Anderson - More Questions Than Answers

[Cap'n Jack]

'First, obviously, I must apologize very sincerely to Stewart for my ill-bred drunken remarks at the Norwich conference.'

And there was little 'ol me thinking I was the only ill-bred drunk in the 'ouse.

[Jeff Leahy]

As a matter of fact, most of my efforts over the last couple of years have been directed towards trying to get the basic facts about Aaron Kozminski and his family right. But obviously that kind of thing is beneath Martin Fido's notice.

Hi Martin

It’s been great having you around and I've very much enjoyed some of the exchanges with Stewart (not the personal stuff) but the Anderson info, most helpful.

Just to comment on Chris Philips post. Chris requires no defense from me, however I think you have been somewhat hard, wrong, in your assessment of his position. The work he has done with Rob House on Aaron Kosminski has been new exciting and ground breaking and it is unfortunate that you and he should clash in such a way, given what you have both contributed on the subject.

I hope the conference goes well for you and I also hope that you continue to drop bye from time to time, as despite what may sometimes appear apparent, some posters on casebook are more than appreciative at what such debate can offer, and enjoy them immensely, even if at times we don’t all fully see eye to eye on various subjects.

It would be most unfortunate if such exchanges were done on a private site…And despite the fact that I’ve gotten in so much trouble for saying so, I still hold the belief that this exchange on Anderson would have been better done on podcast than in these over lapping posts…FACT.

Anyway your posts have certainly give everyone room for serious thought and consideration. Hope you don’t mind if I still sit on the fence with regards to Anderson. I’m still digging on Parnell.

Hopefully see you here again.

Pirate.

[The Good Michael]

Martin,

I apologize for being somewhat huffy. Stewart spends quite a bit of time and effort on this site, teaching us many things. I have found him quite gracious.

I also wanted to say that I have found some of your research about Jews and prostitution quoted on several sites. I find that history absolutely fascinating and somewhat hidden, or forgotten. Just from the little I've read, I say kudos to you for your research.

Cheers,

Mike

[fido]

I'm sorry, Mike, that was certainly not my intention. I have detected occasional asperity in Stewart's remarks about my work (aas well as, of course, other remarks that were warm and complimentary). I shall be careful not to respond in kind as I accept that I asked for it.
Martin F

[The Good Michael]

First, obviously, I must apologize very sincerely to Stewart for my ill-bred drunken remarks at the Norwich conference. They fully justify his tendency to slip into a tone of asperity with me, and I will cease to complain about it.

What a load of disingenuousness. Stewart needs no one to go to bat for him here, as he has handled himself as a gentleman. Yet, to suggest that he has a propensity toward harshness based upon a prior history with you, is to say, "You are being an arse, but I understand why." It is hardly an apology. Anyone who has been reading these exchanges, can see from whence the arrogance and effrontery emanate, and make no mistake about that.

Mike

[fido]

First, obviously, I must apologize very sincerely to Stewart for my ill-bred drunken remarks at the Norwich conference. They fully justify his tendency to slip into a tone of asperity with me, and I will cease to complain about it.

Natalie - I'm sorry, I don't really understand the point you are making, and I don't recognize your account of my research methods, which I think I have explained elsewhere in a recent posting. But my trawl through the HUGE thread on Eddowes' kidney last night revealed that, however much you have been convinced by Christy Campbell's view of Anderson, you really do appreciate the excellence of Paul Begg's The Facts and the really interesting arguments he puts forward in it. This forgives a multitude of sins!

Autospirograph - I'm interested in your offer, but again don't quite understand it. In any case, the Ripper boards are something I don't look at very often, and then only with cause. I did so when we were working on the new A to Z. I am doing so now because of the upcoming Knoxville conference, and am actually trawling through everything on them for that purpose, (and certainly not to look out what anybody has said about me. It was the frequency of Stewart's claims that Paul and I lack objectivity, and the preposterous revival of insinuations that the Swanson marginalia may be tainted by tampering or forgery, persistently followed up by even more vehement assertions from Natalie and others, that led me to embroil myself in disputation. And I ran back through this thread and this thread only for my previous posting, to make sure that everything I said about the nature of Stewart's posts could be justified). But the truth is the Ripper is far from the centre of my life at present. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Paul's The Facts since, as I told him, I had not felt any I great enthusiasm about The Definitive History. I was astonished by how impressive van Onselen's - (sorry about my misspelling last night) - methodological chapter was after the unpersuasiveness of his initial suggestion of Silver as the Ripper, until I googled him and discovered what a major scholar had stepped (or perhaps one should say slipped) into the field. And while I look forward immensely to reading Rob's 22-page account of Kosminski. which I have downloaded and printed for easy reading as I commute to work, the truth is that I get more pleasure out of reading Harold Bloom on The Merchant of Venice these days than anything on the Ripper or any other criminal.

The two things unknown to me in Phil's book when it came out were the detailed suggested identification of Smith's suspect as Morford or Orford (pp156-157) and the man seen in Church Lane after the Stride murder (pp 212-213). My disappointment at the lack of more new information was really a tribute to the amount of work done by previous Ripper researchers and not a criticism of Phil. I was amazed that the ground had been covered so thoroughly. If I wished to criticize Phil's work it would be on the quality of the brief argumentative sections, not the thorough coverage of press and archive material.

I have no serious interest in carrying disputation for disputation's sake any further. I have made the point that it is useless to discuss the importance of a historical personality's ethical and cultural background with commentators who insist that they can judge it without studying it. It doesn't concern me at all that my theory about David Cohen is rejected by scholars who try to cut the Gordian knot of Swanson's, Anderson's and Macnaghten's confused and contradictory accounts by speculatively suggesting forgery, or mendacity or senility on the part of any of them, or accuse me of bad scholarly method and pass on without addressing the issues. Paul Begg and Don Rumbelow (so far, as far as I know) are the two people who have raised demurrers based on acceptance of the clear facts before us, and to Don's objection ("There must be a simpler explanation") I can only agree that I wish it were so, and wait for some one to put one forward.

So I may return if someone who has thoroughly studied Anderson's beliefs and background comes forward with reasons for challenging his veracity, or someone with new facts or a clearly sensible reinterpretation of known ones offers reasons for doubting his position or reassessing Swanson's and/or Macnaghten's. Tomorrow essays for grading start to come in. On Tuesday I'm back in the classroom and have to get all my marking cleared up before I leave for Knoxville at the end of the week. So I'm unlikely to be back after tomorrow.

All the best,
Martin F

All the best,
Martin F

[Natalie Severn]

Oops! My mistake! I thought I was answering your previous post, Stewart.
I see you are still sparring.
Well, let's stick to the point. Your books are not in question. Nobody objects to the life of Reid; everybody values immensely the Sourcebook. Neither it nor the Letters from Hell are the type of book which lend themselves to bias. Nor have I ever, that I can remember, published an attack on your theorizing in the Tumblety book, though one reader when it came out asked me, "Who isd this man who pretends to respect your work, but tries to rubbish it all he can?"
I have never gone around saying that you lack objectivity or competence. But I find that you have constantly been casting aspersions on mine - sometimes by name, sometimes by vague references to "Kosminskiites". I don't go around telling people what yur thinking is in words that are dismissive of it. You have been doing this, I find, quite a bit as far as I'm concerned. And because your books are generally uncontroversial you think you can pretend that your entries on the boards are equally objective? Statements like "Nobody knows and nobody ever will know who Jack the Ripper was" go beyond bias: that's prophecy, not history or scholarship! Your postings are a wonderful mix: some good and balanced; some sensibly informative; some in the offensive voice that says "I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my mouth let no dog bark!"
Now let's stick to the point here. you accuse me of bias because I say my studies show me that Anderson's type of Christianity, and the way it was recognized by others and practised by his peers, is quite incompatible with a certain type of lying. You say I'm wrong. I ask what you have read about Anderson's religious beliefs and practices. You say nothing. You don't need to. You have a lot of experience in life.... Eh??
I say that John Douglas, one of the two policemen who have inteviewed and interrogated more serial killes than anyone in the world, has reached certain conclusions. You say you know what's wrong with the FBI approach because you once found the body of a serial killer's victim... Eh??
You have a wise posting somewhere uging someone you disagreed with to read as much as they can by and about the person under dispute befor uttering an opinion. But here??
We have, I guess, a new scholarly principle: when Stewart knows more than somebody else his knowledge trumps their opinion. When he knows less, his opinion trumps their knowledge!
Don't try and veer away from the question of your scholarship and the bases of your knowledge. Tell us the historical basis of your certainty that Anderson's Christianity makes no difference to his veracity. Show us your understanding of the difference between having the probity of your political activities challenged by a political opponent, and making up silly lies and distortions about your career. Read some more Anderson and read up about Victorian evangelicals, and then come back and challenge what we've said.
Tell us what your policing experience has shown you to be faulty in the FBI methods of examining unsolved murder cases - as it applies to the Ripper case, since John Douglas's views on this case are the only ones that concern us here. Let's have some scholarship and not a lot of aggressive assertions.
All the best,
Martin

But ---- murderers tend NOT to get caught by "scholars" but by painstaking policemen!


As I recall,despite your wide ranging research into the lunatic asylum that housed Aaron Kosminski,your method of determining who the killer actually was was to use the facts you discovered about Kosminski to leap into totally untested waters and present your personal view of who Jack the Ripper actually was,that was not based on meticulous research or facts.In other words ,it was your " personal opinion" and "personal judgment" that the Ripper was David Cohen who happened to be another"low class Polish Jew" in Colney Hatch asylum!
Your book combines "statements of theory and opinion" [yours] combined with often unrelated "statements of fact" ,which in turn, serve to obscure the statements of fact .

[Jeff Leahy]

, some of which you will never have seen,

Stewart you keep using this argument. You fired it at me a couple of times. However saying that you have information others do NOT, and then claiming that proves anything is completely unfair..

Would it not be more reasonable to post that information and make available.

So that we can all see what is being said, is simply more reasonable.

Pirate

[Jeff Leahy]

I

“At the same time he had a peculiarly scrupulous regard for the truth and would never have lied directly though when he thought anti-social criminals [is there any other sort?] were involved he was prepared to mislead with half-truths or mental reservation (as he did before the Parnell Commission). His statements about the Ripper’s identity are far too direct to come under this heading.”

Nelson Mandela? Mahatma Gandhi?

Surely to some extent anti social behaviour is a point of view ever changing as Societies themselves change and develop?

Pirate

[auspirograph]

An observation and sincere offer

The way we address each other, and he writes about me when I'm not reading the boards, are an example of the danger many people have noticed aout the internet: it aint good for courtesy and controlled debate! I don't really have to bother about accusations of rudeness from someone who calls my arguments squirming and wriggling, and who has stamped off the boards in a tantrum when he's been answered (not by me) in his own brusquely dismissive terms.

Now, I don't like the use of the boards for ill-willed exchanges. I'd rather manage the kind of courteous disagreement I find easily possible with - well, people as far apart fom each other as How Brown and Ivor Edwards!

I have been following this 'debate' with some interest as I'm sure others have as well. It is certainly important to have two leading authorities on the Whitechapel murders airing their informed views, despite the animosity this subject appears to have traditionally generated and with all the human flaws that even professional writers have.

It does concern me, and there's no mistake that readers of these fine books on Jack the Ripper are also influenced, that what begins as a historical necessity to evaluate Anderson with more care than has previously been the case, especially in view of Victorian class politics and devotional perceptions, that open internet debates are fraught with difficulties.

No other historical discipline is as open as Ripperology in debating the issues and rarely in my view is anything settled or consensus allowed to form on the common ground issues. Other legitimate historical concerns are only conducted via email 'lists' requiring membership so that orderly and productive debates are enjoyed by all concerned. But in crime history, it is quite frankly a 'dog's breakfast' and Mr Fido is well in his rights to point this out as it explains the reluctance of specialists to engage over the internet with interested researchers.

Debates of this nature between published authors and leading authorities in my view, are not condusive to lending assurance to readers of the wealth of knowledge and experience on the Whitechapel murders. They thus tend to become territorial turf wars vying for position in a limited publisher's market where the losers are the authors themselves. I may be wrong in that regard but it is an observation that I would like to address.

I would like to make a sincere offer to make available for the purpose of informed and in-depth debate between professional authors a members only web site for Jack the Ripper writers and historians. It is managed by an experienced writer and moderator of internet sites for professional authors and can assure anyone that my bias extends to learning more about the fascinating Whitechapel murders. The offer is also available to those wishing to conduct guided interviews with professionals on the subject in confidence.

I don't seriously believe my offer will be taken up as the main concern appears to be the promoting of competing works on an open site before a keckling audience. But that is what this new message board is really about and suffice to say that it is available to all interested writers and historians to continue specialised debates, well moderated, and confidential.

If the concern is that general readers and those with an interest in the Whitechapel murders will miss out on the informative discussions here at Casebook, material generated can be released either on a section for 'guests' or in the appropriate section here with the appropriate permissions.

Thank you for attention and consideration of a web site sincerely designed to supplement Casebook's freely available and reliable information on a classic whodunnit that somehow manages to provide endless fun, social activities and the penetrating historical research of Victorian society, crime and the evolution of police practices and politics.

Spiro

[Stewart P Evans]

More to follow, but I'm busy right now.

[Stewart P Evans]

Attacks

Well, let's stick to the point. Your books are not in question. Nobody objects to the life of Reid; everybody values immensely the Sourcebook. Neither it nor the Letters from Hell are the type of book which lend themselves to bias. Nor have I ever, that I can remember, published an attack on your theorizing in the Tumblety book, though one reader when it came out asked me, "Who isd this man who pretends to respect your work, but tries to rubbish it all he can?"Martin

Well, thank you for the digression on a couple of my other books that you don't object to. But then you wouldn't because they don't disagree with any of your own thinking. They are, essentially, reference works.

I would expect attacks on the theorising in my Tumblety book. That is to be expected with any suspect-based book, a type of book that I would rather not write but that had to be written. And it gave me my break into writing on a subject that has been close to me for many more years than it has to you.

"...one reader when it came out asked me, 'Who is this man who pretends to respect your work, but tries to rubbish it all he can?" Since you have raised it, why not give the readers here the full story Martin? Why be coy?

First let's explain that this 'one reader' was actually your brother. Let us now describe the reason for his words. In the acknowledgements Paul Gainey and I state, "Martin Fido and Paul Begg have been generous with their valued thoughts on a subject that few can claim to know more about." That was, and is, true. Now one of a publishers' prerequisites for a suspect-based book seems to be the requirement to dismiss other Ripper theories before launching into the subject of the book. It's a concept that I don't like and I stated at the time that I didn't want such a chapter in the book. The publishers insisted and the other 'Suspects' chapter was written. In this chapter we covered Kosminski. The thoroughly offensive (to you) passage occurred here. We wrote, "Writer Martin Fido searched through the records of public asylums and workhouse infirmaries and in the admissions book of Colney Hatch found a reference to one Aaron Kosminski. Unfortunately, it did not tally with the facts that were known about Kosminski the suspect. Aaron was a poor wretch who searched for bread in the gutters of the street. This could not possibly be the man who murdered prostitutes and disappeared without a trace. Fido came up with his own revised theory that suggested that there had been a confusion of names and the man described in the asylum record was, in fact, a certain Nathan Kaminsky, a Polish Jew who on 24 March 1888 began a six-week course of treatment for syphilis at the Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary. There are no other references to this man. Fido then theorised that Kaminsky had been incarcerated under a different name and concluded that he and a patient called David Cohen were one and the same..." We ended the piece with, "He was also, in Fido's view, unmistakably Anderson's Polish Jew, and therefore Jack the Ripper. A bold claim with no evidence to support it."

So having given you a nice mention in the acknowledgements we had now negated that by disagreeing with your theory. Not only that we had committed the unforgiveable sin of making a mistake. These two callow writers had insulted the almighty Martin Fido. Yes, we had made a mistake, and given the convoluted nature of your theory one that may perhaps be understood, if not forgiven. For we had stated that you had first found Kosminki and then gone on to come up with Cohen &c. But no, that is wrong, you didn't locate Kosminski until after you had evolved your theory. An important point and one that needed to be corrected.

Did you, Martin, on reading this when the book was published in May 1995 tell us of our error so that any subsequent printing could be corrected? No, you didn't, so when the paperback edition appeared in 1996, and the US edition, the error remained uncorrected. In fact it festered with you for three years, until the Norwich conference of 1998. With Paul Gainey, and others, we stood chatting with you in the bar. You stood with your back to me, chatting with Paul, and congratulating him on the book, acting as if it was nothing to do with me. I said "Excuse me Martin I did co-author the book, we wrote about 50 per cent each." You replied to the effect that as I was only a policeman but Paul was a press liaison officer, thus a writer, you had assumed the book was written by Paul. You had consumed rather too much alcohol and you turned on me and said, "In that case I want a word with you. My brother read the book and said to me 'Who is this f*ck*ng arsehole Evans. First he gives you a wonderful acknowledgement and then he attacks you in the text." I believe these words to be more or less exact, the abusive 'f*ck*ng arsehole' is certainly correct. I controlled my response and seeing that you were the worse for wear left with Rosie for bed.

[Stewart P Evans]

Opinions

You have a good post in another place, too, which states that it is essential to read as much as possible about and by any historical character whose personality one wishes to assess; and this is exactly my position vis-a-vis our respective standing on Anderson. I do not feel that you offer sufficient reading around him to show that my conclusion "He might have been wrong. He was always opinionated" needs redressing. If other people have used my work to claim that Kosminski was the Ripper, I cannot help that. I've never claimed that he was or said that Anderson must have been right. I said and say that he seems, from a historical point of view, far and away the best witness, and his claims are in some ways and to varying extents supported by the remarks of Macnaghten and Swanson. Apart from those who find Abberline more persuasive, I am not aware of anybody who proposes a positive alternative. Natalie and Chis, for example, seem restricted to the negative attempts to discredit Anderson's vearcity and (heaven help us!) the genuine nature of the marginalia.
All the best,
Martin

The only answer to this is that you simply do not like anyone who is unable to share your own blind faith in Anderson. I have a huge amount of material on him, some of which you will never have seen, and I have reached different conclusions to you and Paul. But, hey, that's what life is all about, we have our own opinions, and they differ, and that is how it should be.

As for you, well I think that you are full of yourself and your own importance and still think that you solved this case back in 1987. I am still amazed at the post you made a couple of years back when you mentioned students that ask you about the case, and what to read. You said, "I should have to recommend my own writing..." and, wait for it, "I should have great difficulty in being as fair to opinions that differ from mine..."

And the frankly amazing, "...Phil Sugden's book, I was disappointed that his comprehensive trawl only produced two facts that were unknown to me..."

These are the words of a man living on his own planet.

[Stewart P Evans]

Superior

Nor, I think, do you ever indulge in such elaborate and, to my mind, convoluted theorizing as that proposed in Scotland Yard Investigates to try and prove that the answers to the problem of the Seaside Home Paul and I postulate are unacceptable.Martin

You apparently fail to realise (or perhaps not) the great influence that you and Paul have as regards what is written about the case, and much of what you have both written is biased and tendentious. And don't try to tell me it isn't because this is an almost universal belief amongst the informed on this subject. And we all know how you despise being challenged or questioned as to your reasoning which, to your mind, is superior to everyone else's. You should be careful what you say before an informed audience who may well be able to see through you.

The greatest convoluted reasoning in informed Ripperology is your Cohen theory. You would postulate that my theorising on the Seaside Home is unacceptable - it goes against the grain for you and opposes all your own theorising. Let me tell you here that I have received congratulations for my theorising on this from well respected figures in the field, and I don't 'try to prove' anything, I offer logical and plausible alternatives to your own unresolved arguments. Trouble is, Martin, you are too used to people touching their forelock and agreeing unquestioningly with you and you don't like to be challenged.

[Stewart P Evans]

Raking

Good post, Stewart. I would only wonder why you constantly attack Paul's and my position and never, as far as I can see from having now trawled through the suspects and police officers boards, gone into the attack against anyone else except AP Wolfe, (with disastrous results on the Littlechild boards which degenerate into angry wrangling, which I gather you feel he started in another place and worsened with a seriously offensive posting Martin

Ah, now I see that you have been desperately raking over past threads to find ammunition for your diatribes. Any fair reading of the Littlechild letter debate will reveal the totally wrong, ill-informed and nonsensical attack that was made upon my integrity and that of the letter. You don't even portray it fairly, I didn't start it, and I certainly never made any seriously offensive posts.