Did Anderson Know

[Jeff Leahy]

I’m a ripperologist not a clairvoyant.

However I’ll go with the best expert advice I can get on the subject.

Jeff

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jeff,

You don't need crystal balls to work it out.

Regards,

Simon

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi Jeff,

You don't need crystal balls to work it out.

Regards, Simon

Hay Simon its 'Golden Balls'

But I don't know and would certainly take the 'Aliffes' opinion on this one.

Thanks for the Etonian find by the way

Jeff

[Simon Wood]

Hi Golden Balls,

Thanks. Glad you liked the Sir Robert Anderson self-abuse reference.

With all that "swinging together" Macnaghten's alma mater should change its anthem to the Eton Wanking Song.

Regards,

Simon

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Here's a fuller version of the Sir Robert Anderson masturbation story as taken from his speech at a 1910 "purity rally".

Anderson told the rally—"a harrowing story of an Eton boy, son of a colonel in the army, a brilliant lad, always ahead of his class . . . who had been reduced to a drivelling imbecile as the result of secret sin, induced by the sight of an obscene photograph exhibited by a scoundrel whom he met in a railway train. I had the satisfaction of hunting the villain down and of procuring him a long sentence of penal servitude."

Source: Robert Anderson, "Speech at Purity Rally", Assembly Hall, Mile End Road, Alliance of Honour Record [January 1911], pp. 2-3.

Regards,

Simon

[Natalie Severn]

Simon,
When you post stuff like this about Anderson I cant help thinking of Mary Shitehouse!Maybe he was born again through mad Mrs Whitehouse!
Best
Norma

[Simon Wood]

Hi Norma,

He sure is a hoot.

Bear in mind that he gave his speech to the Purity Rally in the same year as his Blackwood article which so upset the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, his confession to having authored the 1887 Parnellism and Crime articles in The Times, and the publication of TLSOMOL.

Sir Robert Anderson was definitely on a roll.

Regards,

Simon

[Natalie Severn]

"on a roll" Simon? More like "round the bend " to me!
Cheers
Norma

[Simon Wood]

Hi Norma,

Most definitely Harpic—clean round the bend.

Sorry, there's no US translation for this.

Regards,

Simon

[jason_c]

Hi All,

Here's a fuller version of the Sir Robert Anderson masturbation story as taken from his speech at a 1910 "purity rally".

Anderson told the rally—"a harrowing story of an Eton boy, son of a colonel in the army, a brilliant lad, always ahead of his class . . . who had been reduced to a drivelling imbecile as the result of secret sin, induced by the sight of an obscene photograph exhibited by a scoundrel whom he met in a railway train. I had the satisfaction of hunting the villain down and of procuring him a long sentence of penal servitude."

Source: Robert Anderson, "Speech at Purity Rally", Assembly Hall, Mile End Road, Alliance of Honour Record [January 1911], pp. 2-3.

Regards,

Simon

On Monday I personally will go to a local school and distribute pornography to the youngsters.

[Jonathan H]

Such a revealing source, Simon!

Again, I see Macnaghten, himself an over-grown Etonian, having fun with Anderson.

Fun that got out of hand.

By 1894 Mac needed some 'straw men' suspects and supplied Anderson with Michael Ostrog and Kosminski [first name forgotten] whom Macnaghten found when he checked the house search list. A young, local man, mentally ill, who had since been incarcerated in an asylum -- partly as a result of 'solitary vices'.

A suspect who may well have been suspected by his own family simply because he hated whores and attacked one of his own with a knife, but whom Macnaghten believed was very unlikely to be the murderer because he became suddenly inactive [whether that is five months or over two years], plus by then the CID Deputy was convinced about Montie Druitt's guilt.

By 1895, after the Grainger fizzer, the dented pride of Anderson fastened onto Kosminski because he had been on that list, and he had been suspected by his family -- and especially because he was deranged from 'unmentionable vices' [also, his ego could never entertain the notion that his unqualified Deputy had the fiend in Druitt, and so he never publicly acknowledged this suspect in any form at all, and predictably chose a suspect whom Mac had not].

Anderson may have reagrded such a vile sin as self-abuse is only one step from such bestial brutality which could easily include murder, and so on.

Very quickly Anderson began to forget that though Kosminski was on that list he had never come into the frame prior to his incarceration -- which itself happened years later.

After a decade Anderson began to forget that Lawende [name forgotten] had been shown Gentile suspects in 1891 and 1895. In fact, he self-servingly forgot that the investigation even embarrassingly and frustratingly went beyond 1889.

Accordingly, Anderson transposed the idea of a witness identification back into 1888, and then his mind had to come up with a reason as to why it failed? It could not be his failure. Thus was born the Judas witness.

I think that Macnaghten may have put forward Kosminski with some amusement knowing about his loathed chief's puritanical beliefs about masturbation, but then became disturbed at the way Anderson would not let go of this delusion, and the way he began redacting Kosminski back into 1888, and telling the press that it was a Jew after all.

Hence, Macnaghten began doing the same thing with Druitt, shoe-horning the real chief suspect back into the 1888 investigation, via Griffiths and Sims, to counter the Polish Jew, so-called 'definitely, ascertained fact'.

It's possible that without the detail of chronic masturbation Macnaghten would not have set this 'suspect' in motion, and later regretted doing so at all -- we might never have heard of Aaron Kosminski at all?

Mac's own memoirs make no reference to this suspect, whatsoever, but do cheerfully concede that the police hunt went right up to 1891, and almost entirely admit that the un-named Druitt was a way-too-late suspect.

[Scott Nelson]

Anderson may have reagrded such a vile sin as self-abuse is only one step from such bestial brutality which could easily include murder, and so on

...What???

[The Good Michael]

Anderson may have reagrded such a vile sin as self-abuse is only one step from such bestial brutality which could easily include murder, and so on.

Do you really think this is how Anderson thought? Most people who project loathing toward masturbation, do it for the sake of seeming religious or pious. I doubt that many educated people would really think it. Wear it as a badge of religious piety maybe, but truly believe it? I don't think so.

Cheers,

Mike

[Jonathan H]

Let me clarify, Scott.

I don't think that Anderson was so obtuse as to choose as his chief suspect simply a man who was guilty of this 'sin'.

On the other hand, much energy has been expended on whether Anderson was an anti-Semite? My provisional conclusion is that he was not, and that he did not choose Kosminski out of prejudice [except perhaps, inevitably, class].

I realise now that an arhument can be mounted that if Macnaghten believed that Kosminski was innocent, then why did Anderson prefer Kosminski over anybody else -- or prefer anybody at all?

Initially I think that Anderson liked Kosminski for the fiend for a number of reasons:
That his name was on the 1888 house-to-house search list.
That he was a local man who lived relatively near the scene of the crimes.
That he was diagnosed as mentally ill, and permanently institutionalized.
That he had attacked a female sibling with a knife.
That he reportedly hated prostitutes.
That he was unemployed and drifted in a twilight world between living with family and being a transient loner.

And because he was a chronic masturbator.

The drawback of Kosminski is that he was presumably not a good likeness -- being younger and Slavic-- for the Lawende sighting.

Much worse was that he was out and about not killing women for over two years. So, a man both deteriorating mentally, headed forever into the asylum system, and yet also 'getting better' and thus not being a homicidal danger anymore?

Anderson's fading memory would take care of both of those drawbacks by 1910.

Consider that in his memoirs Anderson mentions only the local/list aspect, the positive witness identification -- which almost certainly never happened -- and that the Ripper was a masturbator.

Anderson managed to forget that Kosminski only came to police attention after he was 'safely caged', to forget that the investigation fumbled along well past 1889, forget that Kosminski was free for so long after the Kelly murder, forget that the prefectly co-operative Lawende had said 'yes' to Grainger -- and yet have crystal clarity in remembering that Kosminski was guilty of 'unmentionable vices'.

[Natalie Severn]

Lets be precise Jonathan.
There are two statements you make about Aaron Kosminski above which appear to me to be factually inaccurate.
a]
There are just two brief references,initially ,both made at the same time upon Kosminski being admitted to Colney Hatch,statements that either Wolff or someone else from Kosminski"s family possibly, had made to the admissions clerk or registrar at Colney Hatch,ie that it was believed this habit of "self abuse" "had caused his insanity". Whether the registrar took much notice of this ,seems most unlikely, since it is never once raised in his hospital notes afterwards ,in the entirety of his thirty years in asylums, therefore to state that Kosminski was a "chronic masturbator" is not factually accurate.We do not know this.What we do know is that at this time a cause of insanity was thought to be masturbation and this is what is implied in his notes.Everybody now knows that this is pure nonsense.

b] Kosminski didnt actually "attack" his female sibling with a knife.
Jacob Cohen stated that he had taken up a knife and 'threatened" the life of his sister with a knife.There is a distinct difference, Jonathan ,between the two.

Leonard Cohen has a song about this sort of thing-----------its about what he terms the homicidal bitchin that goes on in every kitchen this is probably nearer the mark!