Anderson - More Questions Than Answers

[Stewart P Evans]

Postulate

Sorry, Stewart, you are claiming to utter as a historian. The school of life doesn't get you anywhere at all in understanding personalities from a different cultural background until you have absorbed that background and can determine the extent to which it will make the person under consideration different from those you have met in your own time and place. You haven't done this, ergo I cannot recommend anyone to pay much attention to your opinions about the nature of Anderson's truthfulness.
Martin F

I spent decades at the 'sharp end' of police work and dealt with dozens of criminals from many cultural backgrounds. I don't want to get personal here but I leave others to judge between us on the strength of what we have written on the subject. Of course the best qualified historian in this field, Phil Sugden, fails to agree with you too, so I'm in good company.

You fail to heed your own words, you 'postulate other writers' thought processes'. You have no real knowledge whatsoever of my experiences, qualifications, what I have or haven't done and so on. You are judging me on the basis of me not agreeing with what you think and the conclusions that you reach. It is also rather significant to me that many more people seem to agree with me on my conclusions about Anderson rather than following your line. But perhaps, like me, they are part of the great unwashed who simply fail to comprehend the finer points understood by high-flying scholars such as yourself.

Interestingly I have before me a letter from a Ripper author who was horrified that you tried to sway him to your way of thinking before his book was published.

[Stewart P Evans]

Unqualified

When yu hear of aserious newbie asking whether the Swanson marginalia could have been forged, your honest answer should be, "Certainly not. I wondered about that too, and full and thorough investigation has shown that they are genuine." To suggest that there is a doubt worth letting anyone spend time trying to prove they are fake or tampered with is as much use as suggesting a scholarly examination of the genuine nature of a well estabished classic whose ascription is not doubted.
Martin F

Just as I am unqualified to pronounce that the Swanson annotations are a fake, I am likewise unqualified to pronounce that a "full and thorough investigation has shown that they are genuine." Why? Well first off there has never been a full and thorough investigation and the fault for that must lie with those involved with the presentation of it in 1987/88.

Had there been a full and thorough investigation the questions I have raised now would not be waiting for an answer and there would be no debate. It is pointless to compare these notes with published works their mere nature, scribbled notes in a book, means that any questions about them should have been answered back in 1988. They signally weren't. I have even asked for the exact date that Jim Swanson tried to sell them to the News of the World and whether the newspaper representatives actually saw the notes or took a copy of them. No one seems able to answer even that query.

When such importance is being placed on these notes, proper documentation and history should have been established at the time. It, apparently, wasn't. I have answered anyone who has asked me the question to the effect that I am not an expert and I am unable to pronounce them as indisputably genuine. If pressed I should tend towards them being genuine but with caveats. These caveats I have fully explained. This, in my opinion, is as honest as one can be about this.

[fido]

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). 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. And apart from AP Wolfe, I don't think you name other people disparagingly, which I fear you have done rather often as far as Paul and I are concerned.
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

[Chris]

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.

How many times do I have to repeat that it is not the genuineness of the marginalia that I am questioning, but Martin Fido's insufferable rudeness and arrogance towards those who suggest that they should be properly evaluated rather than taken on trust?

As for the claim that I am seeking to discredit Anderson's veracity, that's a complete mystery to me. Perhaps Martin Fido is confusing me with somebody else.

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.

[fido]

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

[fido]

We seem to be managing interesting cross-purposes, each posting something which is intercepted by the other's next post.
Oh dear!
I can't make the quotations from previous pages stick in the reply box. But go back to the beginning of this thread and notice Stewart's case for opening it: some sensible questions about how we are to rate Anderson's views, but also some very clear insinuations that he was not telling the truth. Natalie screams in over the top with some half-knowledge of Anderson and a lot of opinion: Rob has to correct her; Stewart is silent, but soon posts a number of quotations from or citations of Anderson, without clear comment, but evidently intending to insinuate that he was dishonest, and being so accepted. When I enter the scene he starts by suggesting he's read plenty about Anderson and doesn't need to read any more. He throws advice to some one else somewhere to read more. But when I indicate that I've read a good deal more by and about Anderson and his cultural environment than he has, I'm told that Stewart doesn't need to do this because of his experience in the school of life!
The thread contains a good many examples of Sir Oracle laying down the law, too. And optimistically cites an unnamed head of the FBI who was more polite about Stewart than I am which is, apparently, not surprising. Well, I've never spoken aggressively to Stewart in the flesh, nor he to me. 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.
He also cites Phil Sugden as agreeing with him, and states erroneously that he is the most capable - (it wasn't that adjective, but I can't go back and look or I'll lose this reply) - historian in the field. well, that simply isn't so. Charles van Onselar is far and away the greatest historian to have entered the Ripper lists, even though for interesting reasons he has proposed a somewhat preposterous candidate. And van Onselar rates Paul Begg and Philip Sugden the best current narrative historians of the Ripper . He takes more quotations from Begg than from any other source on the Ripper. He takes takes them both to task for scholarly pusillanimity in suggesting the Ripper case may never be solved - something Stewart has declared, ex cathedra, is definitely the case. Van Onselar also remarks that Begg's and Sugden's work complements my original work. He certainly doesn't endorse Phil's implicit attack on it, let alone his preposterous suggestion that Anderson's marks were geriatric self-deception!
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! But if Stewart insists on attacking my objectivity and insinuating that he being honest, I apparently must not be, I can promise him I'll give as good as I get. If he can show how the sentences here and sentences there he quotes against Anderson fit into a larger picture derived from an examination of Anderson's overall cultural background I'll be happy to reopen discussion. I've survived withou ever receiving any apology from Stewart for his monstrous attack on me a few years ago when he alleged that he knew I was very dangerous. (Gosh! How exciting! I'd neve heard anybody suggest that before, and I'm sure Chris and Septic Blue and Natalie don't think this clapped-out old Andersonian is dangerous!) But the tone of the debate is up to Stewart. Yes, although I didn't name him, thnking it more polite, I certainly do think he qotes sentences here and there without showing a persuasive total picture. Yes, I think his and everyone else's failure to address the Christianity that was central to Anderson's life limits the value of their observations on Anderson. And unless anduntil he has made some examination of Anderson's Christianity he is in no position to allege that my citation of it as relevant to Anderson's veracity is biassed or unobjective.
All the best,
Martin F

[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.

[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]

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]

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]

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

[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

[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

[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

[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 .