Let´s talk about that identification again

[Jonathan H]

But he did receive public criticism from George Sims, who was known to be an upper class liberal with clubby contacts in the upper echelons of the police force, eg. the Assistant Commissioner (CID) Melville Macnaghten.

In 'The Referee' of April 17th 1910 (found by Chris Phillips) Sims is scathing:

'The latest "blazing indiscretion" by sir Robert Anderson has raised the question of how far a pensioned public servant is justified in making use of information which came to him in the course of his employment in a confidential position. It was the only the other day that the late esteemed head of the CID caused a storm of indignation among the King's Jewish subjects by stating that

Jack the Ripper

was a Jew, and that the Jews knew who he was and assisted him to evade capture. The statement went beyond ascertained facts.

The mad Polish Jew, to whom Sir Robert refers, was only one of three persons who were strongly suspected of being the genuine Jack. The final official report, which is in the archives of the Home Office, leaves the matter in doubt between the Polish Jew, who was afterwards put in a luantic asylum, a Russian doctor of vile character, and an English homicidal maniac, one Dr ____ , who had been in a lunatic asylum. In these circumstances it was certainly indiscreet of Sir Robert to plump for the Polish Jew, and to imply that many Jewish community in the East End were accessories after the fact.'

Sims goes on to chastise Anderson for the even bigger indiscretion about the Parnell affair. It is not so much that he is saying that Anderson is inaccurate. but that it is all an acute embarassment for the Conservative government,

Under the rude subheading: 'Anderson's Fairy Tales' Sims makes the crude anti-anti-Semitic joke that Sir Robert will reveal:

'... the names of the eminent Jewish financiers who assisted Jack the Ripper to evade arrest.'

In Anderson's defense, it can be argued that Sims was also backing up the ex-chief's claims.

That there was some kind of definitive ('final') report in the Home Office files which let an open verdict as to which of the three was the likeliest suspect, and that one of them was a Jew. Why can't Anderson as a professional crime-buster favour one of those suspects (Sims certainly did in his writings?!)

This is the first extant reference, of which I am aware, to the alternate version of Mac's report which is not 'Anberconway' -- which was explicitly favouring Druitt -- compared to the filed version, though in the Yard's archive, which claimed that any one of the trio could have been Jack (yet the document's 'awful glut' thesis clearly pushes for the suspect most obviously ruined by Miller's Ct.)

[Paddy]

Identification

Hi all, great posts !

Monty I enjoyed reading the evening news article, very just and true values and aspirations of the Victorian Era. Ripping ! Thats a bit how I see Anderson thinking.

Perhaps the police didnt go to arrest Kosminski, because they couldn't.
One of my millions of theories is could the identification have been covert and for internal purposes.

If the identification took place, was it allowed so an internal decision could be made to risk assess and able to reduce police man hours, in a period after the murders?

When one thinks of all the cases police must have had to deal with after all the hysteria surrounding the murders. I wonder how many men were arrested for saying he was going to "do for her like the Ripper" in drunken attacks on a woman? The press had reached many people who could or could not read. JTR fear had become part of thier cultural language.
Trying to police the fall out from that alone must have been very expensive for the force. Any case with Jack the Ripper mentioned would probably have to be duplicated and followed up smartish.

Would the detectives have been allowed because of a lesser internal law, to excercise a covert identification for slightly lower circumstancial evidence than absolute, but allowed so a finances could be adjusted?
I would just like to point out that I am not very up on law, so any feedback would be great. It just seems so reasonable !
Pat Marshall

[Lechmere]

I haven't seen any sign of anyone on here being in need of reminding that there was anti-semitic feeling in the East End at the time of the Whitechapel Murders.
But just in case the point is too subtle, it was pointed out that there was even more anti-Jewish feeling in the 1900s when Anderson saw fit to blow the gaff on the Jewish suspect angle.

There was an organisation called the British Brother's League which had agitated very vociferously for legislation to restrict immigration and the main object of their displeasure were Jews. Their agitation - accompanied by a number of huge mass rallies in the East End - was largely responsible for the passing of the Aliens Act in 1905. They continued their activities up to and after the First World War.
During the First World War the East End Jewish population came under attack firstly because many of their shops had German sounding names, and then because until the Russian Revolution many Jewish inhabitants (many of whom did not have citizenship and so were not liable to conscription when it came in) were reluctant to enlist and fight for an ally of the Tsar. The agitation was led by organisations such as the British Workers League.

In short, the period from 1900 to 1918 was a lot more troublesome for the Jewsish community in the East End than 1888-1895, including that described by Hutt in 1888.

Yet Anderson did not receive any official criticism for 'blowing the gaff' on this issue, even though he was supposedly privy to this secret.

[Errata]

I always thought the prevalence of anti Semitism made the significance of the graffiti rather... lacking. I live in the American South, so I've seen the pictures of the cities here during the 50s and 60s. If Jack had been killing in Nashville then, the odds of him dumping the piece of apron on the doorway of a building with racist graffiti on it would have about one in five. Making it about as significant as throwing the piece of apron into a doorway with a blue door.

[Jonathan H]

Secret?

It wasn't that much of a secret.

From 1895 Anderson began reguarly telling people, and therefore the wider public, that he had identified the Ripper as a lunatic who could not be broguht to justice but at least had been 'safely caged' in an asylum.

In the same year, Swanson, may haved assured one reporter that the chief suepoct, presumablyh 'Kosminski', was edven more safely deceased.

It was not like CID had distance on the investigation by then, as William Grant was looking olike maybe the best suspect they had ever had, what with an allegedly positive identification by a Jewish witness -- yet the Jack aspect of the inquiry stalled.

Doesn't that sound familiar ..?

[robhouse]

You may have missed this passage in Edward´s post 179, Rob:

" English society in the late 19th century was, in my opinion, more ready to stand up for what was right (i.e not hush up a case to possibly protect a small community) and was confident enough in its power and inate legitimacy to face the consequences. "

What Edward is saying is not that they would not have pressed charges against a Jew - or anything else - but instead that it would be strange for a man like Anderson to first honour "the traditions of his old department" for twenty years, only to then spill the beans.
He could easily make his case without any mentioning of the suspect´s religion. And there was no more of a public need or right to share in the information in 1908 or 1920, than there had been before.

If Anderson was to stay true to the traditions of his department wholly and fully, he really needed to take what had been agreed on to be a secret by the looks of things, along with him to his grave. Á la MacNaghten, as it were.

All the best,
Fisherman

Well, yes, maybe... but again, maybe not. I mean, how are we to know what was going on in Anderson's mind? I have suspected that Anderson wanted to spill the beans, and perhaps even that he felt people had the right to know. Yes, and perhaps, to exonerate his old department somewhat. I think he kept this secret for 20 years then very consciously decided to reveal it, to a degree.

To have done so in 1890 or thereabouts would have been catastrophic.

Moreover, in my opinion, this is why Swanson underlined "it would ill become me to violate the unwritten rule of the service"... because Swanson felt the irony in that this was basically what Anderson was doing. Violating a secret that he was supposed to take with him to the grave, etc. etc

RH

[Garry Wroe]

Agreed, Dave. I have to confess to being somewhat surprised that there was a need to post such information, however. Perhaps I'd overestimated most posters' knowledge of the case, but I'd assumed that the majority here on Casebook were aware of the simmering resentment regarding the Jewish population during the period under scrutiny. The Leather apron affair represents one example of such, as does Warren's insistence that the Goulston Street message be expunged in order to avert an anti-Semitic backlash. But there you go.

[Cogidubnus]

This from the Evening News 11 September 1888 -

"THE EDITOR'S DRAW.
SLAUGHTERING THE JEWS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "EVENING NEWS."

SIR - with reference to the above heading, on Saturday, evening last, I found it difficult to traverse the streets in the vicinity of the Whitechapel, without observing in almost every thoroughfare , knots of persons (consisting of men, women and children), and overhearing their slanderous and insulting remarks towards the Jews, who occasionally passed by. With justice to my countrymen, I mention that the foul epithets was made use of by people of the most ignorant and dangerous class, promoted by the information they had casually obtained that a man known as "Leather Apron" had a Jewish appearance, and was wanted for the recent Whitechapel murders. Even were it the case that the actual perpetrator belonged to the Hebrew class, is it not cowardly and unjust that in the extreme to calumniate a sect for the sins of one? Spotless indeed would be the flock entirely minus of black sheep. The Jew predominates in the neighbourhood where I am and have been residing for years, but notwithstanding the crimes committed by the members of our so- called Christian race average at least 99 per cent, in excess of those imputed by the Jews. Therefore if there were base enough to take a mean advantage of this knowledge, and impugn and molest every respectable Christian pedestrian they chanced to meet, no doubt riot and disorder would be the result daily. "Hard words break no bones," but often they lead to that end. The Jew is certainly no coward when on the defensive and if such conduct as I personally witnessed on Saturday last is not suppressed, the consequences may be serious indeed. My knowledge of the Jews impresses me with the belief that they are a persevering, thrifty and generous race. Clannish they may be, and it is a pity there is not more of such brotherly feeling existing among Christians; again, seldom have I seen a subscription list opened for the benefit of a deserving Christian that has not been contributed to by the Jews. Those who forget themselves so far as to insult them in the manner I have stated should put the query to each other, "What would our Christian labour market be (especially in this district) without the industry introduced by the Hebrew race? If your space will admit of giving publicity to the remarks made from a lover of fair play, it may be the means of deterring the self-imagined, pure-minded Christian, in abusing the people I have mentioned, and also teach him to endeavour "to pick the mote from his own eye," instead of molesting a harmless and industrious fraternity. I am, &e.,

48 and 49, Bishopsgate-street, Without, G. H. H.
September 10."

GHH was later identified by The Jewish World as George Henry Hutt, Gaoler at Bishopsgate Police Station who dealt with Eddowes some weeks after writing this letter.

Monty

Cracking post Monty - and quite apposite...

All the best

Dave

[Fleetwood Mac]

What does the word "pogrom" mean to you?

In my defence, I studied history at university - international relations 1870-1945.

I hold an elementary grasp of what went on in Eastern Europe.

The word/term 'pogrom' is of marginal importance to the point made.

The real point is that the police are like the armed forces. My father, my uncle, my cousin all served overseas. Clearly this is anecdotal, but they just can't abide disorder in any sense (not pogroms, but people putting two and two together and making a nuisance of themselves in the streets, e.g. it's the Jews let's rant in the streets about it and break the odd Jewish shop window).

Law enforecement officers love order and and a minimum of fuss - why do they wrap people in a blanket when taking them into court and lead them out the back door? Keep the peace; keep the idiots at bay; make their lives easier.

In the event you've been led a merry dance and you value your job, you really don't need more bad press and false starts - the sort caused by a sensation that turns out to be wide of the mark, even though you haven't declared anyone to be the murderer but the no marks have put two and two together and are busy scribbling nonsense on walls about Jews and mobbing up to attack people because they're bored and confused. That really is law and order.

[RivkahChaya]

Seeing as how Anderson specifically stated on several occasions that the police lacked sufficient evidence to convict the suspect (Kozminski), I do not see how you think anyone is arguing that the Police declined to press for a prosecution because the suspect was Jewish.

I think it's a pretty fair consideration that the police wanted a trial of a Jewish suspect to be unimpeachable, and a so-called "slam-dunk," and that they were not willing to release the name of the suspect before that.

Even if he weren't Jewish, anyone brought to trial for the Ripper crimes, and acquitted because the jury found that case unconvincing was likely to be lynched, and how much more likely if he already belonged to a suspect class? and it could lead to general rioting.

Look what happened after the Casey Anthony trials: several young women in the Florida area who resembled Anthony were continually harassed in public; one was physically assaulted, and one IIRC, had dog crap thrown on her. They all ended up doing things like leaving the area, or dying their hair blonde. Of course, one woman, in Oklahoma (which is about a 19 hour drive from Florida), named Sammary Blackwell, was stalked after leaving her job, and followed in her vehicle, by another woman, who chased her down, rear-ended her, and caused her to go off the road, and flip over. A man named Casey Anthony was even harassed on Facebook.

It seems to me quite obvious that if they had sufficient evidence, they would have pressed charges, regardless of the fact that he was Jewish.

I agree, but I can see why they would want to be very certain, not just that they had the man, but that they could make the case, which are two entirely different things.

About the wording pogrom... I do not know if the word generally connotes a government sanctioned attack on a group of people.

I suppose government-sanctioned is too strong a word, from the gentile side of things, but to Jews, there would be no help forthcoming in a pogrom, from the authorities, which is why the idea of "preventing pogroms" rung strangely to me.

The word is Russian in origin, and means "devastation."

Yes, I know; technically, it means "by storm," and it "po grom." "Po" is "by." You'd probably use the instrumental case, which IIRC, would make it "gromam." (Don't quote me on that.) I guess it got shortened to just the main word.

Yiddish doesn't have an instrumental case, and when you are speaking Yiddish, "pogrom," as a loan word, I guess means something a little different that just being harassed. In Russia and the Ukraine, pogroms almost always proceeded a forced relocation. I suppose in the minds of the government, it was for the Jews own good, because you couldn't have them getting beat up all the time (heh, heh).

So, I guess Jews could have the cause and effect mixed up, but I do know Yiddish speaking Jews to whom the word "pogrom" pretty much means "forced relocation with gratuitous violence."

That doesn't make either one of us wrong-- it just means the word has different connotations among Jews and gentiles, and possibly on each side of the pond. Sorry to muddy the waters.

[Monty]

This from the Evening News 11 September 1888 -

"THE EDITOR'S DRAW.
SLAUGHTERING THE JEWS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "EVENING NEWS."

SIR - with reference to the above heading, on Saturday, evening last, I found it difficult to traverse the streets in the vicinity of the Whitechapel, without observing in almost every thoroughfare , knots of persons (consisting of men, women and children), and overhearing their slanderous and insulting remarks towards the Jews, who occasionally passed by. With justice to my countrymen, I mention that the foul epithets was made use of by people of the most ignorant and dangerous class, promoted by the information they had casually obtained that a man known as "Leather Apron" had a Jewish appearance, and was wanted for the recent Whitechapel murders. Even were it the case that the actual perpetrator belonged to the Hebrew class, is it not cowardly and unjust that in the extreme to calumniate a sect for the sins of one? Spotless indeed would be the flock entirely minus of black sheep. The Jew predominates in the neighbourhood where I am and have been residing for years, but notwithstanding the crimes committed by the members of our so- called Christian race average at least 99 per cent, in excess of those imputed by the Jews. Therefore if there were base enough to take a mean advantage of this knowledge, and impugn and molest every respectable Christian pedestrian they chanced to meet, no doubt riot and disorder would be the result daily. "Hard words break no bones," but often they lead to that end. The Jew is certainly no coward when on the defensive and if such conduct as I personally witnessed on Saturday last is not suppressed, the consequences may be serious indeed. My knowledge of the Jews impresses me with the belief that they are a persevering, thrifty and generous race. Clannish they may be, and it is a pity there is not more of such brotherly feeling existing among Christians; again, seldom have I seen a subscription list opened for the benefit of a deserving Christian that has not been contributed to by the Jews. Those who forget themselves so far as to insult them in the manner I have stated should put the query to each other, "What would our Christian labour market be (especially in this district) without the industry introduced by the Hebrew race? If your space will admit of giving publicity to the remarks made from a lover of fair play, it may be the means of deterring the self-imagined, pure-minded Christian, in abusing the people I have mentioned, and also teach him to endeavour "to pick the mote from his own eye," instead of molesting a harmless and industrious fraternity. I am, &e.,

48 and 49, Bishopsgate-street, Without, G. H. H.
September 10."

GHH was later identified by The Jewish World as George Henry Hutt, Gaoler at Bishopsgate Police Station who dealt with Eddowes some weeks after writing this letter.

Monty

[Lechmere]

Rob
I think your usage of the word pogrom is fair enough
I wasn’t specifically aiming my comments about the ‘establishment’s’ potential action with regard to a Jewish culprit at you.
It has however been suggested that the alleged Seaside Home ID was influenced somehow by a desire to keep the Jewish angle from the public gaze and that the reluctance to initiate criminal proceedings based on whatever evidence was the had (none in my opinion but that’s another story) was similarly influenced and that explained why Kosminski was quietly sent to an asylum instead.

Regarding Anderson’s comments, even though made some twenty years after the fact, I pointed out that anti-Jewish agitation in the East End was more widespread in the 1900s than in the 1890s.
I would also suggest that interest in the Ripper had barely diminished, even if the immediate hysteria had abated.

It remains a rather obvious point that the proposition that there was an official desire to mask the Jewish identity of the supposed no 1 suspect is undermined by Anderson’s blabbing, which so far as I am aware was not censured on those grounds from any sort of official source.

[Fisherman]

I do not see how you think anyone is arguing that the Police declined to press for a prosecution because the suspect was Jewish. It seems to me quite obvious that if they had sufficient evidence, they would have pressed charges, regardless of the fact that he was Jewish.

RH

You may have missed this passage in Edward´s post 179, Rob:

" English society in the late 19th century was, in my opinion, more ready to stand up for what was right (i.e not hush up a case to possibly protect a small community) and was confident enough in its power and inate legitimacy to face the consequences. "

What Edward is saying is not that they would not have pressed charges against a Jew - or anything else - but instead that it would be strange for a man like Anderson to first honour "the traditions of his old department" for twenty years, only to then spill the beans.
He could easily make his case without any mentioning of the suspect´s religion. And there was no more of a public need or right to share in the information in 1908 or 1920, than there had been before.

If Anderson was to stay true to the traditions of his department wholly and fully, he really needed to take what had been agreed on to be a secret by the looks of things, along with him to his grave. Á la MacNaghten, as it were.

All the best,
Fisherman

[robhouse]

I think that according to the prevailing consensus in the usage of the term, a 'pogrom' isn’t a specifically anti-Jewish outbreak (although it often is), nor do they necessarily occur with official endorsement.

But I repeat, I do not think the ‘authorities’ would have shrunk form naming and attempting to convict a Jewish culprit.
Any such decision would have had to have been made at the Home Office and there is zero evidence of there even being a whisper to suggest this happened.

It is one thing to remove some graffiti that had been recorded and quite another to avoid prosecuting a suspect.
Warren’s authorisation of the graffiti removal was a contributory factor in his demise and he had to explain himself to the Home Office.

If there was official sensitivity about a leading Jewish suspect then Anderson’s comments in ‘Blackwood’s’ and ‘The Lighter Side of My Official Life’ are inexplicable.

Seeing as how Anderson specifically stated on several occasions that the police lacked sufficient evidence to convict the suspect (Kozminski), I do not see how you think anyone is arguing that the Police declined to press for a prosecution because the suspect was Jewish. It seems to me quite obvious that if they had sufficient evidence, they would have pressed charges, regardless of the fact that he was Jewish.

Moreover, I think there is an obvious difference between not releasing this information at the height of the Ripper scare, or even several years after, when the public still got in a tizzy whenever there was a Ripper-like murder, and releasing this information more than 20 years (indeed almost a quarter century) after the crimes occurred.

About the wording pogrom... I do not know if the word generally connotes a government sanctioned attack on a group of people. The word is Russian in origin, and means "devastation." The reason I used the word pogrom in my book, to mean a potential outbreak of attacks against Jews in the East End was simply to create a comparison with the ways the Jews had been treated in Russia. And also because a Jewish London newspaper used the same word, suggesting that pogroms might break out in the East End:

"Go any Sabbath afternoon to Whitechapel and stand for a few moments in a doorway near where some English workers lounge with their pipes in their mouths, and you will hear, every time a Jew passes by, the lovely calling ‘Bloody Jew!’ Is this a token of love?

At the same time in Brick Lane you will often see dolled up Jewish women, girls with golden rings on their fingers sitting outside in the street. Look in the eyes of the passing Englishmen and can’t you discern the look—which is already half indicative of a pogrom... A pogrom in Brick Lane, in the crossroads of Commercial Road can be a more bloody and terrible affair than one in the Baltic."

-- The Poilishe Yidl, October 1884


RH

[Lechmere]

I think that according to the prevailing consensus in the usage of the term, a 'pogrom' isn’t a specifically anti-Jewish outbreak (although it often is), nor do they necessarily occur with official endorsement.

But I repeat, I do not think the ‘authorities’ would have shrunk form naming and attempting to convict a Jewish culprit.
Any such decision would have had to have been made at the Home Office and there is zero evidence of there even being a whisper to suggest this happened.

It is one thing to remove some graffiti that had been recorded and quite another to avoid prosecuting a suspect.
Warren’s authorisation of the graffiti removal was a contributory factor in his demise and he had to explain himself to the Home Office.

If there was official sensitivity about a leading Jewish suspect then Anderson’s comments in ‘Blackwood’s’ and ‘The Lighter Side of My Official Life’ are inexplicable.