The 'Suckered!' Trilogy

[Tom_Wescott]

Are you aware that you keep missing the point? He either folded or he defended his allegations in a court of law. Those were the only two options open to him and he could not defend his allegations in a court of law because they were false, as he accepted. What is it about this simple point are you having difficulty with?

You're awfully keen to accept Labouchere at his word when it comes to his Jarvis retraction, but not so keen to accept him at his word on anything else. Why is that?

I'll make you a deal. I'll accept his retraction on Jarvis if you accept his statement that it's a fact that London detectives were covertly investigating the Parnell matter. Fair?

David, before I got out of high school I learned you can't trust politicians or officials at their word. 80% of what they say or do is face-saving and pandering. We also know there's a lot of coercion going on. Giving the circumstances at the time, the weight of the accusations, Monro's bailing, etc. it doesn't seem illogical that Labouchere was onto something and was compelled somehow to give in and make a public apology and claim mistaken identity on the part of his sources, who the day before were adamant, positive, and ready to give evidence. That's not a 'conspiracy theory' it's merely a possibility.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[David Orsam]

Coerced is a more apt word regarding Labouchere's volte-face.

Here's the funny thing Simon: earlier in this thread (#145 to be exact) you actually used the word "advised", when you wondered aloud (because of course you would never make any positive statements) if Labouchere's allegations "were true but that he was advised not to press the matter because of far greater political considerations." And these political considerations apparently had something to do with Parnell's divorce but I never understood what you were talking about so it's good to know that you have settled on "coerced" (although in your Rip article you used "manoeuvred").

And now I ask virtually the same question of you as I asked of Tom:

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

[Tom_Wescott]

David,

In his book, Simon says he doesn't believe Tumblety killed anybody. What's your thought on that same question?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[David Orsam]

You're awfully keen to accept Labouchere at his word when it comes to his Jarvis retraction, but not so keen to accept him at his word on anything else. Why is that?

It's a poor question Tom because Labuchere had no first hand information to impart. Everything he alleged about Jarvis he was told by others. I've already said he was suckered. This is what he accepted himself. However, the question can be turned round to ask: why are you awfully keen to believe Labouchere's ridiculous allegations about Jarvis but think he is a shameless liar when it comes to his written retraction?

I'll make you a deal. I'll accept his retraction on Jarvis if you accept his statement that it's a fact that London detectives were covertly investigating the Parnell matter. Fair?

As I'm sure you are not the kind of man who would ever accept things you don't believe, I will take that as an acceptance of Jarvis' retraction.

David, before I got out of high school I learned you can't trust politicians or officials at their word. 80% of what they say or do is face-saving and pandering.

Where do I find the source of that statistic of 80% Tom. Did your teacher tell you that or did you simply pluck it from the air? I am glad you have told me this though because it explains why you are irrationally refusing to accept unchallenged statements made by the Home Secretary in the House of Commons.

We also know there's a lot of coercion going on. Giving the circumstances at the time, the weight of the accusations, Monro's bailing, etc. it doesn't seem illogical that Labouchere was onto something and was compelled somehow to give in and make a public apology and claim mistaken identity on the part of his sources, who the day before were adamant, positive, and ready to give evidence. That's not a 'conspiracy theory' it's merely a possibility.

Tom - do you genuinely believe it is good scholarship to turn "doesn't seem illogical" into it probably or even possibly happened, in the absence of any evidence to support it?

You don't need to answer that actually because it is illogical for you to think that there is even the slightest chance that any of Labouchere's allegations could possibly be true in the face of the clearest possible retraction by him (as well as the absence of any evidence whatsoever to support them).

[David Orsam]

David,

In his book, Simon says he doesn't believe Tumblety killed anybody. What's your thought on that same question?

How irrelevant and off-topic is this? It's doesn't arise from my trilogy and I have no idea if Tumblety killed anybody.

[Tom_Wescott]

Tom - do you genuinely believe it is good scholarship to turn "doesn't seem illogical" into it probably or even possibly happened, in the absence of any evidence to support it?

Have you read The Bank Holiday Murders?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

It's a poor question Tom because Labuchere had no first hand information to impart. Everything he alleged about Jarvis he was told by others. I've already said he was suckered. This is what he accepted himself. However, the question can be turned round to ask: why are you awfully keen to believe Labouchere's ridiculous allegations about Jarvis but think he is a shameless liar when it comes to his written retraction?

I don't believe Labouchere's allegations. But they're not ridiculous. You seem to accept that Labouchere was being honest: that he was given information and convinced of its legitimacy, only to find out later that his sources were mistaken on one point - Jarvis' trip to Colorado. However, if you believe in Labouchere's veracity, then what do you make of his allegations against those other than Jarvis? The way I see it, there are three possibilities -

1) Labouchere was mistaken about Jarvis, but correct on other counts.

2) Labouchere was correct about ALL of it.

3) Labouchere was a big fat liar and none of it is true.

If either 1 or 2 are correct, then the police are in hot water. If #3 is correct, then it's all mox nix.

My point is that I would like to know if ANY of Lab's allegations are correct. not just this Jarvis business that you keep mentioning. It's the big picture of the police and their private agendas that intrigues me.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[David Orsam]

Have you read The Bank Holiday Murders?

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.

[David Orsam]

I don't believe Labouchere's allegations. But they're not ridiculous. You seem to accept that Labouchere was being honest: that he was given information and convinced of its legitimacy, only to find out later that his sources were mistaken on one point - Jarvis' trip to Colorado. However, if you believe in Labouchere's veracity, then what do you make of his allegations against those other than Jarvis? The way I see it, there are three possibilities -

1) Labouchere was mistaken about Jarvis, but correct on other counts.

2) Labouchere was correct about ALL of it.

3) Labouchere was a big fat liar and none of it is true.

If either 1 or 2 are correct, then the police are in hot water. If #3 is correct, then it's all mox nix.

My point is that I would like to know if ANY of Lab's allegations are correct. not just this Jarvis business that you keep mentioning. It's the big picture of the police and their private agendas that intrigues me.

I don't understand a word of that post Tom. I already said to you in #185:

"The Labouchere allegations were the Jarvis allegations. They were the same thing."

Are you even reading my responses to you?

If you think Labouchere made other allegations please specify what they were and then, if he did make any, please explain how his "honesty" can have any bearing on whether those allegations were true or false. If he did make any other allegations then he could just have been mistaken about all of them couldn't he?

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.

[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