Two

It is great to see some interest coming round in the why do we bother sorting Schwartz out, and just who the hell is Wess in all this.....just thought Id add that Wess, the editor of the Arbeter Fraint and to our knowledge merely a tenant in the yard, with no obvious attachments to the club hierarchy or ownership as a member, speaks first at Liz Strides Inquest.

One might wonder why a man who has no direct link with the clubs ownership or operation, and who had left Dutfields Yard some 40 minutes before Diemshutz even finds Liz, would be asked to speak first. Not the man that finds her, the club steward, the last policeman to see her, Israel Schwartz or James Brown,...Wess.

This might figure into the question as to whom and how many of the attendees or witnesses might Wess have translated for aside from Goldstein.

His importance may be as a semi-official translator. Which would mean that Schwartz could have had a translator available in the court during the Inquest.......but no need when he isnt even mentioned, and certainly not called.

Best regards all.

[Tom_Wescott]

Chris,

Sorry if I offended you. I just think it's too easy to get hung up on every word of a report that was obviously written quickly and not with the best of care. We all do it. Obviously, where there is a glaring inconsistency or contradiction between the Star report and Swanson's (such as knife vs pipe), I would unhesitatingly side with the more official source. But in this case, I don't see any true inconsistency.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Chris]

Tom

I'd be grateful if you didn't make accusations about "[confusing] the issue with semantics". I am no more indulging in "semantics" than you are.

You say Swanson "[provides] enough information to infer that Pipeman was standing on the club side of the street but further up from BS Man".

But according to you, when he wrote "the man on the opposite side of road" Swanson meant Schwartz, not the man with the pipe. I don't accept that for a moment, but if it were the case, the sum total of the information Swanson gave about the man would be that (1) on crossing the street Schwartz saw him standing lighting his pipe and (2) when Schwartz walked away he followed him. And then there is a description of him. There is nothing in that that would allow us to infer the man's position, unless we first made a lot of other assumptions about what happened.

[Tom_Wescott]

Clearly Wess would have been known to the police given his connection to the club. However I can see nothing that connects him to Schwartz, or any proof that Schwartz was a club member or that Wess was a translator in police matters.

Pirate

I would be amazed if Wess was working with the police. The police did not care for socialist Jews and socialist Jews did not care for the cops. Wess stated to the Echo reporter that Schwartz was not a member of their club, and this is almost certainly correct, since most of the people who attended the club were not card carrying members. There is no evidence that Schwartz and Wess knew each other, but it's a theory I've had for a few years that Perry Mason has ran with. We know that Wess escorted Leon Goldstein to the same police station Schwartz went to (Leman Street) and acted as his interpretor. We know Schwartz took his own interpreter, which in the past I've theorized could have been Wess. But there's no proof this was the case.

The Star tells us that Schwartz had spent the day moving from his lodgings on Berner Street. From the description of his dress (like that of a theater person) we can also infer that Schwartz was not an hassidic Jew. The IWEC happened to be THE place on Berner street that offered temporary lodgings to immigrant Jews, so it's not a stretch to suppose that Schwartz had been lodging with them. Even if he were not, the club would have held a great appeal to a young Jewish immigrant, where other people of his language and culture could be found. In fact, I'd be amazed if Schwartz were not intimately familiar with the club and many of its members. Having said that, there is yet no evidence that this was the case.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

I'm not suggesting there was another pub - I'm suggesting there is a contradiction between the sources. It's no way round that contradiction to keep repeating "but the Star says so-and-so".

I don't think 'contradiction' is the right word at all, since Swanson does not put Pipeman at a contradictory location. He doesn't state specifically where Pipeman was standing. What he does do is provide enough information to infer that Pipeman was standing on the club side of the street but further up from BS Man. This could reasonably be the beerhouse. Whether we like it or not, the only other contemporary source for information on this event comes from the Star newspaper, and the Star tells us Pipeman was around a 'pub', which could only be the Nelson beerhouse. Where you see contradiction, most of the rest of us see corroboration, and since there's nothing in the evidence of any strength to suggest Pipeman was standing anywhere else, I don't really see a reason to further confuse the issue with semantics.

Pirate,

Antonio Sironi wrote that essay. I believe Coram was the illustrator. I used to discuss this matter at length with Antonio on a different website and was delighted when his essay was published. However, I don't agree with some of his points. For instance, we can't disqualify Schwartz on the grounds that his evidence doesn't fit with our preconceived notions of what the Ripper was supposed to act like. It's possible our preconceptions are wrong or that Stride wasn't killed by the Ripper or even that the man Schwartz saw was not Stride's killer.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Jeff Leahy]

The connection with Schwartz being?

[John Bennett]

Here is the William Wess Wiki page: http://wiki.casebook.org/index.php/William_West

Regards,

Mark

And the relevant bit that goes a long way to confirming his 'labour sympathies':

Wess was active in the Hackney branch of the Socialist League and acted as secretary of the strike committee during the strike of East London tailors in 1889. From 1889 he was reponsible for the typesetting of the Freedom newspaper and he became manager of the Freedom office in 1891, when he was recorded as living at 108 Brady Street Dwellings, Brady Street with relatives. He became the editor of 'Arbeiter Fraint' in 1895.
He was also secretary successively of the International Tailors, Machinists and Pressers' Trade Union, and the United Ladies and Mantle Makers' Association. Withdrawing from his activities in the Jewish trade union movement at the beginning of the twentieth century, he took up employment as a book-keeper in a tobacco factory, joined the Labour Party in the 1930s and was involved in Spanish solidarity work in 1936.

JB

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi Mark

Clearly Wess would have been known to the police given his connection to the club. However I can see nothing that connects him to Schwartz, or any proof that Schwartz was a club member or that Wess was a translator in police matters.

Pirate

[m_w_r]

Mark, you forgot the "'ello, 'ello, 'ello..." that inevitably precedes the "What's all this then?"

Yes, this is true. Which goes to show just how language-rich the machinery of the state could be. No wonder Schwartz was confused.

Here is the William Wess Wiki page: http://wiki.casebook.org/index.php/William_West

Regards,

Mark

[Jeff Leahy]

The potential involvement of Wess and a connection between Schwartz and the Club has also been raised by Michael.

Is there any actual evidence for this? Are there any other examples of Wess ‘helping the police in their enquiries at this time?

Also I’m curious about the Star statement mentioning BSM walking as if ‘intoxicated’? This is not mentioned in the police report. Would there have been a logical explanation for this, might Abberline and Swanson considered this guess work on Schwartz behalf and chosen not to put speculation into the account but just the FACTS of what he witnessed, as they saw it?

I guess what I’m wondering is ‘would the police statement’ by its nature and what they considered admissible, make it different from an account written by a newspaper man..

Pirate

[Stewart P Evans]

'ello

Tom -
This seems likely. In 1889, Wess was the secretary of the Strike Committee of East-End Tailors. We can infer he had labour sympathies and some command of English, including written English. This would make him the sort of person who could advocate for less (ahem) integrated members of the Jewish community when they came up against the language-rich machinery of the state, eg, police officers asking "What's all this 'ere, then?"
Regards,
Mark

Mark, you forgot the "'ello, 'ello, 'ello..." that inevitably precedes the "What's all this then?"

[m_w_r]

The source was William Wess of the IWEC. I suspect but cannot yet prove that he was Schwartz's translator for the police.

Tom -

This seems likely. In 1889, Wess was the secretary of the Strike Committee of East-End Tailors. We can infer he had labour sympathies and some command of English, including written English. This would make him the sort of person who could advocate for less (ahem) integrated members of the Jewish community when they came up against the language-rich machinery of the state, eg, police officers asking "What's all this 'ere, then?"

Regards,

Mark

[Jeff Leahy]

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/rip-sironi.html

Hi Jon

I’ve been taking a closer look at Jane Coram’s article which contains some interesting observations. I am much in agreement about witness memory. Human beings are interpretation machines. We are selective in what we see and remember and the discrepancy in timings is what we would expect given the large number of accounts and witnesses.

I think the following part of her paper, is the part most relevant to the current thread:

JC: Schwartz was not called to the inquest. We can only speculate why. There are, at any rate, reasons to doubt his evidence. He was on his way home when he turned in Berner Street, reached Dutfield’s Yard gates and noticed a man stopping and then talking to a woman. Looking carefully at his statement, as reflected in Swanson’s report, we see that the man ‘tried to pull the woman into the street’ and not into the yard, where Stride’s body would be found 15 minutes later. Then the man ‘turned her round & threw her down on the footway’. This was not typical of the Whitechapel Murderer, who attacked his victims from behind and left them no escape.

PIRATE: I think that we have established that taking Schwartz statement ‘verbatim’ creates a number of problems, as there are obvious contradictions between the police statement and the Star report. The question is did Schwartz witness the murder? And can that tally with the two accounts? Or did he witness something else? (or as Michaels suggestion is it a ‘fabrication?)

JC: We don’t know what the woman did after being thrown to the ground because Schwartz, feeling his life was in danger, left the scene followed by the pipe smoker. The broad-shouldered man may have been able to grab her again, pull her into the yard and cut her throat within the space of 15 minutes. The evidence available, however, appears to disprove this hypothesis. Doctors at the scene of the crime stated that there were no signs of struggle and Stride’s clothes were not creased. When found, she still held a packet of cachous in her left hand. This suggests that the attack on her was so sudden as to afford her no possibility to fight for her life. Her attacker must have cut her throat so unexpectedly and so swiftly that she collapsed to the ground in shock. This seems to be inconsistent with the struggle witnessed by Schwartz.

Pirate: We have established that the accounts we have are probably flawed. This could be for a number of reasons not least the translation problem. However something scared Schwartz enough to panic him and make him run a long way. If he did actually witness BSM kill Stride, that makes more sense to me.
However, the three screams seem to be inconsistent with someone suddenly having their throat cut in a sudden attack. Are there sufficient signs of a struggle, as accounted by Schwartz, to match the slight bruising and clothes?

JC: In addition, anyone being thrown to the ground would almost inevitably suffer injuries in the palms of the hands or in the knees. There were no indications of such injuries in the post-mortem report on Stride prepared by Dr George Bagster Phillips which could be regarded as consistent with her having been thrown to the ground a few minutes earlier. (11) It is true that Dr Phillips said at the subsequent inquest that ‘Over both shoulders, especially the right, from the front aspect under the collar bones and in front of the chest there is a bluish discolouration...’ (12) which could be bruising to the shoulders consistent with being grabbed there. But it is possible that it was the Ripper who caused that bruising when seizing Stride prior to cutting her throat. It has also been argued that Stride’s clothing could have protected her knees when she was thrown down to the ground and that she might not have fallen on her hands with sufficient force to sustain grazing in them.

Pirate: AS there is no sign of a struggle I think we can conclude either Schwartz witnessed the murder or he witnessed something completely different. The evidence seems to suggest that it is unlikely that Stride was attacked in a separate incidence 10 or 15 minutes before her murder, otherwise there would be evidence of a previous attack.

JC:The packet of cachous found in Stride’s hand also points to the possibility that Schwartz did not see her but another woman. In effect, if the woman seen by Schwartz had been Stride, she would most likely have dropped the cachous when thrown to the ground. Yet no cachous were found scattered about the yard or in the street. Furthermore, the behavior of the woman seen by Schwartz was not that of someone who felt her life in imminent danger. She ‘screamed three times, but not very loudly’. (13) If she had really feared for her safety, she would have tried as best as she could to attract attention to herself and her attacker, possibly even seeking help from Schwartz. She didn’t call out and she didn’t try to escape, react or defend herself. The behavior of this woman and the broad-shouldered man looks more like a simple quarrel than like a murder attempt.
Pirate: Again, I simply see no evidence that Stride was involved in a separate incident minutes before her murder. Either Schwartz is lying as suggested by Michael or he witnessed the murder and the police report is inaccurate.

JC: Again, it is possible that the broad-shouldered man refrained from further violence after he realized Schwartz had witnessed his attack on the woman. Prostitutes were often used to domestic violence and probably to being treated roughly by their customers as well. If the woman was Stride, she may have accepted the broad-shouldered man’s outburst of anger, whatever its cause may have been, as an occupational hazard, and unwarily followed her killer into the darkness of the passage. Be it as it may, it cannot be ascertained from Schwartz’s testimony that the woman he saw being thrown to the ground was indeed Stride and that her attacker was Jack the Ripper.

PIRATE: As we know if Schwartz did witness something, rather than making it all up, which seems more logical to me. Then he was actually very close to BSM and Stride when their argument starts and he crosses the road. Schwartz unhesitatingly identified Strides body which I feel is important. Had he witnessed someone else would he have been so positive?

JC: It is worth noting that Schwartz was on his way home when he witnessed the attack. When he heard the man cry out ‘Lipski’ he ‘walked away, but finding that he was followed by the second man, ran as far as the railway arch’. (14) I find odd that he didn’t continue along Berner Street, turn in Helen Street and reach the safety of his home but instead preferred to stay on the streets until he reached the railway arch. For all we know this was never explained. Schwartz gave his statement at the Leman Street Police Station through an interpreter and inevitably details of what he said were lost in translation.

Pirate: Yes I agree with both Jane’s conclusions here. Its odd Schwartz ran so far, translation is a unique unknown?

JC: When violence is implied, witnesses are likely to devote virtually all of their attention to the perpetrators of the crime and what they are doing. Stress leads to a narrowing of focus. The implication of this is that, since attention is concentrated on the perpetrators and what they do, accounts of them and their actions are likely to be both detailed and accurate. However, this will also mean that other more peripheral information, such as the activities of other persons involved, might not be noticed and will, as a consequence, be remembered less well. Reading again Schwartz’s evidence we can see that he was able to recollect and remember almost everything about the attacker including height, build, complexion, moustache, hair, clothes, cap and behavior, but said nothing about Stride. Even though he positively identified the body as the woman he had seen, the intriguing possibility remains that what he saw had nothing to do with her murder. Israel Schwartz may have been witness to nothing more that a street brawl.

Pirate: I think this final conclusion most unlikely. There is no evidence that Stride was involved in a separate incidence shortly before her murder. It seems more reasonable to conclude that the wording of the statement is inaccurate and some confusion happened in translation. If Stride were involved in a street brawl then we would have some evidence, which we do not…Just to add that Mrs. Mortimer statement is completely consistent with not seeing Liz who was almost certainly doing business just inside the gate of Dutfield Yard, most probably popping in and out of the shadows, as she would not want to be seen by anyone other than potential customers.

Well there it is Jon…trusting you are well

Pirate

[Chris]

Because Schwartz would have seen the man earlier if he'd been north of him after crossing the road.

Why would he? I mean, you're surely not suggesting the reason he didn't see the man initially was because he was too far away to see, are you? Remember what small distances we're talking about.

And what pub do you suggest he stepped from if not the Nelson?

I'm not suggesting there was another pub - I'm suggesting there is a contradiction between the sources. It's no way round that contradiction to keep repeating "but the Star says so-and-so".

[Tom_Wescott]

Because Schwartz would have seen the man earlier if he'd been north of him after crossing the road. And what pub do you suggest he stepped from if not the Nelson?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott