conspiracys and police cover ups!

[Robert]

I am afraid that the definition of "conspiracy" must remain a secret.

[spyglass]

Hi,
conspiracy...as in the police conspiring to hold back or hide imfomation for what ever reasons concerning the Whitechapell murders.
Im not saying this did happen, just that it is possible.

Regards.

[Robert]

Hi Spyglass

I'm not sure that "for what ever reasons" is right. For example, there was a series of murders in the 1960s where, I believe, the police were about to close in on the murderer but were foiled by his suicide. The police did not release his name as it would only bring trouble to his relatives. I wouldn't class that as a conspiracy.

[jason_c]

Hi,
conspiracy...as in the police conspiring to hold back or hide imfomation for what ever reasons concerning the Whitechapell murders.
Im not saying this did happen, just that it is possible.

Regards.

Not to nitpick but its a certainty the police of 1888 held information back. The question is; who did they hold it back from?

Holding information back from the media is a certainty. Holding information back from politicians is quite possible, as is holding information back from each other. Added to this is the possibility that information was altered or deliberately destroyed.

[Phil H]

An organisation holding back information as a deliberate policy - for instance, the police in terms of a case - is not (to my mind) a conspiracy.

It might be one if a group of people within the organisation clandestinely withhold information for their own purposes - perhaps to pervert justice or to protect one of their own. Similarly, if an organisation withheld information, or distorted information to protect its image (say) then that might be a conspiracy (of sorts) though if it were a known strategy within the whole of that organisation, I am not so sure. That might be closer to PR or protection of public "image".

I think there has to be some degree of secrecy, involving a clique and the approach not widely known.

Only my musings though.

Phil H

[spyglass]

Hi Phill,

The police have always held back imfomation in cases, I would'nt consider that a conspiracy.
But holding back infomation to pervert the course of justice with many involved is a conspiracy, and we saw that this week, and so my only arguement was that it was possible back in 1888.

Thanks.

[Stephen Thomas]

So, if I read you correctly, given the relatively rigid class structures of the later 19th c, in particular, the LVP, those in authority were more prone to conspire/cover up?

Not more prone, Lynn, but more likely to get away with it.

Individuals, organisations and governments all harbour secrets.

That's a fact of life.

[lynn cates]

secrets

Hello Stephen. Thanks.

"Individuals, organisations and governments all harbour secrets."

Can't disagree with that.

Cheers.
LC

[Phil H]

But there may be very good, even laudable, reasons for keeping things secret. Security and personal information are just two examples.

Phil H

[Stephen Thomas]

But there may be very good, even laudable, reasons for keeping things secret. Security and personal information are just two examples.

Indeed, Phil, and that is what is disturbing about the Wikileaks business.

If Anderson was correct in saying that JTR was Jewish then potentially serious social disorder would have been avoided by keeping that fact a secret.

[Phil H]

Notwithstanding that Warren had feared a riot/serious public disorder over the word "Juwes", that was in the immediate aftermath of a gruesome killing.

Anderson was writing years later and in a culture that bandied the words Jew or Jewish with none of our post-war/post Holocaust sensitivity. I can remember my grandmother (born c 1887) commenting "Jew boy" if a Jewish entertainer appeared on TV (Frankie Vaughn was the artist in question as I recall). It meant nothing - she was not racist and was a very kind and considerate lady - but what she said reflected her upbringing (in a different age to ours). She was simply stating what to her was a "fact" - Anderson may have been doing something similar.In the same way, at the time of writing, I suspect that Anderson's use of the word "Jewish" would have had a different intent and reception to those which would be accorded such a phrase in our more diversity conscious age.

That said, Anderson's use of the phrase did attract comment/criticism at the time, and he made a clarification of his meaning. I think he was simply expressing his honest conclusion - while withholding the specific name.

Phil H

[Tom_Wescott]

But there may be very good, even laudable, reasons for keeping things secret. Security and personal information are just two examples.

And such things can be subjective. Inspector Abberline was part of a very well known cover-up in the Cleveland Street Scandal where some young men were allowed to be punished for the crimes peers, and the peers were aided in their escape, so to speak, by the authorities. The justification on Abberline and the police's part was, I'm sure, that it was what was needed to be done to protect the monarchy, a "laudable reason" from their perspective, but certainly not all would share that perspective.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Phil H]

Yet, Tom, I believe that not long after - in the case of Oscar Wilde - Wilde was allowed time to "leave the country" but failed to do so. I don't think the allowing Lord Euston to escape was something exceptional at the time, it would in C19th terms, have been looked on as practising discretion and avoiding scandal.

Nor do I think it had much to do with "protecting the monarchy" as you put it. Edward, Prince of Wales, Eddy's "dad" was highly indiscrete over decades, but -apart from the effort to retrieve some personal letters sent to the Countess of Warwick - there were no steps to protect the monarchy. Indeed, he appeared, quite damagingly in court as a witness on two occasions: the embarrassment flowing from his association with a divorce (where he was probably a third party) and over gambling (then illegal). No conspiracies.

We might see things differently, but there were class-based attitudes then that were broadly accepted by the establishment. Kosminski would not have been allowed time to flee, but a member of "society" might be. As an historian, I would not seek to take a moral view on such things, but to understand such a process/mechanism.

IMHO, anachronism is fatal to clear reasoning about historical events.

Phil H

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Phil. I guess we disagree here, because both in the case of Edward's gambling scandal and in the Cleveland Street Scandals, "lesser mortals" were left to take the punishment that should have been shared with Edward and Euston, respectively. The fact that authorities were okay with this, or at the very least, went along with it, is deplorable.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Roy Corduroy]

Working from memory - Prince Albert Victor 'Eddy' had nothing to do with Cleveland Street. The connection was made because of a man who had contact with royalty. But there were two men with the same name, and the purveyors of this theory used the wrong one.

Anyone's help on this would be greatly appreciated until I can get back to the source material to clarify.

Roy