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Fleetwood Mac:
"This is your answer as to why Anderson would not tell tales out of school. Anderson and his ilk had unswerving loyalty to their fellows - they'd had it rammed into them that any other behaviour was unacceptable, and to do so would have shattered Anderson's very sense of being."
An interesting post, indeed! It must be added, though, that I did not ask the question whether Anderson would tell tales out of school. Just as I did not say that Anderson was a racist.
But that seemingly matters little. Whatever I say and however much I press the point that I am speaking in general terms, I find that I always receive the answer that Robert Anderson is not to be called a racist or criticized.
I find that slightly odd. Surely it must be viable to point out that in a country where things like rasism and phrenology are the order of the day, it may have an impact on how things are run in a general sense?
"In terms of racism, these people would have had no preference whether Jack was of English or foreign stock, providing he wasn't a gentleman. In the event it was an English gentleman, yes, they would have been horrified; and, yes, they would never in a million years have believed that the murders could have been committed by such a person. The East End of London was an alien world to those people - foreign? middle/working class Englishman? same thing to them - people from another world."
This, I think will be correct, by and large. It also fits in rather well with what has been said about the Eastender in general being less inclined to look down upon other nationalities - when you live side by side with them, it is less easy to entertain very exotic notions of what they are and stand for.
The ones you speak of, Fleetwood, did NOT live side by side with them, and so you will be correct, at least to a degree - the men with the stiff upper lips will have agreed that the killer was not one of their own ilk (making Druitt a very interesting character, since he swore against that picture, did he not!), but after that, I think you may be making making a mistake if you believe that they would put the working-class Brit alongside the foreigners in terms of viability for the Ripper role.
Foreigners were exotic and unpredictable people in terms of culture and habits. What they brought with them was something that was beyond control by the Brits - it was a world of headhunting, cannibalism, ant-eating, polygami and unspeakable vices out there, the Brits knew that much. Other Gods made the rules in that world, making it an unpredictable one. In that respect, much as the upper classes did not acknowledge the working class British Eastenders as belonging to their own kind, they at least knew what they were about in a general sense.
That was not the case with people of foreign extraction. And that is why they fit the Ripper bill nicely - schochets, indian thuggees etcetera. The Ripper was exotic in a sense, something very much out of the ordinary - as were foreigners.
And nobody knew how they had been brought up, whereas one could safely rely on British kids having been beaten into submission if they did not accept what was expected from them ...
It is a universal fact, Fleetwood. When something bad happens, we do not look amongst our own for the perpetrator. We look among the ones we do not know, the newcomers.
All the best,
Fisherman
"This is your answer as to why Anderson would not tell tales out of school. Anderson and his ilk had unswerving loyalty to their fellows - they'd had it rammed into them that any other behaviour was unacceptable, and to do so would have shattered Anderson's very sense of being."
An interesting post, indeed! It must be added, though, that I did not ask the question whether Anderson would tell tales out of school. Just as I did not say that Anderson was a racist.
But that seemingly matters little. Whatever I say and however much I press the point that I am speaking in general terms, I find that I always receive the answer that Robert Anderson is not to be called a racist or criticized.
I find that slightly odd. Surely it must be viable to point out that in a country where things like rasism and phrenology are the order of the day, it may have an impact on how things are run in a general sense?
"In terms of racism, these people would have had no preference whether Jack was of English or foreign stock, providing he wasn't a gentleman. In the event it was an English gentleman, yes, they would have been horrified; and, yes, they would never in a million years have believed that the murders could have been committed by such a person. The East End of London was an alien world to those people - foreign? middle/working class Englishman? same thing to them - people from another world."
This, I think will be correct, by and large. It also fits in rather well with what has been said about the Eastender in general being less inclined to look down upon other nationalities - when you live side by side with them, it is less easy to entertain very exotic notions of what they are and stand for.
The ones you speak of, Fleetwood, did NOT live side by side with them, and so you will be correct, at least to a degree - the men with the stiff upper lips will have agreed that the killer was not one of their own ilk (making Druitt a very interesting character, since he swore against that picture, did he not!), but after that, I think you may be making making a mistake if you believe that they would put the working-class Brit alongside the foreigners in terms of viability for the Ripper role.
Foreigners were exotic and unpredictable people in terms of culture and habits. What they brought with them was something that was beyond control by the Brits - it was a world of headhunting, cannibalism, ant-eating, polygami and unspeakable vices out there, the Brits knew that much. Other Gods made the rules in that world, making it an unpredictable one. In that respect, much as the upper classes did not acknowledge the working class British Eastenders as belonging to their own kind, they at least knew what they were about in a general sense.
That was not the case with people of foreign extraction. And that is why they fit the Ripper bill nicely - schochets, indian thuggees etcetera. The Ripper was exotic in a sense, something very much out of the ordinary - as were foreigners.
And nobody knew how they had been brought up, whereas one could safely rely on British kids having been beaten into submission if they did not accept what was expected from them ...
It is a universal fact, Fleetwood. When something bad happens, we do not look amongst our own for the perpetrator. We look among the ones we do not know, the newcomers.
All the best,
Fisherman
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