Did Anderson Know

[Chris]

Natalie

You cited the phrase "definitely ascertained fact" as being somehow important to your statement that Smith "accused Anderson of lying". What I was pointing out is that that phrase was absent from the version of Anderson's memoirs that Smith was responding to.

But probably I'm being naive in thinking it would be helpful to get the facts straight.

[Natalie Severn]

Chris, The main thrust and meaning of Anderson"s words is exactly the same in the 1910 Blackwoods Magazine article as in Anderson"s 1910 autobiography "TLYOML".
Here I have to say that I agree wholeheartedly with the editor of The Jewish Chronicle,Greenberg ,who having read Robert Anderson"s 1910 Blackwoods Article wrote in the Friday edition of The Jewish Chronicle 4 March 1910,
" In The Communal Armchair.An Aspersion upon Jews.
Police "Theory" Again.By Mentor

".......a more wicked assertion to put into print without a shadow of evidence,I have seldom seen."
Mentor [alias Greenberg,] Editor of Jewish Chronicle.
Moreover, the fact that his words and sentiments are totally corroborated by the Chief Commissioner of the City of London Police in his 1910 autobiography indicates to me that there was never any "evidence",
Smith was there,on the scene,he MUST have known. So was Inspector Reid----see Stewart Evans"s posting above.

[Chris]

Natalie

No. It's not at all clear that Abberline is referring to Anderson's theory. What he is quoted as saying in the first article could fit Anderson's theory - though it could also fit other theories. But what he is quoted as saying in the second article certainly does not fit Anderson's theory.

It is, at best, a matter of opinion. That being the case, it is quite misleading to claim that "Inspector Abberline ... as good as said Anderson was a liar and was talking a lot of nonsense".

And of course all this took place seven years before Anderson wrote anything about "ascertained facts"!

[Chris]

Mike,You are twisting MY WORDS .Anderson stated in Blackwoods magazine that it was a DEFINITELY ASCERTAINABLE FACT that police knew who the ripper was.Now he SAID THAT.
The Chief Commissioner of the City of London Police said he had made a reckless accusation,in Blackwoods and his autobiography and that NOBODY EVER KNEW WHERE THE RIPPER LIVED or who he was-no policeman had ever known and still didnt 20 years later in 1910.

As a matter of fact, Anderson didn't say that in his Blackwood's Magazine article. It was an addition made when his autobiography appeared in book form.

And Smith did not refer to what Anderson wrote in his the autobiography, but only to what he wrote in Blackwood's Magazine.

[Natalie Severn]

Yes Chris,I followed the link you provided.We have different interpretations.
Abberline,in the clearest words possible refuted BOTH Anderson"s and Macnaghten"s claims/names viz:
In 1903 "You can state most emphatically that Scotland Yard is really no wiser on the subject than it was fifteen years ago".He is as good as saying here that both Macnaghten and Anderson are lying.

[Natalie Severn]

Mike,You are twisting MY WORDS .Anderson stated in Blackwoods magazine that it was a DEFINITELY ASCERTAINABLE FACT that police knew who the ripper was.Now he SAID THAT.
The Chief Commissioner of the City of London Police said he had made a reckless accusation,in Blackwoods and his autobiography and that NOBODY EVER KNEW WHERE THE RIPPER LIVED or who he was-no policeman had ever known and still didnt 20 years later in 1910.
He is "as good as saying" Anderson is a liar.
Anderson himself told everybodyin the World he was a liar in 1910 on his doorstep in Nottinghill.
These are historical facts.

[Chris]

Natalie

Did you follow the link that I provided?

If you do you'll see that:
(1) The following week in the Pall Mall Gazette Abberline was quoted as having made a more specific statement: "I know ... that it has been stated in several quarters that 'Jack the Ripper' was a man who died in a lunatic asylum a few years ago, but there is nothing at all of a tangible nature to support such a theory." Obviously Aaron Kozminski was still alive at this time.
(2) There were a number of theories about the Ripper having been committed to an asylum, one of which involved an insane medical student who was said to have died around 1893. What Abberline said fits that theory. It doesn't fit Aaron Kozminski, and it doesn't fit what had been said publicly about him.

But in any case, can you not see that when you say "Inspector Abberline ... as good as said Anderson was a liar and was talking a lot of nonsense", you are liable to give people the impression that Abberline was actually commenting on something Anderson had said? It's so misleading.

[The Good Michael]

Natalie,

How can you equate someone not believing another's story with that person being a liar?

Example: Many people have said they've seen UFOs. I don't believe they have. I believe there are other explanations. Yet, they clearly believe, so they are NOT liars.

It's pretty sad that you want to twist your disbelief in something into: He must be a liar.

It certainly is unfair at the very least, but it's also disingenuous and is only self-serving. It does nothing for finding answers.

Mike

[Natalie Severn]

Can we stick to what was reported by the Pall Mall Gazette in 1903 and included by Sugden?
The sentence that I reproduced above is semantically important because in it Abberline is refuting the notion that WE [the police]EVER BELIEVED he was dead

OR

That HE WAS A LUNATIC or anything of that kind.


The "OR" is crucial to the meaning of his words.



If ex Inspector Abberline, states unequivocally to this journalist in this article of 1903, that the theory of a "lunatic" JtR ,is one that nobody had ever believed ,then by inference he is accusing the protagonist of that theory of lies".
The leading protagonist of that theory of a lunatic ripper was Robert Anderson.
Moreover,if Inspector Abberline"s view is endorsed emphatically by another policeman of much senior rank,viz the Chief Commissioner of the City of London Police,Henry Smith,then you have two men ,who were there at the time ,categorically denying that ANYONE KNEW who Jack the Ripper was.They are undoubtedly accusing the perpetrator of the theory of lying.

[Chris]

Chris,
see page 451 Philip Sugden"s reproduced article-in full- written by a Pall Mall Gazette reporterin 1903.
This is the quote from it I refer to regarding Abberline"s total and unequivocal rebuttal of of JtR being a lunatic:

....and you must understand that we have NEVER BELIEVED * all those stories about Jack the Ripper being dead,OR THAT HE WAS A LUNATIC,OR ANYTHING OF THAT KIND.*


*my capitals

Thanks. I wondered whether that was the one you meant.

But I don't see how on earth you can characterise that as "as good as [saying] Anderson was a liar and was talking a lot of nonsense", when Abberline doesn't even mention Anderson!

If it concerns Aaron Kozminski at all, it seems just as likely that it refers to the version of the Macnaghten memorandum that had been published by Griffiths, as to anything that Anderson had written.

But taking into account what else Abberline says, I think he is probably referring to a different theory altogether:

http://forum.casebook.org/showpost.php?p=120110&postcount=15

[Stewart P Evans]

Inspector Edmund Reid

And, of course, we have the following by ex-Inspector Edmund Reid that appeared in the Morning Advertiser of 23 April 1910 -

[Natalie Severn]

I'm curious about which statement of Abberline's you're referring to here. Can you quote the one you mean, please?

Chris,
see page 451 Philip Sugden"s reproduced article-in full- written by a Pall Mall Gazette reporterin 1903.
This is the quote from it I refer to regarding Abberline"s total and unequivocal rebuttal of of JtR being a lunatic:

....and you must understand that we have NEVER BELIEVED * all those stories about Jack the Ripper being dead,OR THAT HE WAS A LUNATIC,OR ANYTHING OF THAT KIND.*


*my capitals


Abberline is speaking 15 years after the Autumn of 1888.So surely this is long after any "identification" Anderson refers to,had taken place, of the lunatic Jewish person named Kosminski ? -the witness who alleged they saw JtR would hardly be expected to "identify" someone accurately very much later than a few years after the event---especially one who had been ill with dementia since 1891 ?

[The Good Michael]

We were discussing Greenberg. Anderson's stuff didn't seem any different and actually much milder than Paisley's nonsense. I think you have read too much into it.

Mike

[Natalie Severn]

G.M.
What was Anderson"s agenda writing these fanatical Christian fundamentalist tracts?

[Chris]

How then do you square all this up with the factual statements by several other policemen who worked on the Ripper Investigation,notably Inspector Abberline who as good as said Anderson was a liar and was talking a lot of nonsense?

I'm curious about which statement of Abberline's you're referring to here. Can you quote the one you mean, please?