More Tumblety in the Evening Post

[mklhawley]

As sent, the first sentence could have been an interpretation by the author of what had been mentioned in another article or by someone else which would be considered a secondary source or hearsay making it less reliable but not necessary false. The second one referring to what the police said make it 'authoritative', to use your word.

Hi Hercule,

This revelation about 'Kumblety' being arrested on suspicion was never in an earlier article. It was the first. Notice the date of the cable (November 17, which was the day after Tumblety posted his bail, the very first time his arrests became public record. It also conforms to the second sentence.

Sincerely,

Mike

[Jonathan H]

To Hercule

No, it's a primary source but second-hand, not secondary, maybe even third-hand.

As I wrote before, just because a source is primary does not make it reliable. It might be, but that will have to be assessed usually against other data.

Jack Littlechild is a prinary source about Dr. Tumblety even in 1913 because he was a police chief at Scotland Yard in 1888, albeit not in CID.

Sir Robert Anderson and Donald Swanson are primary sources about the Polish suspect, even though the former did not mention this solution until 1895 (in the extant record) and the latter, in writing, until 1910 or there after, at least definitively (e.g. 'Kosminski was the suspect').

Sir Melville Macnaghten and George Sims are primary sources about their posthumous investigation into Montague Druitt as the Ripper, arguably dating from early 1891. Their information was, of course, second hand (but not necessarily third hand. There was probably only one degree of separation between the pair and the deceased murderer.)

Congratulations on the wondeful find of the latest primary source about Dr. Tumblety, the leading Ripper suspect of 1888 at least for some at the Yard.

[Jeff Leahy]

To Hercule

No, it's a primary source but second-hand, not secondary, maybe even third-hand.

As I wrote before, just because a source is primary does not make it reliable. It might be, but that will have to be assessed usually against other data.

Jack Littlechild is a prinary source about Dr. Tumblety even in 1913 because he was a police chief at Scotland Yard in 1888, albeit not in CID.

Sir Robert Anderson and Donald Swanson are primary sources about the Polish suspect, even though the former did not mention this solution until 1895 (in the extant record) and the latter, in writing, until 1910 or there after, at least definitively (e.g. 'Kosminski was the suspect').

Sir Melville Macnaghten and George Sims are primary sources about their posthumous investigation into Montague Druitt as the Ripper, arguably dating from early 1891. Their information was, of course, second hand (but not necessarily third hand. There was probably only one degree of separation between the pair and the deceased murderer.)

Congratulations on the wondeful find of the latest primary source about Dr. Tumblety, the leading Ripper suspect of 1888 at least for some at the Yard.

Anderson and Swanson were Primary sources

Simm's is a Secondary source

Yours Jeff

[Hercule Poirot]

To Hercule

No, it's a primary source but second-hand, not secondary, maybe even third-hand.

As I wrote before, just because a source is primary does not make it reliable. It might be, but that will have to be assessed usually against other data...

Got it.

[GUT]

Got it.

And a secondary source can be more reliable than a primary source, the two do not indicate reliability or otherwise they are issues to be decided separately.

[Jonathan H]

To GUT

Absolutely!

To Jeff

As usual, you're wrong.

George Sims is a primary source for the POSTHUMOUS investigation of Montague Druitt because he also interviewed members of the Druitt family.

His information was certainly second-hand.

Just As Anderson's and Swanson's are primary but may well be second-hand too, as they may not have been at the alleged identification.

By the way, I am flattered that you have begun to absorb elements of my theory into yours. Especially as you have expended such energy denouncing them as a conspiracy -- and therefore beyond the pale.

e.g. A Police Chief who confers with the murderer's family and then, to protect all concerned, conceals the solution from other significant figures at Scotland Yard.

[GUT]

The other thing is that Sims is primary as to Mac's thoughts on Druitt but maybe not on the actual murders.

[Hercule Poirot]

And a secondary source can be more reliable than a primary source, the two do not indicate reliability or otherwise they are issues to be decided separately.

The same could be said about circumstantial evidence stronger than direct evidence. Reliability and provenance: two sides of a coin.

[GUT]

The same could be said about circumstantial evidence stronger than direct evidence. Reliability and provenance: two sides of a coin.

Exactaiment mon cherie.

[Hercule Poirot]

Source confusion

After reading the comments, I searched for a good definition of the concept of sources even if some references have already been given. I tend to believe that there's a confusion between sources used for legal evidence purposes (direct indirect and circumstantial proof) and sources for historical research purposes. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method) gives a rather good explanation of the historical method most guys here use which is quite different from legalistic considerations given to court evidence which Trevor, amongst others, seems to be using.

Wikipedia also gives a rather extensive definition of 'primary source' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_source)

"Whether a source is regarded as primary or secondary in a given context may change, depending upon the present state of knowledge within the field. For example, if a document refers to the contents of a previous but undiscovered letter, that document may be considered "primary", since it is the closest known thing to an original source; but if the letter is later found, it may then be considered "secondary"". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_source)

In other words, I think many have been fighting for two valid approaches each one serving different purposes. Wouldn't it be easier to simply state that what one comes up with wouldn't meet the 'legal' definition of direct evidence but could however be historically valid when used to support a theory.

[Jonathan H]

To GUT

Sims is a primary source on being in London during the murders, he even traveled to the East End one night..

But I also now know that Sims met directly with the family of the murderer, and was not just a third-hand source: e.g. from a Druitt, to Macnaghten, to Sims.

That makes the famous writer, along with the police chief, a first-hand primary source about the posthumous investigation into Druitt as the Ripper.

The limitation of Anderson is that whilst he is a primary source on the Polish suspect his information arguably came second hand--from Macnaghten--who was I believe from the evidence misleading his boss (Swanson is a third hand primary source because he is, probably, simply repeating what Anderson told him)

[Hercule Poirot]

Exactaiment mon cherie.

I don't think you'll find a reliable primary source or any circumstantial evidence for that matter supporting your answer as being a quote from any Hercule Poirot movie. LOL

[Jonathan H]

To Hercule

Yes, I made the same argument some time ago.

That the evidential bar for an historical opinion is much lower because the opinion is provisional, not absolute. It has to be.

But Trevor is, somewhat quixotically, trying to gather evidence for a legal solution to the case which is impossible at this distance (if the real killer was dead, fled or mad then it was impossible then too).

Historical methodology is all that we have, which is fine for me but some want an absolute solution, and are distressed and uncomfortable if others can live with 'just' a probable one--until a new source is discovered that sets it on its ear.

I argue that it is not a 'mystery' at all. That it has been classified in the wrong true crime genre since about 1923.

[Hercule Poirot]

I should add that even if legal evidence has resulted in the past in condemnations for murder and subsequently a hanging of the 'culprit', history has often revealed errors committed turning the arguments the prosecution offered to the court into a fallacious theory.

In other words lawyers not only present facts but also inferences as historians do.

As far as I'm concerned, weighting the available data is what Ripperology should always be about.

[David Orsam]

There you go !

In cases which fell outside a magistrate's summary jurisdiction [cases upon which he could pass sentence] "The room in which the examination (Committal Proceedings) is held is not to be deemed an open court; and the magistrate may exclude any person if he thinks fit." [11 & 12 Vict. c. 42, s. 19, Indictable Offences Act, 1848].

I have now tracked down the source of the sentence in quotation marks in the above. It comes from Principles of the Criminal Law by Seymour F. Harris.

For anyone who would like to know what the statute actually says, as opposed to a summary in a secondary source, Section 19 of the Indictable Offences Act 1848 states (with my own highlighting in bold added):

"And be it declared and enacted, That the Room or Building in which such Justice or Justices shall take such Examinations and Statement as aforesaid shall not be deemed an open Court for that Purpose; and it shall be lawful for such Justice or Justices, in his or their Discretion, to order that no Person shall have Access to or be or remain in such Room or Building without the Consent or Permission of such Justice or Justices, if it appear to him or them that the Ends of Justice will be best answered by so doing."

It goes without saying that this section applied to ALL Examinations (or committal hearings) - the statute says nothing about any special application to indecency offences - and I don't think it would be controversial to say that committal hearings in English police courts in 1888 were normally open to the public, as evidenced by the number of newspaper reports of such hearings.