Tumblety and Pinkerton

[mariab]

Hi Mr Wood,
It proves active interest from both the SFPD and SY pertaining to Tumblety. It's all in R.G. Palmer's part #2 piece in Examiner 3 to read.
Now if you'd excuse me, I'm about to devour an entrecôte and some duck pieces I brought over from the Café downstairs. I haven't eaten since yesterday evening, and I'm about to faint if I don't get something inside my stomach...
PS. Please call me Maria (if you wish to).

[Simon Wood]

Hi Mariab,

What does the police correspondence between London and San Francisco prove without a doubt?

Regards,

Simon

[mariab]

To Simon Wood and Phil Carter:
Not only do I suspect that there has been some amount of investigation in America pertaining to the Whitechapel murders, I KNOW it for a fact, as the police correspondence between London and San Fransisco proves without a doubt.
Thank you both so much for your well wishes for my search. 2 (out of 3) of the boxes with the London reports to the Paris police on anarchism at the Paris Archives Nationales are currently being used by someone else, but I'm befriended with the guys who bring over the materials, and I very much hope to be allowed to (briefly) look up ALSO inside these 2 boxes in question. I'm expecting inspector Melville to turn up in the correspondence, and thank you so much, Mr Wood, for the hint on the Paris Bourdier-Mongruet detective agency. If I hapen to find any documents which appear promising, I can have them xeroxed immediately, and report back to you/ask you to explain me the details in the evening. Please remember, this is EVERYTHING but my own turf of research (which is up to the late 1830s). I'm quite a bit sketchy on special knowledge about the French Fin de siècle.

[Phil Carter]

Melville

Hello Maria,

I forgot to mention this, but my guess is that the name Melville will be mentioned in those documents quite a bit. Good hunting!

best wishes

Phil

[Phil Carter]

Hello Maria,

I too wish you the very best of luck re the reports etc from the British box. Turn up something really good for us eh?

best wishes

Phil

[Simon Wood]

Hi Mariab,

I wish you good fortune with your researches into the "19 boxes of correspondence/reports from different secret police (the French one, the British one, the Russian one) pertaining to spy activity in Europe in the 1880/1890s at the Archives Nationales." The Bourdier-Mongruet detective agency based in Paris did a lot of work on behalf of Scotland Yard in the 1880s.

But please don't hold your breath whilst looking for any traces of the Whitechapel investigation in America.

It never happened.

Regards,

Simon

[mariab]

I'm not sufficiently informed on this (besides having read R. J. Palmer's series in Examiner), but I really can't imagine that Labouchere might necessarily have been informed about any ramifications of the Whitechapel investigation in America.
To Simon Wood:
I'm currently conducting a bit of research in Paris, and I've located 19 boxes of correspondence/reports from different secret police (the French one, the British one, the Russian one) pertaining to spy activity in Europe in the 1880/1890s at the Archives Nationales. Tomorrow afternoon I hope to be able to go through the 3 boxes containing correspondence between the London and the French police pertaining to anarchist activity in London in the 1880s. For the rest of the boxes, Lynn Cates would have to hire someone to do it, as I'm really too busy with my own work/research obligations/publications on deadline, and not sufficiently acquainted with the Fin de siècle anarchist movement to conduct the entire research. But the 3 boxes of reports from London I can easily do. One of the boxes appears to contain reports and documents in Russian, including parts of Tolstoi's memoirs pertaining to pre-revolutionary Russia.

[Natalie Severn]

I think I forgot to mention last night that as well as the Foreign Office pretending they knew nothing about Robert Anderson having employed Mr and Mrs Thomson-code name "Ladybird" , Sir Edward Troup in seeming contradiction ,noted on Mrs Thomson"s file:

It is a public scandal that a man in Sir Robert Anderson"s position should reveal the names of the persons whom he employed on secret service duty.

So to recap: All Mrs Thomson had objected to was the use of her name and her husband"s name by Sir Robert Anderson in his autobiography, The Lighter Years of My Official Life.She wrote: "I always understood,no police officer-especially if he had a pension,however high in rank,-dared expose secrets of state ---and she goes on to say,"My late husband,Supt,James J Thomson,after his retirement could have written the most thrilling tales of his experiences during his long service,but honour held him silent.Now Sir Robert has written,I feel free to appeal for help.....

Macavity by the way, was called "the hidden paw" by TS Eliot!

[Simon Wood]

Hi Mike,

Oh boy, now you're really scraping the Tumblety barrel.

Regards,

Simon

[mklhawley]

In the end Inspector Jarvis's libel action never reached court. This shouldn't come as a surprise. As Godfrey Lushington, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Home Office, remarked in a memo—

“ . . . if there have been any questionable proceedings on the part of the Government or Police Agents, these might come to light in the course of the trial with damaging consequences.”

And so, a political compromise was reached. Henry Labouchere settled out of court, conceding that "his American friends may have been misled."

“My solicitors, therefore, put themselves into communication with his solicitors, and I agreed to publish a retraction of my allegation, to pay his costs, and to give him £100 . . ."

Why do I believe Henry Labouchere's version of events? Mainly because he wouldn't have been sufficiently stupid or reckless to bring such allegations unless they were firmly grounded in fact.

Please note that throughout the course of this shabby episode there was not a single mention of Francis Tumblety, the Whitechapel murderer or Jack the Ripper.

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon,

Settling out of court tends to mean your chances in court are not too good. Labouchere seems to have believed his American friends. That is not a stupid or reckless act, but an act in mere belief.

Why would they mention Tumblety when they did not have to? That would be the reckless act.

Sincerely,

Mike

[Simon Wood]

Hi Mike,

It was Tim Healy MP who asked if Andrews had met with Le Caron while in North America.

House of Commons, 21st March 1889—

Mr. Healy: Will the right hon. Gentlemen state whether Inspector Andrews saw Le Caron?

Mr. Matthews: I am not aware at all whether he did or not.

Matthews' reply suggests that Andrews might have met with Le Caron. However, while this is an intriguing notion, the two men could not have met. In late 1888 Le Caron's father lay dying at the family home in Colchester, Essex, and on 8th December, the day before Andrews arrived in Canada, Le Caron sailed from New York aboard the SS Umbria, bound for Liverpool. We can only conclude that Matthews had been badly briefed by Anderson.

On 24th June 1889, Mr. Tim Healy again rose in the House of Commons—

"I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department on what business was Constable Jarvis in New York; and how long was he away from London?"

Mr. Matthews: "I am informed by the Assistant Commissioner of Police that Jarvis went to New York in November 1888. His business was the extradition of Thomas Barton, whom he brought back to this country on 9th April 1889, and who was afterwards convicted at the Central Criminal Court of forging transfers of London and North Western Railway Stock."

Mr. Healy: "How was it [that] it took Jarvis four months to do this?"

Mr. Matthews: "I have given the Hon. Member all the information I have."

Once again Henry Matthews had been ill-informed by Robert Anderson. That, or he didn't want it known by his parliamentary colleagues that Thomas Barton's extradition had been bungled, based as it was on outmoded documents from an 1882 Act of Congress and held to be defective by Commissioner Henry R. Edmunds of Philadelphia. A new form of certificate had been agreed in 1883 between the United States and the Foreign Office in London [see correspondence between Sir Julian Pauncefote and Mr. Blaine, June 1889] and the extradition process stalled while the British government was given time to produce acceptable evidence. Barton was held in a US jail while hearings were held on January 29th and 31st; February 4th, 20th, 21st and 23rd; and March 7th, 14th, 21st and 25th 1889, on which last date Thomas Barton was surrendered to Washington DC for extradition to England. At New York on 9th April a handcuffed Barton was taken aboard the Guion Line steamship Alaska, arriving at Liverpool on 17th April 1889. Two days later he appeared at Bow Street Magistrates Court, London.

In one way, shape or form Matthews' parliamentary performance regarding Scotland Yard's escapades in North America was based on a convenient 'ignorance' of the facts plus an evasion of the truth.

In the end Inspector Jarvis's libel action never reached court. This shouldn't come as a surprise. As Godfrey Lushington, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Home Office, remarked in a memo—

“ . . . if there have been any questionable proceedings on the part of the Government or Police Agents, these might come to light in the course of the trial with damaging consequences.”

And so, a political compromise was reached. Henry Labouchere settled out of court, conceding that "his American friends may have been misled."

“My solicitors, therefore, put themselves into communication with his solicitors, and I agreed to publish a retraction of my allegation, to pay his costs, and to give him £100 . . ."

Why do I believe Henry Labouchere's version of events? Mainly because he wouldn't have been sufficiently stupid or reckless to bring such allegations unless they were firmly grounded in fact.

Please note that throughout the course of this shabby episode there was not a single mention of Francis Tumblety, the Whitechapel murderer or Jack the Ripper.

Regards,

Simon

[Stewart P Evans]

Quite Simple

Hi Stewart,
In the immortal words of Mandy Rice Davies, "Well he would, wouldn't he?"
This is Anderson at his dissembling best. You can almost see him bristling with indignation at the mere suggestion of something untoward.
Everyone was falling over themselves to deny the true purpose of Scotland Yard's North American adventure–Robert Anderson, James Monro, Henry Matthews, St. John Wontner, Fred Jarvis . . . . Yet not one of them played the get-out-of-jail Jack the Ripper card.
Interesting.
Regards,
Simon

I guess that it is quite simple - Anderson is either lying in his book, and here, or he is telling the truth.

[mklhawley]

So then why did Labouchere have to pay damages for libel? ...and isn't Labouchere the same guy that claimed Andrews met with La Caron, which was a physical impossibility?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Mike,

If your question means "do I believe Labouchere was correct about Jarvis", yes I do.

Del Norte is in Colorado.

Regards,

Simon

[mklhawley]

So, in front of Parliament (I am assuming under oath), Labouchere testified that Inspector Jarvis was doing business for the Times in Del Norte, but Jarvis was actually in the US. Apparently, this had enough teeth on it for Jarvis not only to start a lawsuit, but for Labouchere to try to settle out of court. In court, the jury is given a falsus in uno criminal instruction as a guide for listening to eyewitness testimony. It says that if any part of a witness’s testimony is contradictory in any way, then jurors have the right to disregard none, some, or all of their testimony. It comes from the complete Latin phrase, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means “untrue in one thing, untrue in everything”.


Hi Stewart,

Where is Del Norte?

Sincerely,

Mike

So Simon, do you disagree that Labouchere was incorrect about Jarvis?

Mike