Anderson - More Questions Than Answers

[Chris]

I don't see ant-semitism here. What I see is a man trying to explain something and the people that he is talking about happen to be lower class Jews. He has reasoned out, or has experienced, or has gained the information that these immigrants tend to protect their own. He would have said the same thing had he been speaking about Gypsies, Italians, or Irish had he the reason to suspect anything. Perhaps he didn't choose his words carefully enough, but this is hardly proof of a propensity to disparage against Jews.
The fact is, we may all protect people that we feel a kinship with. These new immigrants, stuck in a foreign world, and preyed upon by even their own kind, despised for their work ethic, had to look to each other for protection. By pointing this out, Anderson is only stating what he believes to be a fact.

The problem is that, as I read it, Anderson is claiming to have deduced that the murderer was a "low-class Jew" from his belief that he was protected by his family - and he is claiming to have reached that conclusion in the absence of any specific evidence suggesting that the murderer was Jewish.

That argument would only work if the Jewish immigrants were unique in a tendency to protect their own. But, as you say, it's a natural human instinct to protect one's own - particularly members of one's own family. If Anderson had simply said "the conclusion we came to was that he was being protected by his family", there would be no difficulty. It's the fact that he deduced from this that the murderer and his family were "low-class Jews" that is the problem.

[DVV]

Agreed Mike,
and by the way, anti-semitism was something very different in 1888. After the second world war, things have completely changed, as awfully expressed by this awful Bernanos'statement: "Hitler has dishonoured antisemitism".

Amitiés,
David

[The Good Michael]

I don't see ant-semitism here. What I see is a man trying to explain something and the people that he is talking about happen to be lower class Jews. He has reasoned out, or has experienced, or has gained the information that these immigrants tend to protect their own. He would have said the same thing had he been speaking about Gypsies, Italians, or Irish had he the reason to suspect anything. Perhaps he didn't choose his words carefully enough, but this is hardly proof of a propensity to disparage against Jews.
The fact is, we may all protect people that we feel a kinship with. These new immigrants, stuck in a foreign world, and preyed upon by even their own kind, despised for their work ethic, had to look to each other for protection. By pointing this out, Anderson is only stating what he believes to be a fact.

Cheers,

Mike

[Natalie Severn]

Chris,Thankyou.
In essence that is my reasoning about this,moreover it is what the editor of the Jewish Chronicle was saying when he totally rejected the prejudiced thinking that led Anderson to his conclusion that Jack the Ripper was a low class Polish Jew.

[Chris]

After due consideration, and rereading that A-Z entry on Anderson, I have to nail my colours to Stewart's mast, for it is obvious that the A-Z entry on Anderson is inherently apologetic in nature. In fact I don't care to remember when I last read through such rambling nonsense.
As an example:
'That five successive murders should have been committed without our having the slightest clue of any kind is extraordinary.'
That is Anderson in an official report to the Home Office on the 23rd October 1888 after his return from leave.
'During my absence abroad the Police had made a house-to-house search for him, investigating the case of every man in the district whose circumstances were such that he could go and come and get rid of his blood stains in secret. And the conclusion we came to was that he and his people were low-class Jews.'
Anderson wrote that in 1910.
I would say that I prefer the 1888 version which has Anderson without the 'slightest clue'.

I think we need to look at the whole paragraph to understand what Anderson is saying:
One did not need to be a Sherlock Holmes to discover that the criminal was a sexual maniac of a virulent type; that he was living in the immediate vicinity of the scenes of the murders; and that, if he was not living absolutely alone, his people knew of his guilt, and refused to give him up to justice. During my absence abroad the Police had made a house-to-house search for him, investigating the case of every man in the district whose circumstances were such that he could go and come and get rid of his blood-stains in secret. And the conclusion we came to was that he and his people were low-class Jews*; for it is a remarkable fact that people of that class in the East End will not give up one of their number to Gentile justice.
[*Changed in the book edition to "certain low-class Polish Jews", evidently in response to the charge of blanket antisemitism.]

He is not really claiming to have had a clue. He's saying it was obvious that the murderer was either living alone or being protected by those he lived with. Then he says, in effect, that all those who were living alone were investigated during the house-to-house enquiry, and that the police concluded that he and his family must be "low-class Jews", because such people would have protected one of their number.

In other words, the conclusion that the murderer was a "low-class Jew" was a deduction from the belief that all men living alone had been eliminated - together with the belief that no other section of the community would protect the killer - and not the result of evidence pointing to a specific Jewish suspect.

This is where Anderson obviously was prejudiced against the Jewish immigrants. If it's true that he had already made up his mind that the murderer was a "low class Jew" in the absence of any specific evidence, then that may explain a lot about Anderson and the suspect he later saw as the justification of that leap of prejudice.

[Cap'n Jack]

After due consideration, and rereading that A-Z entry on Anderson, I have to nail my colours to Stewart's mast, for it is obvious that the A-Z entry on Anderson is inherently apologetic in nature. In fact I don't care to remember when I last read through such rambling nonsense.
As an example:
'That five successive murders should have been committed without our having the slightest clue of any kind is extraordinary.'
That is Anderson in an official report to the Home Office on the 23rd October 1888 after his return from leave.
'During my absence abroad the Police had made a house-to-house search for him, investigating the case of every man in the district whose circumstances were such that he could go and come and get rid of his blood stains in secret. And the conclusion we came to was that he and his people were low-class Jews.'
Anderson wrote that in 1910.
I would say that I prefer the 1888 version which has Anderson without the 'slightest clue'.

[Stewart P Evans]

Outburst

It was nice to see Martin acknowledge his rude and unscholarly behaviour at the Norwich conference and I thank him for his gracious apology. He had this outburst in front of others one of whom is my wife Rosie.

For Martin to suggest that I don't delve into the background people like Anderson is a patent nonsense, and I do have some of Anderson's theological works, as well as all his other books. But to claim that a person's published religious beliefs can prove that they wouldn't lie is ludicrous. I have had to deal with several evangelists in my time and have witnessed much hypocrisy and dishonesty. One such church-goer enjoyed a high reputation amongst his peers and the community as a whole and was regarded as honest and devout. He raped his own daughter, and then denied it. But, it seems to me, Martin tries to indicate that I am the only Ripper author who feels that the A-Z, and thus its authors, is biased.

In response to this I am now quoting from Philip Sugden's review of the A-Z -

"In the matter of objectivity the authors do pretty well except when treating of Sir Robert Anderson. They have always accorded great weight to his claims - more, in my view, than the existing evidence can sustain, but there's no real problem in that. Anderson was an important authority, the authors are entitled to make of him what they will, and there is, or ought to be, room for honourable disagreement amongst scholars. It's important in an unbiased work, however, to try to maintain a non-partisan approach and I do feel that the predilections of the A-Z team lead to some imbalance in Anderson-related entries. Rightly they identify errors in the statements of other detectives. But beyond the briefest reference to 'occasional lapses of memory' there is no mention of the inaccuracies and misrepresentations in Anderson's writings in the long and defensive entry devoted to him. And although, again rightly, they note flaws in the cases against other leading suspects the obvious objections to Kosminski, Sir Robert's candidate, are largely ignored. Surely, at the very least, there should have been some acknowledgement of the fact that the date of the identification of Kosminski, so long after the event, rendered it worthless."

There it is in the words of a true scholar and historian as Martin is not prepared to accept anything from anyone he perceives as 'unscholarly.' Remember, the A-Z poses as a reference work and a Ripper touchstone. Its words carry great weight with students of the case - and many of its readers are unable to discern its bias.

[Dan Norder]

Thats because Dan cannot provide one book which specifically mentions an institutionalized anti-Semitism in practice regarding the Met or City Police forces in the LVP.

No, it's because anyone who actually read any history book about the era would already know it... and in the other thread, where it was being discussed, Natalie already mentioned some books that more than adequately proves it.

Sam's game seems to be demanding the kind of evidence that simply doesn't exist -- sociological studies specifically focused on race which were never even conceived of until more than 50 years later. The fact that it doesn't exist doesn't prove he is right, in fact by not even considering such a topic worthy of study it only goes to show that racism was inherent, accept, and not worth worrying about. He doesn't deny racism or antisemitism, he denies "institutionalized antisemitism" and then gives that term whatever definition he finds convenient so that he can't be proven wrong. It's a standard Sam debating tactic, similar to how he refuses to admit he was wrong on several other topics over the years.

You don't seem to focus on "institutionalized" part but instead seek to redefine what it means to be racist, or stereotyped in general, so that virtually nothing falls under that label.

[The Good Michael]

Ben,

Gentile is not ethnicity. That is how I divided things.

Cheers,

Mike

[Ben]

and if we accept the 'local man' theory, we must come to the conclusion that the killer was more likely to be a lower class Jew than anything else

A lower-class Gentile, Mike. Not a Jew.

Despite the strong Jewish reputation in the district, the Gentiles constituted the majority population.

Best regards,
Ben

[The Good Michael]

How,

Let me add just a bit, if you don't mind. If we just look at the local ethnicity, and go by numbers alone, and if we accept the 'local man' theory, we must come to the conclusion that the killer was more likely to be a lower class Jew than anything else. That includes the Italians (they with their Italian ices and swarthy appearances), and the Irish (those hooligans!), and any other ethnic group including good, old, down-n-out Englishmen. Yet, the record shows that there is a lack of Jewish suspects with regards to numbers (again, the 'local man' theory). This does indicate that either the Jews protected their own, the police were very careful to not exacerbate the tension between the Jews and others, or a combination of both things. Though anti-semitism was probably an intellectual component of some policemen, it seems to have been squirreled away.

Cheers,

Mike

[Howard Brown]

All I Need Is One....

This is getting a little silly,Nats. Here's why:

I have asked Dan Norder to provide Sammy Flynn and myself with just one of the "countless authors" names who have "exposed" institutionalized anti-Semitism within the British constabulary...and have heard nothing. Thats because Dan cannot provide one book which specifically mentions an institutionalized anti-Semitism in practice regarding the Met or City Police forces in the LVP.

I have asked A.P. Wolf to provide ( and to my great friend A.P.'s credit, he has tried...) one credible example of an individual who was specifically picked out as a suspect because, above all other considerations, such as political affiliation...that he was a Jew....again to no avail.

You had mentioned on this thread somewhile back that it was surprising that people such as myself...and maybe Sammy,who is only Welsh...and we love Sam...that we knew so little of the machinations of the police force in LVP Britain. Despite the fact that I can provide on request, at the drop of the pin, far more scurrilous comments made by Jews themselves towards Jews, I am one of the Know Nothings. So be it.

But what really takes the dredl, er,cake...is when you mentioned to Chris Phillips the several serious suspects who were picked up or arrested specifically because they were low class Jews. I asked you then and I will ask you now...and you must remember that I respect you,Nats above all thats been said... to now name one.

Name one Low class Polish Jew out of Casebook's or JTRForums lists of suspects...Jews that Begg or Evans mention...Doc Fido...Sugden...even Skinner, Rumbelow...the newspapers....or any other source....name one that did not merit scrutiny by the police for their behavior rather than their ethnic affiliation.

How

[Ben]

I'm sorry, but anyone seriously - seriously - arguing that modern serial killers are working class and blue collar, whereas Victorian serial killers are posh and middle class really does need to research their topic in more depth. Notorious Victorian murderer and mutilator Joseph Vacher was the son of an illiterate farmer. Klosowski - working class. Deeming - working class.

The vast majority of closely clustered, easy-walkable serials are perpetrated by an offender with a base in that area. The vast majority of men with a base in the Whitechapel area hailed from a working class background. The vast majority of serial killers derive from working class backgrounds. The reliable, non-discredited witness sightings to have emerged from the Whitechapel investigation implicated men from - ostensibly - the peaked-cap proleteriat. Pretty much every expert in criminology who has ever studied the Whitechapel murders has prioritized a working class nobody over the wealthy outsider.

Gosh, I wonder what the simplest, albeit non-glamorous, explanation is?

What makes you so certain that the underlying motivation of multiple poisoners is any different from the motivation of multiple stabbers?

Ah, but by precisely the same token, RJ, what makes you so certain that the underlying motivation of Victorian serial killers is any different from the motivation of their more modern counterparts?

Best regards,
Ben

[fido]

My browser jumped a couple of pages, and I've only just found a lot of earlier discussion, with postings by rjp (I think it was on this thread) that I entirely agree with, and his interesting point about the "nature" of serial killers.
The sociological theory, I think, derives from Colin Wilson who observed that serial killing is found in fully industrialized societies with rather rigid class divisions. England, Germany and the USA (where monetary and ethnic divisions can be as rigid as class) seem to endorse this position, and also invite the possibly misleading suggestion that northern climes are more conducive than the Mediterranean countries (despite the Florence monster). Wilson believes that teh frustrated man with strong leadership-dominance qualities, but neither the social opportunity nor the enterprising ability to attain a leadership position, may work out his exasperation with higher classes by "stealing" (destroying, with or without rape) their most valued possessions - their women. Susn Brownmiller's view of war as including an attempt to humiliate an enemy by raping his women might be compared.
There are two biological theories. Joel Norris proposes that damage of various kinds to the pre-frontal cortex of the brain may destroy the inhibition against inflicting violence and predatory sexual assault on others. Other biologists suggested that the extra Y chromosome in certain males might produce an exaggerated masculinity, with an unexpectedly large body build (by parental standards), a high level of testosterone, and behavioural problems which could range from poor performace at school to (in the last resort) serial klling - Arthur Shawcross, the Genessee River killer from Rochester NY being a classic example. The second variant is rarely accepted now; largely, I think, because the idea of labelling children as "potential violent criminals or serial killers" seemed horrific, as there are many XYY males who do not evince any criminal behaviour (just as there are psychopaths whose inability to grasp just what moral social interrelations are and why they are desirable, nevertheless lead blameless lives because they find imitating normal behaviour comfortable).
Now as far as I know neither Reissler and Douglas nor Cancrini have committed themslves to these predictive explanations of serial murder. All three were interested in descriptive accounts of how a statistically significant number of serial killers prove to have behaved, both before and after their crimes became known. Reissler and Douglas, for example, let statistics bring them to the sort of common sense conclusion so often produced by anthropologists, categorizing and quantifying the apparently obivious: serial killers don't normally spring fully-armed from the head of Jove and start bumping people off with no warning. They have perpetrated earlier cruel and morbid actions. Jeffrey Dahmer's collection of road kill and articulation of its skeletons, for example. J.R.H. Christie's exploitation of his authority as a special policeman to threaten and blackmail prostitutes. Reissler, in particular, was enamoured of the theory that serial killers can be classified as "organized" - (competently in copmmand of what they are doing: planning capture, assault and getaway efficiently and leaving minimal clues: Ted Bundy wouold be an example) - and disorganized, striking opportunistically and trusting to luck to get away. The Ripper seemed to Douglas and Hazelwood of the latter type. For the rest, "profiling" is more akin to Sherlock Holmesing than science. David Canter's obervations of movement possibiities in relation to crime scenes - (something practically all Ripper historians had attempted long before psycholgical profiling was described) - are an example. The presence or lack of fastidiousness and the type of attack - (killers of loved ones will often cover the faces; murderers who savage the corpses evince deep anger and hatred; murderers who remove hands and teeth show information about criminal investigation prcedures; the Ripper, taking a piece of apron to wiipe off both blood and faeces that had imbrued his hands was not a person of fastidious background). Writing is particularly useful to identification analysts: they can tell a lot about education from the grammar and vocabulary; special intrerests may be indicated, etc, etc. Hence the great successes in profiling the Con-Ed and Unabomber killers. Douglas's final position is that enforcing absolute authoritarian control on another is a more important motive than even sexual release when rape accompanies the murder. This "control-freak" explanation is the only thing to make real sense of Dr Harold Shipman's case. He didn't suffer the under-esteemed occupational niche predicted by Colin Wilson as motivating murderers, and while like Neil Cream he didn't enjoy on-the-spot sadistic or violent observation of his victims' sufering, unlike Cream he didn't delight himself with gloating, fabricated, publicity-seeking letters of various kinds.
Cancrini (like the psychoanalyst who studied Dennis Nilsen's case) concluded that the build-up of internal rage in this sort of killer needed the violent release of asault and murder. Without a murder for some time, Nilsen admitted to suffering from growing and insufferable tension. Cancrini also felt that the crescendo of violence in the Ripper's crimes showed that it was demanding more and more release, which he thought would culminate in hte rage turning iunward and leading to suicide. He agreed that the increasing tension could have been caused or aggravated by the increasing policing making the assaults more difficult, and that this frustration could lead to an ultimnate breakdown into madness.
All theorists, even Wilson, base their case on the numbers of serial killers who can be shown to have suffered from the same conditions or behaved in the same ways. I'm sure none of them is entirely right. But I think they show us certain directions of useful thought.
And I cite Cancrini, Douglas and Bill Eckert whenever it is suggested that "nobody agrees with me", or "nobody who has studied the Ripper" agrees. I cite them because they have studied a great many serial murder cases; they did not take up their positions on the probability of a certain type of serial killer under my influence, nor were they resistant to any particular Ripper "theory" because they had ideas of their own about the Ripper's identity or its probable undiscoverability to which they wanted to give priority. In Cancrini's case he has never, as far as I am aware, endorsed [I]any[I] named identification. He has only proposed a suicidal ending as probable - ("My God! Druitt's right back in centre frame" Paul Begg and I whispered to each other during his lecture) - and in response to my questioning agreed that a case like Cohen's was, he felt, equally psychologically viable. Eckert and Douglas simply surveyed the cases that had been made by Ripperologists, using their knowledge and experience to choose the most probable. And Douglas in the first instance was working only from material supplied him by Cosgrove-Muerer, covering PAV, Druitt, Donston, Gull and Kosminski. He had to work up other suspects himself later when he came to write his book.
I don't hold these men to offer a final verdict, but I place great faith in the fact that they came to all cases with an open mind and no predisposition to push or reject one suspect before another.
All the best,
Martin F

[Natalie Severn]

One can appear to be a Polish Jew very easily A.P. It doesn't require any degree from Harvard or Yeshiva ( but it vuddint hoit ! ) to see that a Polish Jew looks a little different from an Irishman...

I want to address Nats' statement she made to CGP:

There was plenty of it about, as clearly articulated in the press and it surely doesnt need "spelling out" regarding the institutions of power within the state.
Even the way Cox speaks about the local people in Aldgate reveals a lot of mutual dislike and distrust - his comments about the local Jews being "bad people" who had to be lied to by police and who then "pretended "to be watching out for under age workers----Nats

Nats,I love ya, but Cox didn't say that.

What Cox said was:

"They readily promised to do so ( help the undercover police look for nogoodniks in the sweating system), although we knew well that they had no intention of helping us. Every man was as bad as another.."-page 708 of the Ultimate, SPE & DR

Cox didn't say the local people were bad people,Nats. He referred specifically to the individuals he and his colleagues had taken into their confidence...and hey,guess what? Maybe they were bad guys for all we know !


Nats, while Doc Fido does usually make good points, and I am not saying he isn't here...where are the numbers for how many Irish were picked up for questioning as opposed to native born or Jewish or whatever? Unless someone can show that there was a higher percentage of Jews picked up vis a vis to the percentage of the Jewish male population in the surrounding area, its only a guess,and a poor one, that the police paid more attention to one specific entity.

A.P....lets not forget that when Americans were arrested,their national origin was mentioned too.

Howard,
Its getting late here so I "ll be brief.I agree completely over the discrimination likely over the Irish,Ireland being a British colony ,with Irish Nationalists at war with the mainland.That is why I tried to point out in a post a few pages back that racism doesnt stand still.Its contours change according to economics etc.But the British State in 1888 was deeply Imperialist and its ideology was transmitted throughout society.To get a real handle on what was going on therefore requires a far reaching analysis of race and class in Victorian Society and the role of the institutions of the state.
You are nit picking over Cox.He refers to the locals in a condescending way throughout his paper.
Anyway what is your answer to the editor of the Jewish chronicle who accused Anderson of rampant anti semitism in 1910 and called his aspersions "WICKED"?