseful and involving that would be the end of it for the publisher and the critic.
But I am frankly too vain to leave it at that.
If I have to eventually raise the Police Official Board on this site from the dead, I may do so. If I do I will announce it in the boards where I am in daily attendance. Just now I am probably not ready to take it up.
I have my hands full with Klosowski. It's an awful lot of reading.
Peace, Neal |
Author: Jim DiPalma
Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 04:47 pm | | Hi All,
Neal, I can't understand your reaction to Wolf's comments on the MacNaghten memorandum. When I read his post, it seemed to me that Wolf was simply putting it into proper context as an internal memo. I read nothing in his post that could be interpreted as defending its contents, and certainly nothing that warrants a charge of parochialism.
Personally, I think it's almost laughable that you deign to criticize "thinking that has come of this list", as you put it, when your own thinking is so demonstrably rife with illogic and unfounded assumptions. Let's take them one at a time, shall we?
The Carrie Brown murder: you have repeatedly stated that you are convinced she was murdered by Klosowski, but you cannot even establish that he was in the same country at the time! Let me draw a little analogy for you, which I hope will demonstrate the indefensibility of your position.
I can prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that I resided in northern California in the mid 1960s. Since it can be established that I was in the right area at the right time, the element of opportunity is established, and you now have a stronger circumstantial case that I am the Zodiac killer than you have for Klosowski as the killer of Brown. In order to remain consistent with your own tortured standards of illogic, you must now accept that I am the Zodiac killer, or face up to the fact that you have nothing but your own personal belief to substantiate that Klosowski killed Carrie Brown. Well, which is it?
"Obviously the man who killed Stride was not a Jew."
No one else claims to know who killed Stride, so what evidence do you have that he was not a Jew??
I do hope you are not basing this statement solely on the use of the word "Lipski" by the man who Schwartz saw attacking Stride (who, BTW, may not have been the same person who killed her). In my experience, people do occasionally use an ethnic slur when referring to or addressing someone of the same ethnicity. If this is the only evidence you have, then this statement belongs in the rubbish bin as well.
You got a problem with Druitt being on MacNaghten's list? Fine, most of us do. It is certainly difficult to understand how a troubled young barrister from a respectable upper middle-class family ended up on that list. Whatever the sequence of events, the fact is that he *is* there, a near-contemporaneous suspect named by a senior police official. As such, he is certainly within the field of study of the Whitechapel murders. What I find equally difficult to understand is how you got from there to leveling charges of McCarthyism towards the people on these boards.
You got a problem with Fido's essay? Fine, I agree with many of your criticisms. I would simply point out that the essay is only a small part of a much larger body of work by Mr. Fido on this topic. I suggest you read some of the rest of his work before passing judgement. I believe that is all that Nick was suggesting, an act that sent you digging back through months-old posts to, paraphrasing, "find out where he was coming from."
Frankly, I am much more interested in where you are coming from, Neal. By your own admission, you are a writer of fiction, one of the purveyors of the insipid, brain-dead tripe that passes for popular entertainment in this country, yet almost in the same breath you speak of how seriously you take your responsibility to the truth. Once I stopped laughing and got up off the floor, it occurred to me that these are two mutually exclusive positions, and that you can't possibly have it both ways. So again I ask, which is it? If all you want is fodder for a fictional treatment of the case, you'd do just as well to use Mickey and be done with it. If you are genuinely seeking the truth, then you'd be well-served to do more reading, listening and studying, and a bit less pontificating.
>But I am frankly too vain to leave it at that.
Ah, well, then...
Jim |
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