"City PC"

[lynn cates]

FB

Hello Tom. And it's his story I'd like to explore further. I think he may have something to offer.

Cheers.
LC

[Tom_Wescott]

Probably so, Lynn.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Jonathan H]

Dear Tom

Sorry for the long goodbye, pal.

Look, posters here are not considering that not only is Lawende now a 'City PC' but that the suspect he has supposedly sighted is no longer a Gentile-featured man dressed a bit like a young sailor.

Instead it is a man chatting with Eddowes who supposedly resembles 'Kosminski', a suspect whom in 'Aberconway' he 'exonerates'.

One of the reasons Mac did this -- had to do this -- is because without this sighting, which primary sources show never happened, then the Polish Jew suspect is pretty lame -- as in the official evrsion of his 'Report'.

It needed sexing up for [anonymous] public dissemination and this is how Mac did it, and so it was dutifully and credulously repeated by Griffiths and Sims. The latter writer even has the non-existent cop giving the suspect the once-over at some future time.

What posters do here, time and again, is that they don't think through the entire source, or to whom it was composed, and in what [apologetical or propagandist] context.

They try and play amateur Sherlock and second-guess the contemporaneous police all along the line, which is just such a dead-end (though not if a researcher is postulating that all the police suspects were a handy smokescreen, that's fair enough)

Let's take the old, creaking paradigm for what it is: Macnaghten made another error -- actually two.

But then not only did he get the witness wrong he got the suspect wrong too; for it was really the other way round: a Jew sighting a Gentile (thi is the giveaway that Mac does recall it accurately for he uses the correct data contained within the tale to make the deflective switch).

[Scott Nelson]

No, no. You're simply wrong. Somebody with more patience than I may or may not be so inclined to, to, to, to.....!!!! Forget it!

[Bridewell]

Fantasy Theory

I thought it was agreed by all that there was no City PC witness and a simple mistake had been made? But if we're putting out fantasy theories for fun

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Hi Tom,

"Fantasy theory" is a bit unfair, isn't it? It's not exactly Vincent Van Gogh territory!

The thread is about an extract from the Aberconway version of the MM which, as you know reads:

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

You can like it, or you can like it not, but that is what he wrote. The suggestion is that we consider the possibility that he may not have been mistaken, misinformed and /or mendacious and may have meant exactly what he said. Assessing the implications of such a possibility is not a "fantasy theory", but an analysis of the text as it appears in the document.

The document reads: "City PC who was (on) a beat near Mitre Square"
It does not read "cigarette salesman who was leaving a club on Dukes Place". That may be what is meant; it is not what is written.

The notion that a very senior police officer may have meant what he wrote may not be one you agree with. I can live with that. It is not, however, a "fantasy theory", because it is grounded in a literal reading of the text of an historical document.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Jonathan H]

To Bridewell,

No, that's true.

But it's true only up to a point.

That sharp end, is that it does not connect to the other quote from 'Aberconway'; about whom this supposed City PC witness was supposed to have seen -- a poor Jew chatting with the victim.

For we know from other sources that the witness was in fact a poor Jew and the person he claimed to have seen does not match 'Kosminski'.

This suggests that a reversal has taken place, rather than that there really was a City PC witness.

[curious4]

Rubber shoes and glow-worm eyes

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

[Tom_Wescott]

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

[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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.