Let´s talk about that identification again

[Lechmere]

Rob
So the Jewish witness was convalescing in a private home that happens to be by the sea somewhere and the Ripper suspect is taken there with escort for an informal ID of some sort?

Fleetwood
A further point on the police potentially deciding not to take overt action to avoid civil disorder - I would suggest that Home Office approval would have been required before such a political decision was made. There is not the slightest hint that this happened. I am sure anderson and the marginalia would have used the opportunity to pass the buck with a 'not me guv' excuse for a lack of a conviction.

[robhouse]

Rob
So the Jewish witness was convalescing in a private home that happens to be by the sea somewhere and the Ripper suspect is taken there with escort for an informal ID of some sort?

There were some 70 or more convalescent homes along the English coast, many in the south. The witness may have been staying in Brighton at one of them. And thus, the police may have gone there and arranged to have the identification take place at the Police Convalescent Home. Is that difficult to understand?

RH

[Lechmere]

Rob
It is only difficult to understand because it has not been explained clearly.

So the witness was staying at a private convalescent home in the Brighton area. The suspect was taken to the Police Convalescent Home. The witness was then also taken to the Police Convalescent Home which would have been quite close by, and the ID took place there?

[Fisherman]

Garry:

"Thanks, Fish. Remember, however, that the depiction of Kosminski as a homicidal maniac emanated from Macnaghten – the man who also cast Ostrog as a homicidal maniac without any foundation whatsoever."

True - at least on the surface of things. I do, however, think that we can see this archetypical killer being shaped before MacNaghten jotted down his memoranda. In a sense, it is as if Kosminski is then cast in the killer´s role - just as Ostrog was. But you are of course correct in pointing out that MacNaghtens name clings to the matter.

"Context is everything, Fish. Investigators would have sought to avoid a repetition of the Pizer debacle, and the Kosminski family wouldn’t have welcomed the prospect of facing the same lynch mob that had threatened to tear Pizer to pieces. Given such a situation it would have made perfect sense to conduct the identification in secret and at a venue well out of the orbit of the same journalists whose lurid stories had fanned the flames of the Pizer affair."

Well, it´s the family business that makes potential sense to me here - if, as you postulated, the family was claiming no guilt at all on Aaron´s behalf, whereas the Met said he was their man, then I can see how the police could have been forced, more or less, to meet the family´s demands on an ID issue. And on that issue, let´s not forget that Aarons brother Isaac (if I remember correctly) was the owner of a seaside house.
I don´t think that it has been established that he owned the property in 1888, but the possibility is there, I believe. And if so, could it be that the ID was performed there - in a setting where the Kosminskis felt at ease? Just thinking out loud here!
Otherwise, I´m still of the meaning that without any external pressure - like the one coming from the family as outlined - the police would not take Aaron all the way to Brighton just to get away from it all.

"It’s just a shame that we’re unlikely to know the full truth of the matter."

I think it is a case of us never knowing the full truth - but more than we do today. That´s the thrill and lure of Ripperology ...

The best,
Fisherman

[RivkahChaya]

So Aaron Kosminski was taken to Brighton and back secretly but with the reluctant agreement of his family so he could be identified by a Jewish witness as the ripper and this took place in this manner to protect the Jewish community from a pogrom. [emp. added]

Not sure why it's so hard to believe.

After all, the police are a law enforcement agency.

Pretty much just doing their jobs a) they are paid to prevent disorder on the streets b) they are paid to support the administration of justice.

What does the word "pogrom" mean to you? I'm not sure if it's a left-side/right-side difference, or a Jewish/gentile difference, but I've always understood "pogrom" as something condoned, or even fomented by authorities, as part of a larger program to intimidate, or begin to force Jews out of an area, rather than a spontaneous riot, which required a police response. About the only thing the authorities did during pogroms in Eastern Europe was make sure that no gentiles were hurt if Jews fought back.

So, saying that the authorities wanted to prevent a riot, or a lynching, would be understandable, but it doesn't seem to be to be using the word correctly to say they wanted to prevent a pogrom. That is practically a contradiction in terms.

It's my understanding that the civil authorities in the UK, from the Victorian era on, were as a policy, accommodating to Jews, whatever any individuals may have felt, and there were never "not on my street," sort of attempts to keep Jews from moving anywhere. Correct me if I'm wrong on that (and again, I don't mean individual bad feelings, I mean concerted efforts of an entire community), so while there may have been abuses, or even riots over specific things (and thinking that Jack the Ripper was an imported killer is understandable, if not excusable), there were not what I would call "pogroms."

[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.

[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

[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

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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