"City PC"

[S.Brett]

In addition, there was already an ex-police officer at the Mitre Square, George Morris.

I mean a former PC Ede (Eade).

Thank for your answer.

[Trevor Marriott]

Hello!

Is it possible that the City PC had been Thomas Ede (William Eade)?

In a well-known list of Swanson there is the numeral 201 after the names of Nichols and Chapman.

Thomas Ede (also called William Eade), a witness who played a role in both cases, claimed at the end that he had seen Henry James.

Anderson:

“…but when he learned that the suspect was a fellow-Jew he declined to swear to him.”

Perhaps Ede (Eade) learned that the man he saw was a crazy Jew.

In the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court, I found the following:

1843 WILLIAM EADE (police constable D 67.)
1843 WILLIAM EADE . I am a policeman. I was in Great James-street
1849 WILLIAM ARTHUR EADE (City policeman, 125)
1857 WILLIAM ARTHUR EADE . (City Policeman, 78)
1860 WILLIAM ARTHUR EADE (City policeman, 146)
1864 WILLIAM ARTHUR EADE (City policeman, 146)

T H I S Eade worked for both departments? MET (D 67) and City Police?

D 67= MET?
125, 78, 146= City Police?

So there were these numbers in both departments? City Policeman 201 and MET Whitechapel H-Division, H 201. Course C201, K201, E201…

These numbers were always. For example: H-Divison, PC Weeks H201 and later PC Bridle H201

They changed the name Thomas Ede to a name of an Ex-Constable (William Eade)?

To Ede (Eade):

Was he a former Policeman? Perhaps for both departments, wearing the numeral 201 and once living or working in Mitre Square?

Were there any connections to the Jewish Population?

There were probably Jewish Policemen:
Isaac Jacobs, C 201
PC Abrahams (acting as German interpreter—Oct 6th 1894)

What was his age in 1888?

If Ede (Eade) had been the witness and he was an Ex- Policeman (City Police and/or MET) other people might have been confused the issue with PC Watkins.

An Ex-Policeman (with Jewish connections) and a Police Seaside Home would also fit well.

Best Regards

Hypothetical question

What would have happened if your jewish Pc Eade whilst on duty had actually witnessed the murder and the killer was a jew and Pc Eade was the only witness would he have still refused to testify as a police officer for the same reasons ? I think not somehow.

I think people should start to realise that the marginalia and the identification procedure, and Andersons book comments do not stand up to close scrutiny by a country mile.

[S.Brett]

Hello!

Is it possible that the City PC had been Thomas Ede (William Eade)?

In a well-known list of Swanson there is the numeral 201 after the names of Nichols and Chapman.

Thomas Ede (also called William Eade), a witness who played a role in both cases, claimed at the end that he had seen Henry James.

Anderson:

“…but when he learned that the suspect was a fellow-Jew he declined to swear to him.”

Perhaps Ede (Eade) learned that the man he saw was a crazy Jew.

In the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court, I found the following:

1843 WILLIAM EADE (police constable D 67.)
1843 WILLIAM EADE . I am a policeman. I was in Great James-street
1849 WILLIAM ARTHUR EADE (City policeman, 125)
1857 WILLIAM ARTHUR EADE . (City Policeman, 78)
1860 WILLIAM ARTHUR EADE (City policeman, 146)
1864 WILLIAM ARTHUR EADE (City policeman, 146)

T H I S Eade worked for both departments? MET (D 67) and City Police?

D 67= MET?
125, 78, 146= City Police?

So there were these numbers in both departments? City Policeman 201 and MET Whitechapel H-Division, H 201. Course C201, K201, E201…

These numbers were always. For example: H-Divison, PC Weeks H201 and later PC Bridle H201

They changed the name Thomas Ede to a name of an Ex-Constable (William Eade)?

To Ede (Eade):

Was he a former Policeman? Perhaps for both departments, wearing the numeral 201 and once living or working in Mitre Square?

Were there any connections to the Jewish Population?

There were probably Jewish Policemen:
Isaac Jacobs, C 201
PC Abrahams (acting as German interpreter—Oct 6th 1894)

What was his age in 1888?

If Ede (Eade) had been the witness and he was an Ex- Policeman (City Police and/or MET) other people might have been confused the issue with PC Watkins.

An Ex-Policeman (with Jewish connections) and a Police Seaside Home would also fit well.

Best Regards

[Scott Nelson]

Harvey stayed with the body of Eddowes while others went to fetch assistance (after Watkins dispatched Morris and he returned with officers). Although Harvey didn't "stumble" across the lifeless body of the victim, he was nevertheless, there standing over her while others arrived.

[Jonathan H]

That's right, Bridewell.

Mac, via Sims, cobbled those two bits together to shoehorn the Jewish suspect into the 1888 investigation (he also has Sims claim that the fiend was seen with a beard, a made-up bit exploiting Sims' peculiar need to be the fiend's double).

Other primary sources show this idea of a beat cop seeing a Jewish suspect to be very unlikely.

Sure enough, in his 1914 memoirs Mac airbrushed out the Jewish suspect with Eddowes -- even deploying, for the only time, the anti-Semitic graffiti to show that the real 'Jack' must be a Gentile -- and thus now has the beat cop see nothing of significance.

[Bridewell]

MacNaghten via Sims

The following from George R Sims, supposedly fed by MacNaghten:

'The policeman who got a glimpse of Jack in Mitre Court (sic) said, when some time afterwards he saw the Pole, that he was the height and build of the man he had seen on the night of the murder.'

as is this (Lloyds Weekly News 22nd September 1907):

One man only, a policeman, saw him leaving the place in which he had just accomplished a fiendish deed, but failed, owing to the darkness, to get a good view of him. A little later the policeman stumbled over the lifeless body of the victim.

If MacNaghten meant 'City police witness' when he wrote 'City PC', it would seem that he never got around to correcting his error through his journalist friend - although this looks more like a reference to Watkins than to Harvey.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Tom_Wescott]

Almost extraordinary how this well-dressed man "with funny eyes" is always hovering in the background.

Extraordinary? Perhaps, unless you're looking at a man with 'grey' eyes described as 'mean' and 'glaring'.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Wickerman]

Couldn`t this refer to the man Sergeant Stephen White saw? I have always thought so. The one with the rubber shoes and eyes like glow-worms.

Almost extraordinary how this well-dressed man "with funny eyes" is always hovering in the background.

Henry Birch (the dairyman) described such a man acting strange the day after the Nichols murder:

"His hair was dark, and his eyes large and staring."


John Best describes the man seen with Stride at the Bricklayers Arms:

"He had rather weak eyes. I mean he had sore eyes without any eyelashes."


Bowyer saw a man talking with Mary Kelly on the Wednesday before her murder, whom he described:

"..had a dark moustache and very peculiar eyes."


Mrs Kennedy saw a man outside the Britannia on the night of Kelly's death, just minutes from Millers Court, and she:

"..noticed the unnatural glare of the man's eyes,.."


Either witnesses tend to be drawn to a suspects eyes, meaning they could all be referring to different people, or, we have fleeting references to the same suspicious character.

Regards, Jon S.

[Jonathan H]

To my Fellow Spoil-sport

It could be that, as it's a reasonable proposition and it has been suggested before by sobre secondary sources.

My counter-argument is that it looks at that bit in too much isolation from the other elements of the source.

For example, this theory of a 'City Police witness' would not explain the 'coincidence' that PC Smith is missing from the account of Stride's murder in 'Aberconway', and from the memoirs.

Or, that the Jewish trio of men have been transferred over to that cart interrupting the fiend in the first of two murders that night: the undelying theme being that hard-working, foreign Hebrews almost saved a Gentile woman (take that Anderson!)

The messy story of Israel Schwartz, of whom it could be uncharitably claimed -- say, by anti-Semites -- that he had acted as a coward in deserting that poor 'unfortunate' to her fate, and who claimed in one self-serving account to have been villified as a Jew, has also been airbrushed out of existence by Macnaghten's revised account.

Hence also Mac's exploitation of the graffiti in the memoirs; eg. the maniac's message was for those three Jews alone who had interrupted 'Jack' with Stride, and therefore they must take the 'blame' for his having to kill and mutilate another local, Gentile woman: Eddowes.

Thus the bit players of the 'double event' have been reshaped and fictionalised as a polemic to exonerate the Jews and debunk Anderson.

Part of the problem here is looking at the primary sources flatly and two-dimensionally -- as amateur detectives -- and not considering them as texts and therefore analyting them thematically; eg. what is both context and the subtext of the documents?

For example I'm not sure a single secondary source -- and I have not read them all -- grasps that Macnaghten was debunking Anderson of 1910 in his 1914 memoirs? The old notion that these chiefs politely disagreed in favouring different suspects, and respected each other's preference because it was all just a post-facto parlour game anyhow, does not hold up to even cursory scrutiny.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Jonathan,

Yes, it's either clearly that, or he MEANT to write 'City Police witness' and it came out City PC. But apparently we're being spoil sports.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Jonathan H]

It's PC William Smith swapped with Lawende

Even the old paradigm conceded that some kind of reversal had taken place, the theory being that Macnaghten had an inexact memory.

In 'Aberconway' he had [apparently] due to poor memory switched the bit players of the Stride and Eddowes murders

For example, the beat cop who had seen Stride with a potential suspect was moved across to Eddowes.

The trio of Jews who had seen, to varying degrees, the latter with a suspect (eg. Jack the Sailor) were moved across to sitting on a cart and disturbing the killer with Stride.

The beat cop now saw a Polish Jew with Eddowes, when in fact it had been a Jewish witness who had seen a fair man (eg. a Gentile) with the victim.

So, a simple answer to the identity of the 'City PC' is that it was really police constable William Smith, transposed across to the wrong murder on the night of 'the double event'.

I agree, except that I theorise that the transposition of Smith and Lawende (and co.) was deliberate -- for polemical/propagandist purposes.

The textual evidence for this is that Mac affirmed this reversal in his memoirs, except when it came to what the beat cop saw, now becoming unsatisfactory.

This is because Mac does not want to give even a crumb to Anderson and his Jewish suspect assertions. Mac had eliminated all other suspects in favour of the un-named Druitt.

Further textual evidence that Mac shapes the material for polemical reasons, rather than because he cannot recall the facts -- or obliviously recalls inaccurately -- is that the graffiti is nowhere to be found in both his 'Reports'.

Suddenly in his memoirs it becomes 'the only clue' left behind by the murderer?!

This is because a murderer who blamed Jews -- and thus by implication is not Jewish himself -- suited Mac's anti-Anderson/anti-'Kosminski' polemic at that moment.

[Bridewell]

Mitre Square

I don't find the policeman witness so unbelievable at all.

If he says City PC then what does he mean?

I mean, every day I say woman when I mean man.

How many times do you make such a mistake? Ask all the people on this board how many times they've made such a mistake regarding the core part of a tale and I'd imagine it would be 0.00000005% in their entire lives.

It could mean many things.

A murder other than that at Mitre Square - Castle Alley?

Not necessarily a murder but an attempted murder, or a perceived attempted murder?

The Eddowes murder outside the square somewhere?

"Unless possibly" suggests to me it wasn't clear cut whether or not the City PC saw the murderer. This would suggest it was not Jack legging it out of Mitre Square around 1.43 and bumping into Watkins.

Thanks FM. I confess that I hadn't considered the possibility that the "City PC
who was (on) a beat near Mitre Square" might not be a reference to a suspect seen on the night of that particular murder.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Bridewell]

Reid

Hi Bridewell. Inspector Reid wrote that none of the victims were missing organs. Why aren't there threads for that with you laying out the argument to support Reid?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Hi Tom,

Everyone knows that Reid is wrong. Most people believe that MacNaghten is wrong. There is a point to debate in one case, but not in the other, but you knew that.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hello all,

The man the city P.C. saw.

Couldn`t this refer to the man Sergeant Stephen White saw? I have always thought so. The one with the rubber shoes and eyes like glow-worms. I know the objection is that Mitre Square is not a cul-de-sac, but at a pinch the spot where Catherine Eddowes was found could be seen as one ( in a way).

Best wishes,
C4

I don't find the policeman witness so unbelievable at all.

If he says City PC then what does he mean?

I mean, every day I say woman when I mean man.

How many times do you make such a mistake? Ask all the people on this board how many times they've made such a mistake regarding the core part of a tale and I'd imagine it would be 0.00000005% in their entire lives.

It could mean many things.

A murder other than that at Mitre Square - Castle Alley?

Not necessarily a murder but an attempted murder, or a perceived attempted murder?

The Eddowes murder outside the square somewhere?

"Unless possibly" suggests to me it wasn't clear cut whether or not the City PC saw the murderer. This would suggest it was not Jack legging it out of Mitre Square around 1.43 and bumping into Watkins.

[waterloo]

Heneage LANE beat

Whenever there is discussion of Anderson's witness and/or the Marginalia, the two names which constantly recur (understandably so) are Israel Schwartz & Joseph Lawende. Yet, according to MacNaghten:

"Nobody ever saw the Whitechapel Murderer unless possibly it was the City PC who was (on) a beat near Mitre Square" (my italics).

Every time I raise it (and, yes, I am an Aberconway bore) I am assured that Sir MM has to be either misinformed, mistaken or attempting to mislead, so

"the City PC who was (on) a beat near Mitre Square"

can be either

(a) a Polish Jewish cigarette salesman on Dukes Place or
(b) a Hungarian Jew of theatrical appearance on Berner St, but definitely not
(c) James Harvey, "the City PC who was on a beat near Mitre Square" and who, in July 1889, for reasons unknown, was dismissed.

On another thread we're prepared to consider the possibility of Schwartz being a fraud. Should we not also give serious consideration to the possibility that Harvey witnessed the murder of Kate Eddowes - and funked it? Okay, so he (probably) wasn't Jewish, but he was a City PC and he was on a beat near Mitre Square - and he was dismissed a few months later.

Watkins' beat included Mitre Square, so "near" doesn't fit. Are there any other contenders? If not, why does MacNaghten have to be either deluded, misled, forgetful, devious or mendacious? Why can't he just be telling the truth as he believed it to be?

Okay. I have my finger on the Ejector Seat button ready for a quick exit, but set fazers on stun please!

Regards, Bridewell.

This is such a long shot but hey why not. We do have evidence of a Police Officer confronting a suspect on the night of the double event. PC Spicer tells the tale of how he arrested an alleged Doctor only to be told by his superiors to release the man.

PC Spicer was a met officer. HOWEVER here is the long shot. Spicers beat included Heanage Street. Heanage Lane, PLEASE NOTE NOT STREET is next to Mitre Square. Has some confusion taken place and it was later realised that Spicer may have had his hands on a viable suspect.

I hope you can follow that.

Thank you. Please dont shout to loud

Waterloo