Metropolitan Police view of Tumblety today

[Cap'n Jack]

Full text of cable from Anderson to Chief Crowley:

'HIS HANDWRITING.

P. Crowley, Chief of Police, San Francisco, Cal.: Thanks. Send handwriting and all details you can of Tumblety.


Anderson,
Scotland Yard.'

[rjpalmer]

Hi AP - The thing I’ve enjoyed the most about your posts over the years is that you can find a reference to a land dispute involving Sir Godfrey Codbush in Essex in the year 1696 and weave it into a highly evocative tale showing the deep corruption of the Cutbush paternal line, but when there’s large clouds of black smoke billowing out of Tumblety’s cabin, or bloody cuff-stains on Druitt or red smears on Kosminski’s bed linen it is all ‘rubbish’ and ‘mirrors.’ I do enjoy a bloke who knows his mission in life. Carry on. I’m still vanishing sideways, but I just came by to say that I received an email this morning informing me that Mr. Chetcuti forwarded the Daily Alta California report to Stephen Ryder some four years ago or so; I was unaware of that, but the good news is that you can check it out for yourself and rethink your corrupted chronology. Ciao. RP

[Natalie Severn]

Well Cap"n Jack,that was a fair find if ever there was one!I thankee for that mi hearty!
Seriously, we may just be getting a bit closer to the mystery of Tumblety if he really was related in any way to John P Hayes,the Philadelphia informer.
In the Autumn of 1885,above a Soho pub , a plot was hatched to destroy Parnell by a coterie of disaffected men: it comprised among others,the husband of Parnell"s mistress,Captain William O"Shea,Richard Pigott the forger of The Times letters purporting to have been scribed by Parnell , a Captain Stephens,- reputed to have hung a miscreant Ashanti with his bare hands-AND JOHN HAYES the Phioladelphia informer!
So if this John P Hayes was really related to Tumblety then it could be of some significance---
Natalie

[Cap'n Jack]

No worries, Natalie, always my pleasure to help.

RJP, I'm still waiting to hear your comments about the case I found of Tumblety being up for manslaughter in Liverpool, you'll remember it as the one you missed.

Oh my gosh! The 'Daily Alta' report of the 23rd November 1888.
I should shiver my timbers, right?

I think not, RJP. Mere confirmation of my credit here, and you, son, must learn to bite that Yankee dollar 'afore you swallow it.
'ere is your 'orrible press report in all its naked glory:

'The Daily Alta California
San Francisco, California
23 November 1888

DOCTOR TUMBLETY
Chief Crowley's Account of
His Career in San Francisco.
Chief Crowley has exchanged considerable correspondence with the Scotland Yard officials in reference to "Dr. Tumblety" who is under arrest on suspicion of being implicated in the Whitechapel murders. Chief Crowley sent a telegram on the 19th inst. to the London detectives, informing them that he could furnish specimens of Tumblety's hand-writing, and yesterday received the following answer from the Chief of the Scotland Yard detectives: "Thanks; send writing and all details you can in relation to him. - Anderson."

Chief Crowley has discovered that Tumblety still has a balance in the Hibernia Bank, which he left there when he disappeared from the city, and which never since has been drawn upon. Tumblety came here from Toronto in March 1870, and rented an office at No. 20 Montgomery street, where he remained until the following September. He then disappeared as suddenly as he came, and in 1871 turned up in New York.'

Bloody hell RJP, I needn't even load my cannon, just throw a load of soap at you.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

This is a most interesting thread.

A thought occurred to me, and my apologies if it's been mentioned before.

Crowley was sending Anderson samples of Tumblety's handwriting.

What previous letters/documents etc written by Tumblety [either about cottaging or the WM] could Anderson possibly be wanting to compare the samples with?

Regards,

Simon

[Cap'n Jack]

A good thought, Simon.
You must be very good at Mah Jong.

I suppose one answer to your question is that perhaps Scotland Yard wanted to compare Tumblety's handwriting with the few letters they had received supposedly from the Whitechapel Murderer which they imagined at the time to be genuine.
The next logical conclusion of that is that Tumblety's writing did not match any of these 'genuine' letters and he was dismissed as a suspect for writing one or more of the letters.
But then again it is always possible that Scotland Yard had obtained some of Tumblety's many love letters to his various boyfriends - I have given original examples of Tumblety's love letters elsewhere - and were seeking active confirmation from an independent source that these letters were indeed written by Tumblety.
As we know, Tumblety was fond of his pen, but it is his sword we are unsure about.

[Natalie Severn]

And Natalie, some reports I have read appear to indicate that Tumblety was related to Hayes.

I believe this may be possible,despite it not being the case that Tumblety was the uncle of John P Hayes, the Philadelphian Irish "informer".
John P Hayes is cited in Andrew Cook"s "M" ,MI 5"s First Spymaster"as well as in Fenian Fire by Christy Campbell.He was not dead by 1888/89 .
Interestingly Hayes the "anti Fenian " informer, later befriended the serial killer Cream and set up an entrapment plot for him to fall into.He was therefore responsible, with another detective ,Patrick McIntyre,for eventually bringing him to justice.This is all to the good because not all reports of him are particularly savoury-In Paris,according to notes written by Michael Davitt [Parnell"s defence] ,Hayes was remarked upon for having "lived with whores and drinking"-all the while talking dynamite war .He used both Haynes and Hayes as surnames.In court providing evidence on Cream though he was "Hayes".
Interestingly, the Tumblety relatives in Philadelphia who were bestowed legacies in his will, also used both Haynes and Hayes as their surnames.
But John P Hayes was a very useful informer to quite a number of people,including,in the Autumn of 1888, the British Consul in New York, William Robert Hoare.I think this John P Hayes is worth looking into further.
Tumblety"s bail was £1,500-an enormous sum of money in those days.Its said he knew the men who stood bail for him only two or three days.Given there was a huge file on Tumblety and his history as a " con man" its quite astonishing he was able to either obtain or jump bail.But he did and there are no records to say anyone took the rap.Rather like the other case Abberline was involved in a year later when the Cleveland St scandal broke and the wealthy men who ran the club and faced imprisonment were also,like Tumblety,allowed to run off to France via various safe passages.However good a spymaster this "M" was he doesnt seem to have been much cop in his job keeping "Port Watch".
Anyway,not only did they "lose" Tumblety himself forever---they also lost all those files Littlechild told us about in his 1913 letter.....how inconvenient!
Natalie

[timothy]

Tumblety's Bail

Hi Natalie,

Tumblety’s bail was £300 or equivalent to $1500. I have only found two other cases for gross indecency where bail was mentioned. In one the bail was £200 and the other it was £500. Given these cases, Tumblety’s bail does not seem excessive or unusual.

Best,

Tim

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Timothy.That sum was the one quoted in Andrew Cook"s book [page81 MI 5"s First Spymaster].The author probably read the dollar sign as a pound sterling sign.However, the sum of £300 in 1888 by my calculations it would be about £143.000 in today"s money.Thats quite big in reddies.


Simon,
I am curious about the handwriting request too.Ofcourse it might just be to see if it tallied with any Ripper letters received.
Best
Natalie

[Simon Wood]

Hi Cap'n Jack and Natalie,

This thread gets better by the minute.

First subsequent thought—

By October 9th(?)—a month before all the Tumblety shenanigans— that sage Commissioner Warren penned in a memo his belief that the Ripper correspondence was the work of a Fleet Street hack (or words to that effect). It's a pity this thought hadn't occurred to him before going to the trouble and expense of having all those posters printed and creating a worldwide JtR scare on the feeble premise of some poor ignorant fool recognising the handwriting.

A Fleet Street hack would seem to rule out Tumblety (unless he was moonlighting)—also the Macnaghten triumvirate of Druitt, Kosminski and Ostrog (the latter basking in a Parisian prison cell at the time of the WM) as authors of the Ripper correspondence. Could Kosminski chalk schoolboy English? Where did these policemen get their information? From the back of a cereal packet?

So I doubt Anderson (low class Polish Jew suspect) was hoping to match Tumblety's handwriting to the Dear Boss letter. And would he or Crowley have gone to the expense of transatlantic cables (£100 for the first twenty words) to catch a bloke for homosexual offences?

Second subsequent thought—

We appear to have a link between Tumblety and John P. Hayes. Again the Fenian connection. By extension, we also have a further link to Littlechild, into whose purview such matters appeared.

Although under CID surveillance, Piggott escaped to Spain, where he obligingly committed suicide. And despite official protestations to the contrary, Tumblety appears to have been allowed to escape to France and subsequently the US. For what nefarious reasons we shall probably never know.

So here's my final two-bob's worth.

What better high-profile cover for Tumblety to travel to the US than that of a man under the cloud of jumping bail on suspicion of possible complicity in the WM? What more could take people's eye off the ball?

Tumblety died in St Louis in 1903, fifteen years after the WM. If he had any provable involvement, why was he never extradited?

Also remember that, thanks to Walsingham in the sixteenth century, by 1888 Britain had over 300 years' experience in defining and refining the art of deception and duplicity.

Regards,

Simon

PS. Cap'n Jack—how did you know I had a black belt in Mah Jong?

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Hello G F (if you're still out there)

What I suppose I should have written was that “Scotland Yard, through official channels, had the Toronto authorities contacted, to ask if they would be amenable to paying for Inspector Andrews to return Roland Gideon Israel Barnett to Canada…”

This letter of the 23rd of November doesn't seem to me to show that Scotland Yard had contacted the Toronto authorities on the 19th but rather that Anderson had written to the Home Office on the 19th concerned about the fact that Barnett was still languishing in custody and asking what was to happen. This reply then shows that the Home Secretary had just received (on the 23rd) 'an intimation' from the Colonial Office that the Canadian Government would 'at once be asked by telegraph' if they would cover the cost of the conveyance of Barnett to Canada. I guess that you have translated this differently.

Yes, my observation was based on PRO [HO 134/10]. Barnett was in custody in London under a Canadian warrant which asked that he be extradited back to Toronto to face fraud charges. As the request was Canadian and Barnett was English the extradition was covered under the Fugitive Offenders Act of 1881 (44 and 45 Vict, cap 69) under which the Canadian authorities had to prove that there was sufficient evidence to warrant the extradition. Toronto had sent their evidence to London on the 4th of October and awaited a response. As of the 19th of November, the same date that Anderson wrote to the Home Office, Toronto had received no reply from London and was still waiting the results of the extradition procedure. This would seem to indicate that the procedure had ended on or about the 19th . Whatever the case, the Canadian request was granted and Barnett was to be extradited back to Toronto.

Scotland Yard didn’t have to wonder “what was to happen” to Barnett since it wasn’t their responsibility to ship him to Toronto. It was Toronto’s responsibility to come and pick him up; something Toronto was waiting to do. Instead, however, Anderson calculated the costs of sending a Scotland Yard Inspector to Canada to deliver Barnett and then contacted the Secretary of State at the Home Office asking if the costs could be picked up by the Canadians. This was not the normal procedure and indicates a desire on the part of Anderson to have Andrews travel to Canada (actually southern Ontario) for some reason.

In view of the fact that Scotland Yard had no hard evidence against Tumblety I am sure that they would never have contemplated an expensive trip to North America to locate him. But given the chance of this 'free trip' they would see the opportunity of making inquiries whilst there.

Andrews was free to go wherever he wanted in North America as soon as he docked in Halifax because Inspector Stark of the Toronto Police was there to take Barnett off his hands. As Tumblety had recently been in New York it would seem an obvious place to start “making inquiries.” Instead Andrews got on the train with Stark and Barnett and travelled to Toronto where he was booked into the best hotel in the city. Andrews is reported to have had talks with various shadowy figures and to have travelled to various locations in Southern Ontario and then, after a week of this, to have left to go back home. He didn’t get within 500 miles of Tumblety.

Wolf.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Mr. Palmer.

It’s hard to see what the point is of your rambling posts. I think you are trying to prove that Sir Robert Anderson did indeed contact the San Francisco Police about Tumblety first and that all those San Francisco newspaper reports which state that it was Crowley who first contacted Anderson are wrong. Why are they wrong? Well…

“The official documentation between San Francisco and Scotland Yard has not survived. Nor has the official documentation between Scotland Yard and San Francisco survived…. Without the official documentation at our disposal, extreme caution should be used before insisting that these reports are accuate (sic)…. Vanderlinden is entitled to his interpretation, but it is no (sic) kosher to give official sanction to what is only a press report.” (RJ Palmer, 8 March, 2008.)

Fair enough, but I question why all this caution is then thrown right out the window when you come to the news article from the Daily Alta-california. This article, also from a San Francisco newspaper, is printed at the same time, and offers virtually the same information, as all the other San Francisco papers and yet we are supposed to believe that it should be treated as gospel while all the others papers should be disregarding. Your logic escapes me.

There is no reason to tell you “how this ‘considerable correspondence’ was exchanged by November 22, if Crowley didn’t start his investigation until the afternoon of the 18th.” As you have pointed out “Without the official documentation at our disposal, extreme caution should be used before insisting that these reports are accurate.” After all, you are entitled to your opinion but it is not kosher to give official sanction to what is only a press report.

Chew that over slowly, old bean, because someday it will bite you back. The only telegram we know of took three days to go full circle. I already explained to you why that was: it required an independent and relatively expensive cablegram to be sent by way of Halifax. Crowley on the 19th. Anderson response makes it back on the 22. = 3 days.

Again, your logic escapes me. In order for the above assumption to be correct you have to prove that Anderson immediately responded to the initial San Francisco telegram when he received it and that thus the time from sending to receiving a response was 3 days. If Anderson didn’t read it or respond to it for two or three days your timeline evaporates. Can you prove this? No.

Wolf.

[Natalie Severn]

Catching your drift Simon,so you tend towards a connection between Tumblety slipping off,Lord Arthur Somerset and Charles Hammond "slipping off"--- [to avoid the legal consequences of Cleveland St]....and Pigott slipping off---his clogs too being part of that bargain presumably!
In the cases of Lord Arthur Somerset/Charles Hammond and Pigott to have stayed could have caused further intense embarrassment to the establishment.So what caused them to want shot of Tumblety?
What I also noted was that John P Hayes/Haynes,the informer, had been Jenkinson"s man originally,one of his circle of spies and informers.And,although as a Spymaster, Jenkinson worked for the British establishment,he answered to Home Secretary Matthews not the Police Chiefs and kept his hand in it long after his resignation in 1884, still furiously hatching his entrapment plots in 1888.But his end game appears to have been quite different from the Unionist minded Robert Anderson"s end game.
Jenkinson,it appears, believed the way forward for Ireland [and everybody else] was through "Home Rule", he came to the conclusion that the only way this could be brought about was through ratchetting up the pressure on the mainland---in short through bogus dynamite scares and hoaxes that put the wind up the "anti Home Rulers" Anderson and Monro.No wonder they hated him and did everything they could to get rid.
At some point in 1888, the Philadelphian Irishman and informer to Jenkinson, Hayes ,appears to have moved away from Jenkinson and towards [more lucrative?] work for The Times newspaper.He could have been a double agent ofcourse----there were plenty of those about no doubt.But to me,in the little I can glean of him, Hayes comes across ,as does Pigott ,as far more interested in the money[and in Hayes case , the booze,] than the politics of it all.For that matter Tumblety doesnt come over as particulary committed to anything---except cheating his way through.
Well thats about as far as I have got I guess.
Natalie

[Cap'n Jack]

Simon, when you understand the 'winds' of Mah Jong then you understand everything.
I detected a 'wind' in your post.
Personally I'm a bit leary of finding connections everywhere, but I'm up for a bit of wind myself, for is it not true to suggest that Tumblety's close and possible familial relationship with the Hayes - or Haynes - family would have explained his supernatual ability to dodge criminal charges, especially during the American Civil War?
You raise some fine points in your post, and directly I'm sober I'll address 'em.
This could take some time.

[Natalie Severn]

good thinking Cap"n Jack....look forward to you answering Simon"s points.