Andrews was investigating Tumblety

[mklhawley]

Hi David,

The New York World Montreal correspondent, who was personally at the Montreal police station and personally spoke with Andrews, stated this:

“Ten days ago Andrews brought Roland Gideon Israel Barnet, charged with helping wreck the Central Bank of Toronto, to this country from England, and since his arrival he has received orders from England which will keep him in America for some time. (Evening World, December 21, 1888)

This may be telling of when his orders changed in priority.

Sincerely,

Mike

[mklhawley]

As to why Andrews went to America, here's what Stewart Evans pointed out:


...As far as I know Andrews was not a Special Branch man. Andrews had arrested Barnett in the first place and, I suppose, was the natural choice to return him to Canada. According to Dew (the only source I'm afraid) Andrews was one of three Scotland Yard Inspectors assigned to the Ripper investigation, along with Abberline and Moore. The official records prove Dew to be right about Abberline and Moore, so did Dew have a memory of Andrews carrying out a Ripper connected inquiry in America?

As to evidence of Andrews not being involved in Parnell-related inquiries we have the flat denial of the Home Secretary that that was not the case in the House of Commons on Thursday March 21, 1889. Mr. T. Healey asked if Inspector Andrews had visited America since the passing of the Special Commission Act; and whether his business there was connected with the charges and allegations made before the Royal Commission. Matthews replied in the negative.

Further to that we have Anderson stating, "Neither before nor during the Parnell Commission did the Criminal Investigation Department either directly or indirectly render any assistance to the Times; I disclaim any connection with any move in a political game..." In his 1906 book Anderson stated, "And I say this emphatically, because I find there are people still who credit Mr. Labouchere's statments that I sent police officers across the Atlantic to tout for evidence against the Parnellites. The allegation was unequivocally denied by the Secretary of State in Parliament, and by the Chief Commissioner of Police in a letter to the Times..."

So we have to accept that Home Secretary Matthews, Chief Commissioner Monro and Assistant Commissioner Anderson were all lying, in print, about this and that totally unsubstantiated press claims in the USA were correct [in direct contradiction to the principle of parsimony]. I appreciate that there are those who will say (as it suits their argument) that this is the case and that is their interpretation. It seems to me that to risk a serving Scotland Yard man making such enquiries (with the huge risks that entailed) when there were plenty of other private agents who could do the same thing is a bit silly.

[David Orsam]

“Ten days ago Andrews brought Roland Gideon Israel Barnet, charged with helping wreck the Central Bank of Toronto, to this country from England, and since his arrival he has received orders from England which will keep him in America for some time. (Evening World, December 21, 1888)

Hi Mike - I like that quote because the date of ten days before 21 December 1888 almost exactly matches the date that a warrant was issued by the Old Bailey recorder for Tumblety's arrest (per the London Evening Post) on 10 December 1888. It makes far more sense to me that Andrews would have been instructed to travel from Canada to New York to locate (and ensure the arrest of) Tumblety than meander around in Canada doing a historical background check.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

David.

I don't think Dew's memoirs can be dismissed quite so easily. Admittedly, they are not accurate as to some of the details of the murders but it's hard to believe he could have suffered quite so catastrophic a failure of memory as to misidentify Andrews as having been involved in the investigation. He is certainly right about Inspector Moore - and we know this because we have a report of Moore in the MEPO file about Stride's grapes dated 4 October 1888 - but absent this and a reference to him instructing Sgt White in White's report - I wonder if there would be any evidence at all as to his involvement in the JTR investigation in 1888. Was he even mentioned in any newspapers in connection with it during 1888?

I didn’t say that Dew was wrong about Andrews or that Andrews wasn’t part of the Whitechapel Murders Investigation. I merely pointed out that there is no evidence, other than Dew’s memoirs, of exactly what Andrews did. As I wrote: “This doesn't mean that he wasn’t involved in some way but we have absolutely no clue what he did or when he did it. The investigation carried on until at least 1891 (when the last investigative report was filed) and Andrews could have been involved at any time between then and 1888.”

Dew doesn’t claim that Abberline, Moore and Andrews joined the investigation at the exact same time. In fact it appears that they didn’t. Of the three Inspectors mentioned by Dew, Abberline’s name first appears in the press in connection with the investigation, on the 1st of September and in the existing official reports on the 7th of that month. Moore’s name, on the other hand, doesn’t appear in the existing official reports until a report dated the 4th of October and his name doesn’t appear in the newspapers until the Kelly murder (the Times, 12 November, 1888). It’s possible, therefore, that Moore wasn’t part of the investigation from the start and was, instead, called in at a later time. Possibly not until after the night of the double event. This could apply to Andrews as well.

In any case, even if Dew was only aware of Andrews involvement in 1889, the very fact that Andrews got involved in the case at all surely adds weight to the notion that he could earlier have gone to North America on JTR related business.

Actually, the correct inference, given what Andrews did do, is to suggest that Andrews “could earlier have gone to Toronto and parts of Southern Ontario on JTR related business, that he spent only a week doing this and then he went back home.” No one seems to be able to intelligently explain what this was supposed to accomplish or why Anderson deemed it necessary to send an Inspector to one small corner of Canada, while the whole time Tumblety was in New York, let alone why information from a simple inter police telegram was considered to be of insufficient worth.

Hi Mike - I like that quote because the date of ten days before 21 December 1888 almost exactly matches the date that a warrant was issued by the Old Bailey recorder for Tumblety's arrest (per the London Evening Post) on 10 December 1888. It makes far more sense to me that Andrews would have been instructed to travel from Canada to New York to locate (and ensure the arrest of) Tumblety than meander around in Canada doing a historical background check.

Not that it really changes what you are saying but Andrews arrived in Canada on the 9th of December. One bit of information mentioned in this same article, although never commented on, is this: “[the Ripper’s] inaction for so long a time, and the fact that a man suspected of knowing considerable about the murders left England for this side three weeks ago, makes the London police believe Jack has left that country for this.” So some person of interest, who the article connects with Andrews, had only left England around the 1st of December. Not Tumblety then.

I agree about the supposed “background check,” though, but, as I have said above, and a couple of times before on this board, Andrews did not go to New York. He didn’t get within 500 miles of New York. He left Toronto and headed to Halifax and a ship back to England. He stopped overnight in Montreal because of the weather conditions and then, the next morning, in front of a group of Montreal reporters, got on the train for Halifax and continued his journey home. Whatever Andrews’s mission was, it was confined to one week in Toronto and parts of Southern Ontario as well as, reportedly, a side trip to Detroit and one to Buffalo.

Wolf.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Mike.

The New York World Montreal correspondent, who was personally at the Montreal police station and personally spoke with Andrews, stated this:

No one from the New York World “was personally at the Montreal police station and personally spoke with Andrews” simply because there was no “New York World Montreal correspondent.”

The information found in the Evening World’s edition of 21 December, 1888, from Montreal, came from two or three different Montreal newspapers which put their stories on the wire. That’s where the World got its information: the newswire. I think you’ll find that the bracketed sentence underneath the article’s headline – “SPECIAL TO THE WORLD” – specifically means the article came off of the wire. If the bracketed sentence was, instead “FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT,” then you could claim that a New York World reporter wrote the story.

Wolf.

[mklhawley]

Thanks Wolf.

Mike

[Trevor Marriott]

Thanks Wolf.

Mike

So another one of your primary sources bites the dust !

[Bridewell]

However, on the basis that Andrews was hardly likely to have made this effort if Tumblety was safely locked up in jail when Mary Jane Kelly was murdered, someone does need to demonstrate (either in theory or in practice) that it was possible to be remanded into custody on a Wednesday and then bailed on a Thursday.

I can't relate this to Tumblety's circumstances specifically but it is certainly possible now (and I suspect may well have been then) for someone to be remanded into custody on a Wednesday and then released on bail the following day. One way in which this might occur would be for a court to agree bail in principle at the first hearing, subject to cash sureties which were not then in place. If the sureties were in place on the following day the bail would then become effective.

[mklhawley]

So another one of your primary sources bites the dust !

Trevor, you have your head up your butt. This does nothing to the veracity of the statement that he received new orders. Oh, you're going to love my next article.

your best pal,

Mike

[David Orsam]

I can't relate this to Tumblety's circumstances specifically but it is certainly possible now (and I suspect may well have been then) for someone to be remanded into custody on a Wednesday and then released on bail the following day. One way in which this might occur would be for a court to agree bail in principle at the first hearing, subject to cash sureties which were not then in place. If the sureties were in place on the following day the bail would then become effective.

Thanks for this Bridewell. I have been looking at the whole bail issue and will have more to say about it in due course.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

Coincidence?

I went and looked at front page of the Evening World’s edition of 21 December.

They talk about a new Jack The Ripper who attacked a police officer in Philadelphia. That police officer is named McKehoe.

In the article of the New York Herald of december 18th, 1888, stating that a very short man entered the police station claiming he was Jack The Ripper and called on the Sub Chief of police, a certain Kehoe.

Now, was someone being creative in the news agencies on this side of the Atlantic as well?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Sir John Falstaff,

If you look carefully through the newspaper reports you will find that a man professing to be Jack the Ripper was arrested in Montreal just days before Inspector Andrews' arrival in December 1888.

That Jack the Ripper bloke really got around.

Regards,

Simon

[mklhawley]

I went and looked at front page of the Evening World’s edition of 21 December.

They talk about a new Jack The Ripper who attacked a police officer in Philadelphia. That police officer is named McKehoe.

In the article of the New York Herald of december 18th, 1888, stating that a very short man entered the police station claiming he was Jack The Ripper and called on the Sub Chief of police, a certain Kehoe.

Now, was someone being creative in the news agencies on this side of the Atlantic as well?

Hi SirJohnFalstaff,

Simon is correct. In the case of Francis Tumblety (this being a Tumblety thread), his implication in the Whitechapel murders came from London and not North America and had absolutely nothing to do with a reporter's creativity. The reporter didn't even know he was the notorious Indian Herb Doctor.

Sincerely,
Mike

[Howard Brown]

Sir John:

They talk about a new Jack The Ripper who attacked a police officer in Philadelphia. That police officer is named McKehoe.

In the article of the New York Herald of december 18th, 1888, stating that a very short man entered the police station claiming he was Jack The Ripper and called on the Sub Chief of police, a certain Kehoe.

Now, was someone being creative in the news agencies on this side of the Atlantic as well?

*****************

The Evening World and the Herald were both off the mark.
It wasn't a policeman that the man assaulted but a Philadelphia Evening Bulletin reporter named McKeone
The man wasn't very short or just plain short but tall and well built.

P.S..... Detective Frank Geyer, mentioned in the following, was the man who hunted H. H. Holmes down.

Philadelphia Times
December 21, 1888
Page 1
******

[mklhawley]

As always, Howard; excellent.

Mike