A Modern Day BS Man/Liz Encounter

[lynn cates]

paranoia

Hello Maria. I read your earlier post. I heartily believe that IS was a, basically, law abiding citizen. If, however, he did what I am suggesting he did, it might be best interpreted as merely trying to help a friend or patron.

We must not lose sight of the fact that:

1. The Orthodox Anglo Jews would have been delighted to see the club shut down.

2. SY would have been glad to see the club shut down.

3. The European law enforcement agencies/intelligence gathering groups would have been happy to see 40 Berner shut down

Such a climate promotes paranoia. Add to this the article from the year before by William Morris about police spies and I think you can see where Wess was coming from.

There is no absolute evidence that IS fibbed with his story, but it was VERY convenient.

Cheers.
LC

[Hunter]

1) Schwartz's story is an invention, and William Wess covered for Schwartz.
2) (This being the most probable possibility): Schwartz's testimony was true, but exaggerated, and William Wess just wanted to protect his friend Schwartz from the press.

Hi Maria,

There is another possibility... and it is what the police seemed to surmise; that Schwartz may have been telling the truth, but the incident he described could have been a bellicose drunk acosting her and then, going on his way; with someone else (the killer) coming upon her afterwards. A woman in Stride's position could be approached by several men in a short time; whether she was soliciting or not. The pubs had closed and many men were 'crawling' their way home. Indeed, they believed that she had likely been seen in the company of several men within an hour an a half before she was murdered. This was in Swanson's report and he had to rely on Abberline for the information and insight - as the 'Lipsky' explaination incures. Abberline would have known the district and its people far better than we could ever hope to do now.

As far as the Echo article is concerned... one must be cautious about the press - unless it is a direct quote; especially the Echo or the Star and certainly in the immediate aftermath of an event when the rumor mill is rampant and the inquest hasn't gotten under way. As Tom suggested, Wiess could have gotten his information garbled and the reporter could have further embellished it. They were more interested in selling papers than checking their facts. It would get even worse after the Kelly murder.

And, the club members - particularly Wiess and Eagle? Having Stride killed on their very doorstep would be like finding a turd in your kitchen sink... given the nature of the club and the social climate of the time. Its hard for me to believe that not one member saw Stride before she was found dead in their yard. Whether they were complicite or not, its easy to understand why they said they didn't see her or any prostitutes around the premises... even though their neighbor at No. 38 told a different story. "I do not think the yard bears a very good character at night..."

[Fisherman]

Tom W:

"As I already stated, it's clear the report was garbled. Schwartz was a Berner Street Jewish resident and would have been known to Wess, whereas the identity of Pipeman was not known, so it's rather clear who Wess is referring to when he says he knows the man's name."

In fact, Tom, it is not "rather" clear - it is ABSOLUTELY clear that it was NOT garbled at all. Wess says that the man who gave chase was the one who was recognized as a non-member. And the man who gave chase was emphatically Pipeman and NOT Schwartz. There is NOTHING "garbled" in that at all, nothing whatsoever.

Also, if - as you suggest - Pipeman was in fact le Grand, then I fail to see that he could not have been a very familiar face in the surroundings, and a man who very many citizens recognized - although perhaps without being able to pin a name on him. The same would go for a potentially infinite amount of other men.

Finally, it is perfectly obvious that Wess was not the man who saw the chase. We know from other information that he was not in Fairclough Street at the time given. And so, he must have had the information passed on to him by another clubber. And this other clubber may not have seen Schwartz before. As you know, there is nothing at all tying Schwartz to the club.
Moreover, if Schwartz was way ahead of Pipeman, the clubber may not have had a good look at him at all. If we, for example, suggest that this clubber was coming down Back Church Lane and arriving at the intersection with Fairclough, then the chased man may have turned the corner fifty yards before Pipeman, whereas the clubber may have actually seen Pipeman rounding the corner. There is an abundance of possible explanations to the left out identity of the man running in front! But there is one person and one person only who could possibly have been described as the man giving chase: Pipeman, a man the observing clubber AND Wess knew by sight, but not by name on the day the reporter asked about it.

By the bye, since le Grands name is mentioned here, I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate you on your essay in the Examiner. Personally, I do not think that le Grand was the Ripper - I see him much more like a career criminal who always had a purpose of gaining something when he took to violence - but that does in no way detract from the overall impression of a small masterpiece on your behalf, Tom. Very well done indeed and a cracking good read! I look very much forward to being swayed by your book ...

The best,
Fisherman

[mariab]

Hello Lynn,
Has anyone thoroughly checked the 1881 census for Israel Schwartz, though? (I understand that there were no censuses conducted between 1881 and 1891?)
What are Lupinos? (I half expect it to mean “wolve cubs“, as in Italian!)
And who is SY (as you state below?)
Lynn Cates wrote:
We must not lose sight of the fact that:
1. The Orthodox Anglo Jews would have been delighted to see the club shut down.
2. SY would have been glad to see the club shut down.
3. The European law enforcement agencies/intelligence gathering groups would have been happy to see 40 Berner shut down
Such a climate promotes paranoia. Add to this the article from the year before by William Morris about police spies and I think you can see where Wess was coming from.
Absolutely. Still, it would help to establish if Schwartz was destitute and housing at the IWMC, or engaged securely at a shop, with the luxury of leisure time to act in plays. In the latter scenario, Schwartz might not have needed to engage in or might have had too much to lose by engaging in a false testimony prompted by the IWMC, even if he attended its meetings and shared their political agenda.

[lynn cates]

good position

Hello Hunter.

"Its hard for me to believe that not one member saw Stride before she was found dead in their yard."

And THAT is a cogent observation and good position to adopt--in my humble opinion. Indeed, I would not be surprised to learn that 1 or more members were around when she was killed--much to their astonishment.

Now, a good question is, If that were the case, why would the club members keep that quiet?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

etc

Hello Maria. I am confident that the census for 1881 was checked. Casebook members are, by and large, quite thorough in investigations of that kind.

The Lupinos were an acting family. In fact, you recall one of their most famous members--Ida? (She starred, ironically enough, in the second Rathbone/Bruce cinema offering, "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." For my money, the best of the 14.)

SY = Scotland Yard.

Cheers.
LC

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hello Hunter.

"Its hard for me to believe that not one member saw Stride before she was found dead in their yard."

And THAT is a cogent observation and good position to adopt--in my humble opinion. Indeed, I would not be surprised to learn that 1 or more members were around when she was killed--much to their astonishment.

Now, a good question is, If that were the case, why would the club members keep that quiet?

Cheers.
LC

Hello LC....

I think it's fair to suggest that a watched people would have felt targetted and reacted accordingly......i.e. putting 2 and 2 together and getting shut down club......although it's fair to suggest it wouldn't have been shut down due the club being a ready made source of information...and there's no use in biting the hand that feeds you.

[mariab]

Hunter wrote:
There is another possibility... and it is what the police seemed to surmise; that Schwartz may have been telling the truth, but the incident he described could have been a bellicose drunk acosting her and then, going on his way; with someone else (the killer) coming upon her afterwards. A woman in Stride's position could be approached by several men in a short time; whether she was soliciting or not. The pubs had closed and many men were 'crawling' their way home. Indeed, they believed that she had likely been seen in the company of several men within an hour an a half before she was murdered.
I think that what you're saying is definitely a possibility. The time is a little tight for the Ripper to have accosted Stride after BS left her, but it doesn't appear as entirely impossible. Another possibility would be that Pipeman might have come back and killed her.
I promise to thoroughly go through Sudgen, the newspaper reports, and the inquiries at some point in the not too far future. Now I have to see how to act upon a severe attack by my boss in Chicago, and his impeccable timing for sabotaging my research, darn him and all the bosses in the world. (But I'm sure it'll all sort out in the end, since it only has to do with his sensibilities and whatnot, and not with anything material, especially not with the research I've been conducting, working like an elephant.)

[mariab]

Hello Lynn,
Thank you about the Lupinos and sorry about SY (Scotland Yard).
I ABSOLUTELY didn't imply that casebook members do not conduct impeccable research. Re. the 1881 census, terribly sorry if it came out like this, I just meant to ask if 1881 has been checked (which is a very silly, newbie inquire anyway: obviously it has been checked)!
Sorry.

Lynn Cates wrote:
Now, a good question is, If that were the case, why would the club members keep that quiet?
Hell, they might have even been familiar with Stride as johns of her.

[lynn cates]

etc

Hello Maria. No, I saw no such implication. I know what you meant. And I referred only to the fact that much of what we think is new, has already been done on Casebook. (No new thing under the sun, etc.)

Ummm, I wasn't thinking in terms of the club members using Liz's services. If Rocker's et al account is accurate, these chaps could not afford that. It would also assume that Liz frequented the Berner club and I can't find evidence of that.

I was thinking more in terms of repercussions. If Wess or Eagle had seen the event or had seen the body shortly after the fact and knew the assailant to be a club visitor, then such information given to the police could lead to an eventual denunciation by the perpetrator or even a "Sure I killed her, just as you ordered me to do." And even though false, this would prove embarrassing to the club and quite difficult to disprove. The last thing Wess and others needed was negative press and police accusations. (We must remember the whole point behind the agent provocateur!)

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Thank you, Lynn.
Which book is Rocker et al? Is it the same book as Fishman? (The one I, in my innocent newbie status, once misunderstood as having been produced by our Swede friend, Fisherman?!)
The possibility of Stride (perhaps only occasionally) solliciting IWMC members presents itself, since she was in their yard on the night of her death, and since it's known that she spoke Yiddish.
Lynn Cates wrote:
If Wess or Eagle had seen the event or had seen the body shortly after the fact and knew the assailant to be a club visitor, then such information given to the police could lead to an eventual denunciation by the perpetrator or even a "Sure I killed her, just as you ordered me to do." And even though false, this would prove embarrassing to the club and quite difficult to disprove. The last thing Wess and others needed was negative press and police accusations. (We must remember the whole point behind the agent provocateur!)
Lynn, William Wess was a socialist, and as such I expect that he might have possessed some basic ethical standards. You yourself called him a “gentle soul“ (according to testimony from researchers such as Rocker and Fishman). I absolutely REFUSE to believe the mere possibility that the IWMC members actively might have known or suspected a club visitor for the Stride murder and didn't come forward to the police. This is not some minor crime of a pimp cutting up a prostitute. This is the night of the “double event“, the night which completely shook the entire London, after already 3 Ripper slayings. Don't even go consider anything such as this.
Gotta cook something to eat, today's been one crisis after another since 9.00 a.m. this morning. A missed day of research at the Opéra, and my Chicago boss (talking about someone with no ethical standards) having semi-apologized for the assault, but still trying to keep it hazy about commissioning me for the critical edition of an opera I'm supposed to start doing for him around 2015 (if I live that long). His nochalance about the truly significant pieces I just found here in Paris (the original, long version of the Finale of Rossini's Le siège de Corinthe, of which we had lost all hope of existing) clearly illustrates the fact that, like every other boss in my field, he's enjoying the benefit of having a young person slaving it for him with no salary and no strings attached. Well, it works both ways. Under the circumstances I only need to disappear for a few days for him to get a bit itchy about what all else I might have found here, and why I'm not communicating the findings to him. I'm not doing this for money (although God knows one can't get by without it), but I'm not working with people unless respect and some degree of recognition are returned. God, am I really pissed right now!

[lynn cates]

Wess, off his Rocker?

Hello Maria. The book is Rudolph Rocker's "The London Years." I cannot recommend it too highly.

I must just observe that we have 2 VERY different takes on what Wess would have done to have saved the Berner club and, perhaps in his mind, English Socialism.

From even an ethical Socialist's view, what's the harm?

1. Liz is dead and cannot be brought back.

2. In Wess' mind, she was killed by an agent provocateur/spy. (Remember: Morris had published a list of police spies in "Commonweal" only a year before.)

3. Why jeopardise the club and the socialist movement by allowing a possible connection to the club to be exploited?

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Hello, Lynn. At some later point I might buy The London years.
Lynn Cates wrote:
In Wess' mind, she was killed by an agent provocateur/spy. (Remember: Morris had published a list of police spies in "Commonweal" only a year before.)
What evidence do you have for the completely phantastic hypothesis that Wess might have believed that Stride was killed by an agent provocateur? Worrying about protecting the reputation of his club is one thing, but believing that an agent would go to such lengths as to kill a woman to damage the IWMC, I surely hope that Wess was not delusional, and he doesn't at all sound like it.
I apologize for being so ignorant, but who was Morris, and don't tell me that our Long Liz was mentioned in that list of police spies?! Because in that case, I'd be the hell impressed for her!
Lynn Cates wrote:
Why jeopardise the club and the socialist movement by allowing a possible connection to the club to be exploited?
Human decency?

[lynn cates]

Morris, he said, being catty

Hello Maria. Ah! Now I can answer 2 questions at once.

Morris was "Mr. London Socialism" incarnate and top man for the socialist paper, "Commonweal." And it seems to have been his considered opinion that Liz's slayer was such as I have described.

And to anticipate your question, Yes, William (Woolf) Wess and his brother Morris Wess were frequent visitors at William Morris' Farringdon st Socialist club.

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Lynn, hmm... VERY interesting. For a socialist journalist to have concocted such a theory, I have no doubt whatsoever. And yes, you anticipated my question correctly! So, I guess I have a LOT to learn about William Wess and his brother. Hmmm... extreme paranoia, fueled by the high presence of spies in Victorian London? Hmmm... I'm trying to formulate some thoughts, but am at a loss. It could very well be that William Wess didn't really buy into his friend's Morris convoluted theory, but he consented to the story's publication in Commonweal regardless, as it suited his club's agenda.
As for Morris and being catty, is there an insider British joke I'm not getting about a (cartoon?) cat named Morris and whatnot?
Now to devour a big portion of pasta with fresh tomatoes, basil, and tons of parmesan cheese, with a nice bottle of white burgundy. God knows I've deserved this today. It's my lunch, actually...