Witness Testimony: Albert Cadosche

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

An interesting article here, complete with a raft of contemporary sources.

Policing the Ghetto: Jewish East London, 1880-1920 (openedition.org)

It includes:

It was the singularity of Jewish culture and customs that was most striking. The newcomers, though quarrelsome and noisy, were essentially private people not much given to brawling and boozing or the lower forms of street life. Their home-centredness found expression in the attention lavished upon children, in the rarity of wife-beating and in their generally orderly conduct. The ‘Jewish type’ of child, said Inspector Reid, was fairly dressed, clean, well-fed and booted. ‘Jews rarely get drunk’, said Inspector Barker, his colleague from the Bethnal green Division. ‘Jew women as a rule lead happier lives than Gentile women, more respected by the husband and more faithful’

Reading the article, you can understand why the GSG was some idiot with nothing better to do than scrawl racist nonsense on a wall, and nothing whatsoever to do with the murder.

The study you quoted above is one of the sources for the statements I have been making about the rarity of public displays of drunkenness and violence towards women among Jews in the East East of London.

I believe I quoted Inspector Barker on another thread many moons ago.

I also quoted the following:

During the whole time I had charge there I never saw a drunken Jew. I always found them industrious, and good fellows to live among.

(Inspector Edmund Reid,
Lloyd's Weekly London Newspaper, 4th February, 1912)

I would also cite # 426 in A photograph of Joseph Lawende in 1899

in which I quoted from the same study as the one from which you quoted, as well as other sources, in reference to the Whitechapel murders, as well as the assault on Stride.

One of my sources was a police officer who witnessed the accusations being made against the Jews on the very day of the Hanbury Street murder, three days before Elizabeth Long told police about a dark 'foreigner'.

He was not the only policeman to note that the accusations, so readily made, were based on nothing more than prejudice.

Soon after the Hanbury Street murder, young men marched down Hanbury Street chanting that the murder had been committed by a Jew - on a day which happened to be the holiest Sabbath in the Jewish calendar.

There also appeared an erroneous newspaper report that the murderer had left a chalked message in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street.

I commend your post for its quotation from Englander's study, but cannot see why you think it supports your final comment.

I suggest that the scene was set for the murderer to give the public what it wanted: a chalked message pointing an accusatory finger at you know whom.

And on the night of the next murders, after a body was found outside a Jewish club, an item of bloody clothing from the latest victim just happened to be left next to a message accusing the Jews.

[Fleetwood Mac]

The study you quoted above is one of the sources for the statements I have been making about the rarity of public displays of drunkenness and violence towards women among Jews in the East East of London.

I suggest that the scene was set for the murderer to give the public what it wanted: a chalked message pointing an accusatory finger at you know whom.

I suppose for the exact same reason I agree with you on the idea that the supposed BS man was Jewish.

That is statistically unlikely as is a murderer writing his thoughts on a wall.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I suppose for the exact same reason I agree with you on the idea that the supposed BS man was Jewish.

That is statistically unlikely as is a murderer writing his thoughts on a wall.

If I understand your first sentence correctly, you mean that the idea of a Jew writing the graffito is as farfetched as that of a Jew shouting the insult as Schwartz passed by.

But how likely is it that the murderer would have taken the trouble, as well as the risk, of taking a piece of his victim's apron all the way to Spitalfields and then discarding it inside the entrance to a building which he must have known to be inhabited by Jews, and that a message about the Jews happened to have been chalked on the entrance, without having been erased?

[Herlock Sholmes]

We could imagine anything and everything, but that won't get us any farther than 'imagining'.

It seems that Jewish customs were not as in tune with 'boozing and brawling'.

Is it your belief that all individuals conform to the group beliefs and behavioural tendency's of their own ethnic or religious group? I’d suggest that the police would be more than happy if this was indeed the case and that they could simply eliminate suspects on the grounds of “well we know that German Catholics never do x.”

These are the perils of generalisation.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

There were notorious cases in central Europe and Imperial Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries of Jews being tried for murdering and mutilating a woman or child.

In each case, they were eventually acquitted.

The same ideas permeated the Whitechapel murders case, with allusions to mutilation and ritual slaughter and with the marchers down Hanbury Street declaring that only a Jew could have committed the murders.

Witness sightings of suspicious-looking Jews abound in such cases, including the insinuations made by Long and Hutchinson, and those made against Piser.

One of those ideas was revived by Odell in the mid 1960s.

The great impetus behind the claims and suspicions that a Jew committed the murders is the memoir written by Sir Robert Anderson, in which he alleged that it was obvious that the murderer had to be a Polish Jew because only Polish Jews would protect the murderer.

It can hardly be denied that the whole basis of his case is prejudice, especially as he never cited one iota of actual evidence against the alleged Polish Jewish suspect.

There is the further - apparently unnoticed - fact that the Whitechapel murders case is only one of two cases in which Anderson claimed not only that Polish Jews perverted the course of justice, but that the murderer was himself a Jew, even though in both cases the best eyewitness evidence was that the murderer had fair hair.

It was only because of totally unfounded generalisations made long ago that the idea that the Whitechapel murderer was a Jew ever gained ground.

[Herlock Sholmes]

No one would deny the prejudice that Jews faced but this shouldn’t mean that we should assume that prejudice was the only reason for any example of a Jew being accused of something. It’s difficult to see why the police would pursue an investigation against someone purely because they thought that his ethnicity or religion made him the right ‘type’ of person for a series of horrible murders. Would they really have risked announcing an arrest only for further murders to occur? Isn’t it more likely that, rightly or wrongly, they felt they had good reason for suspecting Kosminski?

[Herlock Sholmes]

As the Lawende photograph has been mentioned I have to ask - if someone had seen Lawende across a Whitechapel Road would they have identified him as a Jew?

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

No one would deny the prejudice that Jews faced but this shouldn’t mean that we should assume that prejudice was the only reason for any example of a Jew being accused of something. Isn’t it more likely that, rightly or wrongly, they felt they had good reason for suspecting Kosminski?

I am very glad you asked that question.

There is no evidence that the police ever questioned or arrested Kosminski nor even that he was ever a suspect.

They did arrest Piser following the Hanbury Street murder, when local feelings against the local Jewish population were running high, even though the officer who arrested him said: there is no evidence whatsoever against him.

It is clear that the police investigation in general displayed no prejudice against Jews and I have never alleged that it did.

It was only many years later that police prejudice was shown - and by a retired policeman.

He accused Kosminski of being a criminal and a murderer, without citing any evidence in support of his accusations.

No-one fitting the descriptions given by Long or Hutchinson seems ever to have turned up, but the police did try to get two Gentile sailors identified.

That suggests they were pursuing sailors rather than Jews.

[Paddy Goose]

I've noticed something. I've noticed something on this thread.

Private Investigator I, you turn every thread on Casebook into a discussion of Kosminski and Anderson and the Polish Jew subject. You do this every time.

Are you aware of what your are doing? They call this being "self aware." Are you "self aware" you are doing this? Turning every thread you post into a debate about Kosminski and Anderson and the Polish Jew suspect angle? Is this what you set out to do? Do you plan to do this every time?

Because this is after all, a thread about Mr. Cadosche, a witness in the Chapman murder case.

What say you PI one?

[Darryl Kenyon]

I am very glad you asked that question.

There is no evidence that the police ever questioned or arrested Kosminski nor even that he was ever a suspect.

They did arrest Piser following the Hanbury Street murder, when local feelings against the local Jewish population were running high, even though the officer who arrested him said: there is no evidence whatsoever against him.

It is clear that the police investigation in general displayed no prejudice against Jews and I have never alleged that it did.

It was only many years later that police prejudice was shown - and by a retired policeman.

He accused Kosminski of being a criminal and a murderer, without citing any evidence in support of his accusations.

No-one fitting the descriptions given by Long or Hutchinson seems ever to have turned up, but the police did try to get two Gentile sailors identified.

That suggests they were pursuing sailors rather than Jews.

Just my view but Pizer [ failed ID, Violenia ] and Issemenchid [ attempted to be put on an ID, Mrs Fiddymont ] were suspected because well, they were reasonable persons of interest at that time. Not because of any creed, colour or nationality. Just like Sadler [ known to have been with Francis a few hours before she was murdered and had been in various fights/scuffles ], and Grainger [ stabbed Alice Graham who was a prostitute with a knife ], were. And not because of their profession.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Just my view but Pizer [ failed ID, Violenia ] and Issemenchid [ attempted to be put on an ID, Mrs Fiddymont ] were suspected because well, they were reasonable persons of interest at that time. Not because of any creed, colour or nationality. Just like Sadler [ known to have been with Francis a few hours before she was murdered and had been in various fights/scuffles ], and Grainger [ stabbed Alice Graham who was a prostitute with a knife ], were. And not because of their profession.

I agree.

I did not mean literally that they were looking only for sailor suspects.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I've noticed something. I've noticed something on this thread.

Private Investigator I, you turn every thread on Casebook into a discussion of Kosminski and Anderson and the Polish Jew subject. You do this every time.

Are you aware of what your are doing? They call this being "self aware." Are you "self aware" you are doing this? Turning every thread you post into a debate about Kosminski and Anderson and the Polish Jew suspect angle? Is this what you set out to do? Do you plan to do this every time?

Because this is after all, a thread about Mr. Cadosche, a witness in the Chapman murder case.

What say you PI one?

What I say to that is that if you check my posting history, you will see that whenever someone has raised something about or asked me about something unrelated to Cadoche or the Hanbury Street murder, I have tried to get that discussion moved to a thread dealing specifically with that topic, e.g. 'The Stride Murder' and 'A photograph of Joseph Lawende'.

[Paddy Goose]

Oh, okay, so it's not you who is changing the subject of threads.

Then please explain to me please how the subject got changed on this thread here. The Cadosche witness thread. Why is the topic now totally different? The thread has nothing to do with Cadosche now, nor the Chapman murder case for that matter.

Why is the topic now Kosminski, Anderson and the Polish Jew suspect theory? How did that happen?

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Oh, okay, so it's not you who is changing the subject of threads.

Then please explain to me please how the subject got changed on this thread here. The Cadosche witness thread. Why is the topic now totally different? The thread has nothing to do with Cadosche now, nor the Chapman murder case for that matter.

Why is the topic now Kosminski, Anderson and the Polish Jew suspect theory? How did that happen?

Elamarna made a reference to Anderson in #806.

I responded in # 813 by mentioning both Anderson and Kosminski.

Abby Normal replied in # 817:

Why couldn’t the man long saw be koz and also the ripper?

I replied in # 818, to which Fiver replied in # 819, referring to both Long and Kosminski.

I did the same in my reply in # 820.

There were further exchanges between us and then the discussion turned to Schwartz, and then in #829, I suggested moving discussion of Schwartz to The Stride Murder, where I responded to posts by Jeff and Roger in # 1299 and # 1300 respectively.

There then followed a long exchange, in which I was not involved, concerning the shouting of the insult 'Lipski!'

I eventually joined a discussion about drunkenness and violence and ethnicity and whether the murderer could have been Jewish, and in the course of a post about the long history of Jews being wrongfully accused of murder and mutilation, I mentioned Anderson, as well as Long and the Hanbury Street murder, in # 860, before replying to HS's # 861, which mentioned Kosminski, in my # 863.

I believe that answers your question.

[Herlock Sholmes]

.

It was only many years later that police prejudice was shown - and by a retired policeman.

He accused Kosminski of being a criminal and a murderer, without citing any evidence in support of his accusations.

But we have so much that is missing in this case including police records of interviews and the details of their investigations so isn’t it a bit of a leap to assume a motive of prejudice in the suggestion that they found Kosminski of interest?

That suggests they were pursuing sailors rather than Jews.

It’s also the case that the police tried to identify the three insane medical students so does this suggest that they were in any way focused on medical students?


I’d always err on the side of caution when talking about the police; especially senior ones. It’s certainly worth considering issues of failing memory or of personal agenda in trying to portray themselves or their force in a more favourable light but I think we should be wary of going further. Over the years some have sought to portray them all either as either moustache-twirling villains or Colonel Blimp-types or as outright liars. I think we should consider a more rounded option. They were human and I think that we do ourselves no favours by just dismissing anything they say as exaggeration or lies… but that’s not to say that they couldn’t have guilty of both of course.