Sergeant Stephen White

[Supe]

John,

So, was the epithet "Lipski" used as a Cockney slur on Jewish denizens up east in 1888?

On November 1,1888, Inspector Abberline wrote in a memorandum:
I beg to report that since a jew named Lipski was hanged for the murder of a jewess in 1887 the name has very frequently been used by persons as mere ejaculation by way of endeavouring to insult the jew to whom it has been addressed, and as Schwartz has a strong jewish appearance I am of the opinion it was addressed to him as he stopped to look at the man he saw ill-using the deceased woman.

Hope this helps.

Don.

[Johnr]

Pleased to receive some feedback to my theorising Don, thanks.

So, was the epithet "Lipski" used as a Cockney slur on Jewish denizens up east in 1888?

My linking of the Graffiti and the "Lipski" slur was designed to indicate an emerging picture.

I do not suggest Schwartz's possible sighting of the murderer who called out "Lipski", led to Warren and co. ordering the expunging of the graffiti.

Rather, I suggest the significance of the term "Lipski" was only clarified afterwards; and the fear of a violent reaction against local jews if the graffiti remained was separate.

But later, part of the emerging picture.

Sure, Warren's men acted next morning early, but I believe it was the linking of these things later, which made them realise JTR was a non-jew.

JOHN RUFFELS.

[Tom_Wescott]

I believe the Dundee report to be nonsense, but it's possible that White spotted Leon Goldstein cruising along Commercial road and down Berner Street. Like Fanny Mortimer he must have wondered if he'd seen the Ripper.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Supe]

Johnr,

[1] Schwartz the witness at the Stride Inquest said the possible Ripper called out "Lipski". Anderson's report to the H.O. said that this was a local epithet addressed at Jews;

Ah, but to the very best of our knowledge and research Israel Schwartz did not testify at the Stride inquest. And it was only after much fruitless searching for Lipskis in the area did the Met accept it was an anti-semitic slur. Nor had Israel Schwartz been interviewed by the police before the GSG had been erased, so that could not have had any bearing on that decision.

Don.

[Jonathan H]

That's just my opinion, as I read 'The Lodger' about three years ago.

Her fictional Ripper character, The Avenger, is young, clean-shaven, well-spoken, with an aquiline face and haunting eyes.

Something like that.

I was intrigued, you see, that Macnaghten refers to 'The Lodger' his cagey memoirs as a way of saying that the Ripper was a hypocritical Christian, a protean madman [eg. a chameleon] but was not motivated by religious enthusiasm, and had never been detained in an asylum.

I think he politely debunks a fictional novel [why -- it's fiction?] as a way of debunking Sims' profile, and hinting that his 'Drowned Doctor' portrait of his chum was also a tale.

Interestingly Macnaghten does not claim that the age of the Avenger, a young man, is incorrect, even though Druitt in the 'Aberconway Version', which all these writers are working from in some from, is supposedly 41.

Notice that Macnaghten aged Druitt exactly ten years to what he would have been in 1898, had he lived, the year of his un-named public debut as the 'Drowned Doctor' Super-suspect.

[Johnr]

Pleased to see you reaching your own conclusions after good research Jonathan.

And keep going tnb.

It is searching like yours and Jonathan's which produces new discoveries like Andy Spallek has done, and Chris Phillips has regarding the Druitt Suspicion.

Jonathan,

I am curious when you say the description of JTR in the Steve White Dundee account is a 'steal' from the 1913 novel "The Lodger".

That is, the Steve White story uses an identical description of the killer to Mrs Belloc-Lowndes.

Can you please supply further details? Thanks.

JOHN RUFFELS.

[Monty]

No worries tnb.

If Dr Walker wishes to appear Id gladly point out the errors in his statement.

Monty

[tnb]

Thanks Monty - thought it sounded like a strange juxtaposition between the White 'sighting' and Watkins' discovery of the body. Glad I wasn't missing something!

Is Dr Walker about on the boards to try to defend his somewhat odd declaration?

So thanks for the illumination Monty - That said, I guess we don't agree about White...

[Monty]

tnb,

Watkins himself is clear in his inquest testimony.

Coroner - Had anything excited your attention during those hours?
Watkins- No.

Coroner - Or any person?
Watkins- No. I passed through Mitre-square at 1.30 on the Sunday morning. I had my lantern alight and on - fixed to my belt. According to my usual practice, I looked at the different passages and corners.

Coroner - At half-past one did anything excite your attention?
Watkins - No.

Coroner - Did you see anyone about?
Watkins -- No.

Coroner - Could any people have been about that portion of the square without your seeing them?
Watkins - No. I next came into Mitre-square at 1.44, when I discovered the body lying on the right as I entered the square. The woman was on her back, with her feet towards the square. Her clothes were thrown up. I saw her throat was cut and the stomach ripped open. She was lying in a pool of blood. I did not touch the body. I ran across to Kearley and Long's warehouse. The door was ajar, and I pushed it open, and called on the watchman Morris, who was inside. He came out. I remained with the body until the arrival of Police-constable Holland. No one else was there before that but myself. Holland was followed by Dr. Sequeira. Inspector Collard arrived about two o'clock, and also Dr. Brown, surgeon to the police force.

Coroner - When you first saw the body did you hear any footsteps as if anybody were running away?
Watkins - No. The door of the warehouse to which I went was ajar, because the watchman was working about. It was no unusual thing for the door to be ajar at that hour of the morning.


Therefore Dr Walker is plainly incorrect when he states that 'We know from Ripperana #18 that it was Watkins, not White, who saw the killer at Mitre Square'

There is absolutely nothing to support either Watkins nor White seeing the murderer in Mitre square or anywhere else for that matter.

Monty

[tnb]

oh. bugger. file under 'should have checked details first, feel like an idiot'.

Can you throw any light on the Watkins question John?

[John Bennett]

Seeing as Pearly Poll is largely now thought not to have existed, do we doubt this whole report, and does this even mean the stakeout itself is under question?

TNB,

'Pearly Poll' existed surely? She was Mary Ann Connelly.

Are you getting mixed up with 'Fairy Fay'?

JB

[tnb]

Firstly I must say I am pleased to see that my 'feeling' about the Sgt White story doesn't quite qualify me for the lunatic fringe.

I am still undecided myself, but I feel either way that there is much more digging necessary here - if Stewart or others can disprove everything we suggest then I will be the first to put my hands up and say 'fair enough', and at the end of the day we will have strengthened his case. From devil's advocacy are good theories formed and tested.

That said, I have just come across Dr Frederick Walker's dissertation on Joe Barnett and the Windsor Street Stakeout, and a couple of details are puzzling me. I wonder whether one of the more experienced members of our little niche may be able to help. I would after all not be being fair if I did not subject my growing theory about the event to the same level of scrutiny as those I myself disagree with!

In Dr Walker's dissertation, he states that 'We know from Ripperana #18 that it was Watkins, not White, who saw the killer at Mitre Square'. Do we? I cannot find any reference to this, and when I initially asked on another thread 'who was the policeman who allegedly saw the killer in Mitre Square?' Sgt White was the unanimous answer, no one mentioned Watkins at all? Does anyone have this Ripperana to tell us on what basis this confusion was argued?

On the other hand, the other assumption in Dr Walker's statement is that the 'Ripper' WAS seen in Mitre Square, the only debate being by whom. Does anyone know where he may have found evidence to be so sure about this (welcome support if so!)

Could it be we are missing references to the sighting by looking for them under White's name? If so, I am not sure where that leaves us - on another thread perhaps!

Also from the same dissertation, and off topic slightly, Walker quotes a report in The Echo, Sept 20th, which states that the info leading to the stake out (on which his Watkins, and possibly (?) our Sgt White, were supposedly engaged) on the night in question, was based on 'a slight clue given by "Pearly Poll"' and initially 'not thought much of at the time' but since corroborated by 'Elizabeth Allen' and 'Eliza Cooper'. Seeing as Pearly Poll is largely now thought not to have existed, do we doubt this whole report, and does this even mean the stakeout itself is under question?

[Jonathan H]

OK, I've just read where you said to go, and I am sorry but for once I am with the majority on this one.

The source is hopeless in terms of tracing who actually claimed all this since White was deceased, and is anyway fictitious -- literally.

The description of the killer is lifted from the Avenger, the fictionalized version of the Ripper in the famous novel of 1913, "The Lodger".

It is also, I postulate, a derivation of Macnagten's 'mistake', disseminated by Griffiths and Sims, about a beat cop momentarily seeing the killer -- and of course missing that he was the killer.

My guess, that night, is Lawende saw Druitt dressed as a sailor chatting up Catherine Eddowes [though Macnaghten made this a possible sighting of Kosminski by a non-existent beat cop, thus pulling the ethnicity of suspect and witness inside-out].

[Jonathan H]

I see what you are saying but my impression of the 1891 Sadler hunt is rather different.

All they had to do was say they were pursuing this sailor suspect, last seen with the victim, Frances Coles -- which he was.

Instead they told the press this might be the Ripper! They wheeled out Lawende for a 'confrontation'.

They thought, or at least hoped, that this was it.

Sims was scathing in 1891.

Look, perhaps we could come at this Sergeant White puzzle from another angle?

Is the claim of what. or whom, he witnessed on the night of the Double Even by him, in an article during the Edwardian era? Or, is it at several removes?

[Johnr]

Oops! The killer mustn't be a Jewish Emigre After All !

Posted by JONATHAN H:

Therefore, I am of the opinion that after Sadler had to be let go, and the police were once again flayed in the tabloids -- inlcuding by George Sims later their greatest booster -- suddenly, almost miraculously, not one but TWO prime suspects literally dropped into their laps: 'son of a surgeon' Montie Druitt via a loose-lipped, family neighbor and Tory MP, and the knife-wielding, prostitute-hater Aaron Kosminski, perhaps due to an equally indiscreet member of this poor, Polish family.

Unfortunately and excruciatingly for those top cops, one of these chief suspects was long dead -- and by his own hand -- and the other permanently declared mad.

We know that from the mid-1890's, Scotland Yard's senior toffs, Anderson and Macnaghten, were doing a complete about-face in their Ripper disseminations to the public.

They HAD, sort-of, caught the Fiend after all -- all two of him, or three of him?

I am agreeing Jonathan, that everything changed in the 1890's. And that early on, the police were focussed on local Whitechapel Jews.


Three things occurred on the night of the "Double Event":

[1] Schwartz the witness at the Stride Inquest said the possible Ripper called out "Lipski". Anderson's report to the H.O. said that this was a local epithet addressed at Jews;

[2] IF the Goulston Street Graffiti is connected. Then the text could be interpreted as Warren thought, as anti-Jewish, meaning it was likely JTR wasn't;

[3] And IF Detective Sergeant Steve White's alleged report ties in with all this, then at least one "H" Division detective thought JTR did not speak like an Eastern European Jewish emigre.


I agree that considerable police resources were poured into investigating East End Ripper-like murders after the Millers Court carnage.

But I do not see that as definitely confirming their fear the Ripper had struck again: rather, I think the police did not know what to think.

The Home Office could not afford to be seen doing nothing again.

They seemed much surer of their ground as you say above, after the 1890's, Jonathan. JOHN RUFFELS.