How Are The Mighty Fallen

[Natalie Severn]

Jonathan, I have had some very sad news just now from which am still reeling.So do excuse me for not being able to gather my thoughts together about your last question.
Best Wishes
Norma

[Jonathan H]

Well now you have lost me, but that's ok.

Perhaps we actually agree and are talking past each other.

I certainly agree with you that Stewart, and others, are trying to 'keep it real', but there is also a legitimate place for a flawed, Marxist-driven, prose-masterwork like Cullen's 'Autumn of Terror' too.

Anyhow, what do you think of the theory that Anderson was sincere but perhaps mistaken?

[Natalie Severn]

Sorry Jonathan, you have lost me there.
I was talking about Stewart"s approach as being one which attempts to strip away "preconceptions " by posting the letters , statements and other accounts ,often verbatim, from what he has collected over the years and since 1888 in particular .These are given to the reader within the context of a discussion such as this, so they have the opportunity to gather their understanding afresh from these first hand sources of information. They then may use that material to assess the plausibility or otherwise of the various claims made.That is an approach to history and the quest for the truth which helps to avoid preconceptions.Thats all I was really saying.

[Jeff Leahy]

Your faith in the 'Landord' is touching. My problem is much of his sniping at me is done in private emails and an anonymous book review.

Stewart. 'Landlord' is the name of the beer served it the Old Plantation Pub. A fine ale it is to.

It was intended as a joke?

Pirate

[harry]

From my point of view,I would have expected anyone who subscribe to the point of view that Anderson was writing the truth,to have first established that an identification had taken place.Not by so called historical evidence,but evidence of a physical nature that would leave no doubt that Kosninski had appeared at a certain location,and there identified by a named person known to him,and further that this person had observed Kosminski engaged in an activity that positively indicated Kosminski to have murdered a female,known or suspecred to be a Ripper victim.
Not much to ask.

[Jonathan H]

Actually, Natalie, I think that History is a little different from that.

That there is a strong, creative element based on personal interpretation; to trying to figure out what happened -- and why?

To examine only 'facts' is not only sterile, it is counterproductive as human beings rarely leave neat facts, honest records, which you can string together to arrive at a [provisional] truth, or multiple truths.

Let me give you an example:

Leaving the Ripper to one side, the great, English, left-wing, narrative historian A J P Taylor wrote a bombshell book in 1961 called 'The Origins of the Second World War'.

Taylor proposed a new Hitler.

Far from an evil mastermind working inexorably and fiendishly towards World War II, like some future Bond Super-villain, Hitler was an opportunist, a gambler, who grabbed territory when he could -- then later claimed it was planned that way. Actually he had no systematic plans at all, not even to exterminate the Jews [it would be the war in the East which propelled mass exclusion/persecution towards the colossal evil of the Holocaust].

Taylor argued that Hitler hoped for peace with Britain, whom he admired, and for war with the Soviets, whom he loathed [and to regain the East which Germany had won, fair and square, in WW I but had been robbed by Versailles] but through a series of diplomatic blunders -- by all sides -- he ended up at war in the West and initially at peace with Stalin.

The outraged reaction to this book, from many academic quarters, makes the vitriol on these Boards look like Happy Families.

Today, much of what Taylor argued about the origins of WW II -- though by no means all -- is considered mainstream.

Was Taylor biased? Of course, but that's a given.

You can read biogs of Napoleon Bonaparte in which, in one interpretation, he is a monstrous figure consumed by power: a scourge who had to be brought down! Another book, using the same facts, counter-argues that he was the embodiment of the best of the French Revolution; trying to end feudalism and establish rights and opportunities for millions of Europeans. That his failure to conquer Russia was tragic -- for the Russians!

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi Jonathan,
The point about Stewart"s posts are that rather than speculate about Anderson"s sincerity or otherwise he tries to return solely to the facts, unaffected by present day poster's preconceptions.He sticks rigorously to what his information yields by posting material , often from original letters and other artefacts.This I believe is how Stewart thinks we can come by the truth.Not by anyone"s opinion , whether its that of a senior police officer or anyone else .The balance is always tilted towards an examination of exactly what was said, by whom, when.
Having said that and having enjoyed your reasoning above, I think it takes all points of view to arrive at an approximation of the truth here -after all nobody from that time is here to talk to, so we can"t look them in the eye when they expound their theories, or cross question them in the flesh.Instead, we tend to judge them from our own value systems and the way our own imaginations work----which ,in a way, is what Stewart is trying to steer us away from,
Keep the real flag flying Stewart!
Norma

Absolutely I agree entirely. At the end of the day it is the search for the truth that we are all interested in.

And thats why I feel my suggestion is such a good one. I'm happy to consider a balanced panel if Stewart would prefer? or a straight one to one?

Pirate

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Jonathan,
The point about Stewart"s posts are that rather than speculate about Anderson"s sincerity or otherwise he tries to return solely to the facts, unaffected by present day poster's preconceptions.He sticks rigorously to what his information yields by posting material , often from original letters and other artefacts.This I believe is how Stewart thinks we can come by the truth.Not by anyone"s opinion , whether its that of a senior police officer or anyone else .The balance is always tilted towards an examination of exactly what was said, by whom, when.
Having said that and having enjoyed your reasoning above, I think it takes all points of view to arrive at an approximation of the truth here -after all nobody from that time is here to talk to, so we can"t look them in the eye when they expound their theories, or cross question them in the flesh.Instead, we tend to judge them from our own value systems and the way our own imaginations work----which ,in a way, is what Stewart is trying to steer us away from,
Keep the real flag flying Stewart!
Norma

[Jeff Leahy]

As I’ve maintained all along there are no pro or anti Anderson camps. Paul has never claimed Anderson would ‘NOT LIE’.

Evan’s gripe with Begg is about perceived ‘balance’ in the A to Z.

If Stewart is really so concerned at how the public perceive Anderson then why not come out from behind his computer and debate that view openly and honestly in front of a camera?

Cameron and Brown have agreed to do so shortly.

What I am suggesting is the opportunity he appears to be requesting?

It is always the best way to ensure honest and fair debate, and that way audiences are genuinely able to reach a fair and balanced opinion.

To answer Simons question no I’m not suggesting an out of sync wobble CAM on utube. In fact I have access to some fairly reasonable camera’s and editing facilities, we could possibly film the debate in HD. Admittedly it would be a fairly niche viewing but it would be open and honest. And for my part ‘BALANCED’,

We put out a DVD. So I ask Stewart in the interest of ‘balance’ to reconsider his position. It would be like a mini 'question Time' rather fun and great viewing.

Pirate

[Jonathan H]

Stewart has come to my defense on these Boards, and so I return the favor.

Littlechild wrote in 1913, in his private letter to Sims, that Anderson 'only thought he knew'.

Does this not provide a third possibility between, to put it crudely, Anderson-the-liar and Anderson-the-infallible?

That he was sincere -- but perhaps mistaken.

In his memoirs of 1910 Anderson wrote:

'However the fact may be explained, it is a fact that no other street murder occurred in the "Jack-the-Ripper " series.* The last and most horrible of that maniacs crimes was committed in a house in Miller's Court on the 9th of November. And the circumstances of that crime disposed of all the theories of the amateur Sherlock Holmeses of that date.'

At the bottom of the page the asterix reads:

'* I am here assuming that the murder of Alice M'Kenzie on the 17th of July, 1889, was by another hand. I was absent from London when it occurred, but the Chief Commissioner investigated the case on the spot and decided that it was an ordinary murder, and not the work of a sexual maniac. And the Poplar case of December, 1888, was a death from natural causes, and but for the "Jack the Ripper " scare, no one would have thought of suggesting that it was a homicide.'

Does not Anderson seem to have completely forgotten about the murder of Frances Coles on Feb 13th, 1891?

The 1891 murder of a Whitechapel prostitute which involved not just tabloid hysterics, but also Scotland Yard investigating whether the chief suspect in Coles' murder, the Gentile sailor Tom Sadler, might also be 'Jack'?

The evidence for police interest in this line of inquiry, and that it was not just a tabloid beat-up, is that a Ripper-related witness was brought in to 'confront' Sadler and said 'no'.

Also, Edmund Reid always thought that Coles was the final Ripper murder, and so did the public -- at least until Major Griffiths, in 1898's 'Mysteries of Police and Crime', unexpectedly claimed that Mary Kelly was the final victim.

[Anderson has completely and inexplicably forgotten the sour, unsatisfying, 1891 anti-climax to the whole mystery, if one dismisses Grainger as a possible suspect in 1895 as just an adendum. This is yet another frustrating, dead-end element of the story in which a witness jaw-droppingly said 'yes' to this other Gentile sailor. An episode it should also be noted is left completely unmentioned -- at least literally -- by Anderson in 1910.]

Evans and Rumbelow argue on p. 253 of 'Scotland Yard Investigates':

'Allowing for genuine confusion of memories on the part of Anderson (and/or Swanson) or the possibility of deliberate invention, it is easy to see how the failed attempt to identify Sadler as Jack the Ripper could have evolved into Anderson's identification story ... At best the story is very unsatisfactory ... Anderson's claim is rendered even more unlikely by the fact that his second-in-command, Sir Melville Macnaghten, makes no mention of the identification. In fact, he reached an entirely different conclusion to Anderson and felt that Montague John Druitt was the most likely of the unlikely suspects in his list. This hardly enhances the view that the Polish Jew's guilt was a definitely ascertained fact. And it cannot be claimed that Macnaghten did not know of the Polish Jew Kosminski as it is in his Report in which it is first outlined in the surviving records.'


Of these two possibilities, memory confusion or deliberate invention, in my opinion the former is more likely.

I say that because a deceiver would have more carefully covered himself over the 1891 Coles murder by dismissing/explaining it away. Perhaps blaming it all on the sensationalist press [as Macnaghten silkily seems to do in his 1914 memoirs].

In Anderson's account the messy events of 1891 do not exist at all!

Therefore, why cannot the third possibility be the most likely?

Anderson sincerely thought he knew -- and may even have been correct -- but the details about his Polish Jew Super-suspect were becoming blurred, and fragmented, and thus just as sincerely exaggerated.

In 1895, Anderson held a 'perfectly plausible theory' [reported Griffiths] regarding the un-named Kosminski as the likeliest suspect.

This theory hardened over time -- and with advancing age -- into the 'definitely ascertained fact' of 1910, which is exactly Littlechild's throwaway point to Sims three years later.

[Stewart P Evans]

The Landlord

I dont know. However the Landlord does a great pint called 'Landlord'
And when you ask him questions about Sir Robert Anderson, somehow he always seems to be correct? You should all try coming to kent?
It does the constitution FAB
Perhaps the next conference?
Pirate
PS I was down there the other night and a canadian film crew turned up with all sorts of odd characters claiming to know about JtR. I'll stick to the 'LANDLORD"!

Your faith in the 'Landord' is touching. My problem is much of his sniping at me is done in private emails and an anonymous book review.

Not wishing to shake that faith, but giving an example, on what date does he say Nichols was murdered? The following from his last Ripper book -

Page 42 - "The night on which Mary Ann Nichols was to die, 30 August..."

Page 44 - "The night [of Nichol's murder], 31 August..."

Page 61 - "Anderson took charge of the CID on 1 September, the day on which Mary Ann Nichols was found murdered."

[Phil Carter]

Hello Rob,

Trying as hard as I can to be objective here, I must say again, that it seems that "Pro-Andersonite" people still ignore this question of his trustworthiness. Given MANY things that have been brought before all our eyes, from the likes of Stewart, Simon and others, is Robert Anderson an unbiased, truthful and believable commentator? I do not think so.

best wishes

Phil

[Stewart P Evans]

Tendentious

...
However, first of all, I am not accountable for things that were said by other authors. I should not have to defend things that other people said, and that I do not agree with. But this is not simply a debate between you and Paul and Martin. We are, all of us, searching for the truth.
...
RH

I hadn't noticed that I was 'debating' with Paul and Martin.

They well know that I consider some of their views biased and presented in a tendentious manner. Needless to say they disagree and feel that there is nothing wrong in what they have written. Your own posts show a distinct Anderson bias and you seem to regard it as an attack on Anderson when any contemporary source material is presented that casts doubt on his integrity or status.

Need I point out again that all the important 'new' information on Anderson has emanated from authors perceived as 'anti-Anderson' and not those busily trying to ensure his sainthood.

[Stewart P Evans]

Core Problem

Hi Stewart,
...
Additionally, as I have said to you before, I think that you may have "over corrected" any perceived pro-Anderson bias, to the point where people on these message boards seem to think Anderson was akin to Mephistopheles incarnate. Several posters here on Casebook have made numerous completely over-the-top assertions as to Anderson's character. And you never seem to step in to correct people when they say things like this. I think this perhaps gives the impression that you are not as objective as you claim to be. There is a great deal of anti-Anderson stuff repeated on here over and over again that I do not think is in any way objective. And I think you might agree...
In summary, it is possible Anderson might have lied. But we certainly cannot conclude that he did lie, nor even that it is probable that he lied in this instance.
RH

Rob, I consider you a friend and I am pleased that you recognise the core problem here. No, I do not agree with everything that the perceived 'anti-Anderson camp' say. Surely the fact that I stated on this thread that I did not agree with Simon's title shows that?

But it is not for me to step in and correct everyone else, more especially when I see others doing just that. A lot of what posters have to say is their own opinion and I am not into circular arguments as a means to try and change their opinion. If someone thinks that Anderson was worse than he was, then that is their concern.

My concern is to get as much source material into the public domain, such as the Police Review piece which supported Simon, and let others draw their own conclusions.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Pirate,

Have you pre-sold this concept to the world's major networks or is it doomed to appear out of synch on You Tube?

Regards,

Simon