The 'Suckered!' Trilogy

[David Orsam]

However, I shall sleep soundly tonight knowing that history is safe in your hands.

Excellent Simon. Good night.

[David Orsam]

May I remind you once again that it is not me who advanced these ideas. I merely reported them, detailing the accusations and the denials in an even-handed manner. Don't shoot the messenger. At no time have I advanced an extreme conspiracy theory regarding Inspector Jarvis which attempts to re-write history. That is solely a product of your fevered imagination. I am not that ambitious.

Have you read my post #259 in this thread? I have demonstrated that you have indeed attempted to rewrite history by advancing an extreme conspiracy theory regarding Inspector Jarvis by quoting your own words from your article and book. Or are you saying I have imagined those words?

[David Orsam]

Dear David,

"Indeed, for the sake of history, it has been essential for me to attempt to knock the ideas that you have been advancing on the head before they gain wider acceptance and transfer from the narrow world of ripperology into mainstream history, thus corrupting history itself."

I'm not sure why, but the word arrogant has just popped into my head.

Might it be because you have no respect for history but are quite happy to to advance or (according to you) repeat a distorted version of it?

[Simon Wood]

Dear David,

"Indeed, for the sake of history, it has been essential for me to attempt to knock the ideas that you have been advancing on the head before they gain wider acceptance and transfer from the narrow world of ripperology into mainstream history, thus corrupting history itself."

I'm not sure why, but the word arrogant has just popped into my head.

May I remind you once again that it is not me who advanced these ideas. I merely reported them, detailing the accusations and the denials in an even-handed manner. Don't shoot the messenger. At no time have I advanced an extreme conspiracy theory regarding Inspector Jarvis which attempts to re-write history. That is solely a product of your fevered imagination. I am not that ambitious.

However, I shall sleep soundly tonight knowing that history is safe in your hands.

Regards,

Simon

[David Orsam]

Just one more thing Simon.

My question in #242:

How was Labouchere coerced into a volte-face? And who coerced him?

Any chance of an answer? Or are you, in fact, performing your own volte-face and withdrawing the suggestion?

[David Orsam]

Let's get one thing straight. I have not accused Inspector Jarvis of being in Kansas City or Del Norte. All I have done in my book is set out the facts of the matter in chronological form. That those facts suggest questionable behaviour on the part of the Metropolitan Police is a matter which requires further enquiry....Your argument about the events of December 1888 and the subsequent events of 1890 is not with me. It is with history.

Hi Simon,

I find myself in the extraordinary position of having to tell an author what he is saying in both his book and his preceding published article. It is perfectly obvious that you have accused Inspector Jarvis of acting illegally and, indeed, of being in Kansas City and Del Norte. You have no doubt heard the expression "man on the Clapham Omnibus", often referred to in libel actions, to establish how a reasonable person would interpret a published work. In your case, Simon, there is no doubt that the man on the Clapham Omnibus would understand that you are making serious allegations against Inspector Jarvis.

Your claim to simply have been setting out "the facts of the matter in chronological form" in your book (and I assume you must include your ripperologist article too) is laughable and does not wash.

Let’s just go through some examples of where you do far more than set out facts.

In Smoke & Mirrors, Ripperologist 106:

"All in all, Barton appears to have been nothing but a convenient cover for Jarvis’s true business in America."

This is your own conclusion. It has nothing to do with setting out "the facts of the matter."

"'I unreservedly withdraw my original statement and offer my apologies to Inspector Jarvis.’ he [Labouchere] added and followed up with a rather pathetic and wholly unconvincing explanation in a letter published in The Times on 23 December 1890.".

The words "pathetic and wholly unconvincing" form a conclusion you bring into your article which is far from setting out the facts.

"At the time nobody was under any illusions about Jarvis’s presence in Colorado. He also appears to have taken the flak for Andrews and Shore, for no criticisms were levelled at their extracurricular activities in America and Canada. And, since Jarvis and his superior, Superintendent Shore, were scheming together in America, the idea that Jarvis was vindicated through some sort of internal disciplinary procedure beggars belief. In my view, this is another instance of the smug, self-righteous Anderson at his dissembling best."

First of all, that passage contains a statement that Jarvis was in Colorado but you told me you were not alleging that he was in Del Norte, Colorado. The only meaning that can be extracted from a reference to "Jarvis’s presence in Colorado" is that you were saying that he was in Del Norte.

Then you say, as a purported matter of fact, that "Jarvis and his superior, Superintendent Shore, were scheming together in America". But that is not an established fact at all.

Then you offer what is expressly stated to be your own personal view of Anderson as "smug" and "self-righteous" showing all kinds of unnecessary and unscholarly prejudice against the man.

"Thomson was the private agent mentioned in the House of Commons debate on 6 June 1890. His conduit to Anderson and The Times was William R. Hoare, the British Consul in New York who had sent Inspector Jarvis to Kansas and Colorado."

This, Simon, is a statement of purported fact on your part that Hoare sent Inspector Jarvis to Kansas and Colorado, and thus that Jarvis was in Kansas and Colorado, yet you have told me in your post: "I have not accused Inspector Jarvis of being in Kansas City or Del Norte." How are those two statements consistent with each other?

"There is little doubt in my mind that Labouchere was manoeuvred into a retraction."

This is your personal opinion, with absolutely no evidential support for it, or even explanation, and the only sensible meaning is that Labouchere’s allegations were true but that he retracted those allegations for sinister reasons.

Those quotes are from your published article. I don’t want to reproduce too much from your book but four quotes from it will suffice:

"Evidence would also come to light placing Jarvis, and his superior officer, Superintendent John Shore, over eight hundred miles west at Kansas City during the latter half of December 1888."

This not setting out the facts of the matter in chronological order. This is a factual inaccuracy by you because there is no such evidence.

"We can place him [Jarvis] in the company of Inspector Andrews at the Prospect House Hotel, Niagara, over the weekend of 15th and 16th December."

This is you speaking Simon. And no we can’t.

"On returning to London, Inspector Jarvis continued to dazzle and confuse."

What can you possibly mean by this unless you were saying that Inspector Jarvis was deliberately giving false evidence or information? It is hardly setting out the facts of the matter in chronological order is it?

At the conclusion of your book, you refer to a number of things including "the antics of Scotland Yard detectives in North America" in which you state that "differing measures of official chicanery can be discerned".

This is a clear statement by you that there was "official chicanery" by Scotland Yard detectives and, in the context of your book where the only Scotland Yard detectives said to have been active in North America are Andrews, Jarvis and Shore, this is a clear accusation by you that Jarvis was involved in some sort of chicanery and, in the context of the rest of your book, and your Ripperologist article, the man on the Clapham Omnibus can only conclude that you are saying that Inspector Jarvis was working for the Times in North America and especially in Del Norte.

You really cannot wriggle out of it Simon, although it is interesting that you now seem to want to. But your own words condemn you.

[David Orsam]

instead of stooping to childish playground bully tactics and cheap jibes about lunatic conspiracy theories.

I’m certain I have not stooped to “childish playground bully tactics” or made any “cheap jibes”. I have been trying to deal with the evidence and arguments on this issue but where the arguments on one side are in support of conspiracy theories which are so extreme and lacking in any evidential basis - and especially where straightforward and compelling counter-arguments are not absorbed or accepted - then two of the main (legitimate) weapons at my disposal become sarcasm and ridicule which I will not hesitate to deploy. That, you see Simon, is the very real risk any author runs who advances extreme conspiracy theories which attempt to re-write history (I see you that you seem to be saying you are not doing so but I will deal with this separately). Indeed, for the sake of history, it has been essential for me to attempt to knock the ideas that you have been advancing on the head before they gain wider acceptance and transfer from the narrow world of ripperology into mainstream history, thus corrupting history itself.

In any event, I don’t think you are really in any position to give me lectures. Have you forgotten that in another thread on another topic a few months ago, quite inappropriately and unjustifiably, you said to me:

"As it has become patently obvious that you have lost your grasp on reality, I shall leave you to your fantasies."

(Inquest Reports of Mizen/Cross Evidence, #65, 13 February 2015.)

I have been consciously attempting not to make the same comment about you or your work, which, I think, could be said to be "very noble" of me, but I could quite easily have done so.

[David Orsam]

perhaps be noble in victory

This is an interesting phrase because I was unaware that you had conceded defeat, although I appreciate you are not exactly saying this. Had you done so, however, you would have found me very noble but so far you do not seem to have conceded an inch. If you have conceded anything, though, it would be helpful for me, and I’m sure all readers of this thread, if you set out which parts of my trilogy you now agree with and which parts you disagree with.

[David Orsam]

And if you are right—as you appear so utterly convinced to be—I would expect you to lay out your evidence

Well, I have done that Simon. There is evidence all over my trilogy. It is jam packed with evidence. In an earlier post, you even cited the reference number of one of the files in the National Archives from which I pulled out loads of evidence! So the evidence has been laid out in full. As I asked you earlier: where is yours?

[Simon Wood]

Hi David,

Let's get one thing straight. I have not accused Inspector Jarvis of being in Kansas City or Del Norte. All I have done in my book is set out the facts of the matter in chronological form. That those facts suggest questionable behaviour on the part of the Metropolitan Police is a matter which requires further enquiry. You on the other hand blithely dismiss any such possibility and give the police a clean slate.

Your argument about the events of December 1888 and the subsequent events of 1890 is not with me. It is with history.

And if you are right—as you appear so utterly convinced to be—I would expect you to lay out your evidence and perhaps be noble in victory, instead of stooping to childish playground bully tactics and cheap jibes about lunatic conspiracy theories.

Regards,

Simon

[David Orsam]

The Invisible Man

If one considers the possibility that the Labouchere allegations were true, one can easily see, funnily enough, that they must have been false.

Just think about it for a moment. If Inspector Jarvis had been in Kansas City or Del Norte in December 1888 he must have been seen by a large number of people. He had to travel there, sleep there and eat there. If he carried out any form of investigation, or any police work at all, he would have been seen by even more people. He was certainly not an invisible man.

Thus, when Labouchere made his allegations in Parliament and asked the Home Secretary if Jarvis had been in Del Norte, Colorado, in 1888 it would have been the most reckless and foolhardly thing imaginable for the Home Secretary to have lied to the House of Commons about this. In the absence of Inspector Jarvis’ invisibility, the lie is not likely to have been difficult to expose and the risk of one respectable witness, or a number of witnesses, stepping forward to say they had seen or spoken to Jarvis in Colorado would have been huge.

If the lie was exposed, Henry Matthews would have had to resign in disgrace for lying to the House and Robert Anderson would surely have been sacked for providing false information to the Home Secretary.

Yet Anderson told the Home Secretary, and the Home Secretary told the House of Commons, that Jarvis "was never at any time" at or near Del Norte. There was no fudge or qualification or evasive wording. It was a categorical denial and, despite Tom Wescott’s apparent belief that 80% of official statements are untrue, that is just not the case. The reason it is not the case is the obvious risk of exposure and the serious consequences of this. Lies are not easy to cover up, especially if the supposed truth is already "out there" as it would have been if Labouchere’s allegations were true.

This answer of the Home Secretary in the House of Commons would have been known to newspaper reporters in the United States as well as Irish Nationalists who would have been very interested to disprove such a statement. Henry Labouchere was a wealthy man, well able to afford private investigators to scour Del Norte and Kansas City for information about the sudden appearance of any strange Englishmen.

Surely the possibility of Inspector Jarvis suing Labouchere for libel would have sent Scotland Yard and the Home Office into blind panic because the entire story would inevitably come out. They had no control at all over any information flow in the United States. Furthermore, Jarvis himself might have told the truth or any number of other officials within Scotland Yard who must have known the truth could have blabbed. Yet the internal papers of the Home Office and the Commissioner of Police reveal a totally different story: the Commissioner being red hot keen for Jarvis to sue Labouchere, with the Commissioner giving his permission for proceedings to be commenced which he did not have to do and he could easily have blocked Jarvis from taking any action.

For Jarvis himself who, as we know from the internal Home Office papers, was having to fund his own litigation, the risk of ruin and bankruptcy was enormous. If he was lying, it was utter madness for him to commence proceedings. Yet he specifically requested permission from his superiors to do so.

Unless Simon Wood is prepared to come forward and explain exactly how Labouchere was "coerced" into retracting his allegations, such a notion must be dismissed with contempt. Labouchere was not only a member of parliament, with many important Irish Nationalist friends, but a journalist and an owner of an influential publication in which he could say whatever he wanted. The idea that the government or Scotland Yard would have contemplated an illegal approach to such a man, who would have blabbed such an approach all over the world, is utterly preposterous. Tom Wescott has thrown out the word "blackmail" but clearly has no idea what Labouchere could possibly have been blackmailed about and simply ignores the risk that anyone who made such a threat could have been arrested and sent to prison for a serious criminal offence.

This is real life we are talking about here not a Hollywood movie. There are conspiracy theories and there are lunatic conspiracy theories and the reader of this thread is left to judge what is being offered by Simon Wood.

[David Orsam]

Hi David. You're taking yourself and 'Suckered!' way too seriously. I was poking fun at myself. Read that post again.

Well, if it helps, I haven't read the Bank Holiday Murders, Tom, your question followed an off-topic question about Tumblety, and I really have no idea if that book is badly argued or not so the humour, I'm afraid, escaped me.

[Tom_Wescott]

I'm struggling to see the relevance of that question to my Suckered Trilogy, or to anything at all, and I don't want to continue an off-topic line of discussion in this thread Tom.

Hi David. You're taking yourself and 'Suckered!' way too seriously. I was poking fun at myself. Read that post again.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[David Orsam]

Now, I have already responded to Simon Wood's strange focus on my failure to be surprised that no-one asked where Inspector Jarvis was, if not in Kansas City or Del Norte, which he says "astounds" him, even though Robert Anderson informed the Home Secretary that Jarvis was in Canada at the time. I doubt that anyone else following this thread is equally astounded but I think that for Simon Wood's sake, at least, some further elaboration might be helpful.

The allegations against Jarvis by Labouchere were first made in the House of Commons on 11 March 1890, some fourteen months after Jarvis was said to have been in Del Norte. In the Simon Wood view of the world, Inspector Jarvis in March 1890 should have had no difficulty in producing documentary evidence, proving exactly where he was, in a foreign country, on 20 and 25 December 1888. So far, he has not told us how it should have been so easy but has referred either to reports produced by Inspector Jarvis, or cables sent by him to London, as if Jarvis was doing this on a daily basis.

But let's assume that Jarvis had sent a report to Scotland Yard on 20 December and, in breach of all known policy at the time, the Home Secretary had authorised its release to the public. Well there are two obvious responses from Labouchere. The first would be to claim that the incident must have occurred on 25 December! So unless there was a second report on the 25th, by releasing only one report to cover one day the Government would have shot themselves in the foot and made it look like Jarvis' whereabouts on 25 December were unaccounted for. Secondly, and in any event, Labouchere could have claimed that the report was a forgery.

But the very fact of releasing documents into the public domain would have been extremely odd, especially as Labouchere's parliamentary questions had been answered in full, and would certainly have looked like "the lady doth protest too much". Even if Robert Anderson was gagging to release documentary proof of Jarvis' whereabouts it would have needed the permission of the Home Secretary and it is perfectly clear that the Home Secretary was not in the slightest bit bothered by Jarvis' allegations which he appears to have viewed as flea bites with no political implications.

The most important point, however, is that the Home Secretary (and then the Commissioner) had confirmed that Inspector Jarvis was not in Colorado, Kansas City or Del Norte in December 1888 and, more than that, he had never even been within hundreds of miles of those places in his entire life. That being so, it became utterly irrelevant where Inspector Jarvis was at that time. If he wasn't in Del Norte etc. then the allegations were false. What did it matter where in the world he actually was?

That is why, Simon, I am not in the least bit surprised that no-one was asking where Jarvis was. It didn't matter. The only relevant factor was whether he was in Kansas City or Del Norte and it was officially confirmed that he was in neither of those places. As it happens, we know from the A.C.C. that Jarvis was in Canada so that's that. That's all we need to know. How will it help to show which town or street or house or room he was at the time?

It may be that Simon Wood is thinking that if Jarvis wasn't in Del Norte or Kansas City, well, perhaps he was doing something else to assist the Times in December 1888 but if he is thinking that then he is implicitly accepting that the Labouchere allegations were false.

In any event, I trust that having read this and my earlier response, Simon Wood is no longer astounded.

[David Orsam]

In response to Simon Wood's new reliance on Henry Matthews' refusal to sanction payment of the costs of Inspector Jarvis' libel action against Labouchere in a memo dated 7 May 1890 on the basis that it was "likely to result in failure" - which Simon has finally located in the National Archives after I reproduced it in full in "The Thomas Barton Affair" - I thought it might be helpful to reproduce the subsequent response by the lawyers of the Metropolitan Police, Messrs Wontner & Sons, (which is I think the only document in HO 144/478/X22302 not reproduced by me in the trilogy). It is dated 8 May 1890 and addressed to the Metropolitan Police Office:

"We have read the Secretary of State’s letter and that of the Commissioner to which it is an answer. We fail to see in what way the foundation of our opinion fails. It is distinctly affirmed in "Truth" of 1st May that, notwithstanding the denial of Mr Monro and the Secretary of State, that Inspector Jarvis was at Del Norte. We find it most distinctly stated in the letter of the Commissioner to the Secretary of State that if so Inspector Jarvis would have been guilty of misconduct which would render him liable to dismissal and "Truth" therefore defames him in a manner which may impede his trade or livelihood and if true will undoubtedly do so. We see no reason therefore to expect failure if action should be brought."

In response, as I also mention in my article, the Home Secretary, at the prompting of the Commissioner, said of Jarvis' intention to commence legal proceedings: "he ought to have permission, without any consequences so far are regards his position in the force."

Simon Wood categorises the Commissioner's eagerness for Jarvis to commence proceedings, along with the Home Secretary giving permission for those proceedings to be brought, as them "trembling" at the prospect of proceedings which is, of course, ridiculous and unsupported by any evidence.