Ripperologist 117

[mariab]

Lynn Cates:
Well, the money is not important
That's what I've been saying all along. Incidentally, haven't eaten since 2 days, am preserved on love and tap water...

[lynn cates]

money

Hello Maria. Well, the money is not important (choke! gasp! did a Scotsman actually say that?); the information IS very important.

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Lynn,
As next I'll research Rachkovsky and his fellas (as well as Le Grand and even Ostrog) in the Police de Sûreté files in the archives of the Police Museum. Depending on if I find anything there, I'll consider going through the 15/16 boxes pertaining to Franco-Russian pre-revolutionary relations at the Archives Nationales.
Lynn Cates wrote:
So, you will go through the files for L119? (heh-heh)

You know, I think that Scott Nelson and Simon Wood are located in California? But they don't read Russian. (I also have an ex in San Clemente. Hardly reads any English – but surfs like a Pro. Maybe I can persuade him to go beat up your student researcher there and collect the L120 back.) Also my Chicago boss sometimes goes to Stanford. But he already messed up in Lyon with Lacassagne...

[lynn cates]

Palo Alto

Hello Maria. I'm not sure how hard she worked but an inventory would have been lovely. But, as you point out, the logistics are murder.

So, you will go through the files for L119? (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

strike

Hello Maria. Butterworth indicates that it coincided with the matchgirls' strike, summer of 1888. He also has a vague reference to Rachkovski's as a possible visit in June 1888.

It is to firm up some of this that I so desperately wished to get at the Okhrana files in Palo Alto. Time for me to study Cyrillic script?

I'm delighted to hear that you may be able to search the Paris files.

Good luck!

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Lynn Cates wrote:
My student researcher reported back in about 1 sentence: "Nah, I don't see anything you'd be interested in." Along with this negative dictum I received the bill for L120.
What a lazy slug! He's hardly been into this for a month. Lynn, you should ask him for a list of the contents of ALL microfilms he's gone through or refuse to pay him. As easy as that.
I happen to know of a very serious person at Oxford who reads (and translates) perfect Russian, and she might know a few things about anarchism in pre-revolutionary Russia. But how are you planning to solve the location problem – to Palo Alto?
Lynn, don't worry about Paris, I might manage going through the entire Franco-Russian 15/16 boxes in March. (And I don't need L120 to engage in this.)

[mariab]

No Tom, Le Grand's add is not a find by Debra Arif (for once!), but a find by Lynn himself, posted in the Examiner 2 thread in late July 2010. (I happen to recall this, as I first read about this find at the Johannesburg airport.)

Lynn,
can you clarify when Piòtr Rachkovsky arrived in London from Paris vs. when Le Grand's add appeared for the last time in the papers?
As you might recall, unfortunately I haven't found anything on Wladyslaw Milevsky at the Paris Archives Nationales, but the sources left there are very scarce.
Depending on what I find in the Paris police and tribunal archives in March, you'll be happy to hear that I'm considering having a look inside the Franco-Russian boxes at the Archives Nationales. I might even consider going through all 16 boxes of them (which can be done in 3-4 days).

[lynn cates]

here it is

Hello Tom. I think I posted this before. He is hawking his agency and hiring out to trace missing persons. The divorce angle is the prominent one. The Casebook consensus seems to be that he could help trace infidelity of a spouse as a pretext for divorce.

This is from Lloyd's, June 1888.

Cheers.
LC

[Tom_Wescott]

Now, here is a tit bit designed both to titillate and motivate research interest. Le Grand advertised his detective agency in June 1888. Pyotr Rachkovski, Paris Okhrana bureau chief, due to growing alarm at the proliferation of Russian/Jewish anarchists in the East end of London, went on a 6 month trip (beginning in June 1888) to set up a branch office there. He hired Wladyslaw Milevsky to take charge of operations, who in turn hired an ex-SY man as his agent. Le Grand seems not to have run his ad after the trip. Did he land a big customer?

Very intriguing indeed! Where did Le Grand publish his ad? Do you have a scan of this ad available? I'm aware of his flyer ("Where all the European languages are spoken"). Is this ad an Arif find that I've forgotten about?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[lynn cates]

kids

Hello Maria. My student researcher reported back in about 1 sentence: "Nah, I don't see anything you'd be interested in." Along with this negative dictum I received the bill for L120.

I am looking for someone who knows things Ripper AND who reads Cyrillic script. Sounds like a job for Gareth Williams, but I think he has a life already.

Hope to get on the sweaters list this week end--my academic sweating is nearly over for this term.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

both

Hello Tom. I look forward to your article.

If my information about the Okhrana is correct, it may be possible for you to combine your research interests, because:

1. The Okhrana, according to Fischer, liked to hire local private investigators when operating on foreign soil.

and

2. A large cross section of anarchists were doing double duty, some with the Okhrana, some with SY. (Charles Mowbray is one shocking example of this.)

Now, here is a tit bit designed both to titillate and motivate research interest. Le Grand advertised his detective agency in June 1888. Pyotr Rachkovski, Paris Okhrana bureau chief, due to growing alarm at the proliferation of Russian/Jewish anarchists in the East end of London, went on a 6 month trip (beginning in June 1888) to set up a branch office there. He hired Wladyslaw Milevsky to take charge of operations, who in turn hired an ex-SY man as his agent. Le Grand seems not to have run his ad after the trip. Did he land a big customer?

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Lynn Cates wrote:
Right now, I am searching for someone who reads Cyrillic script and who can search the voluminous correspondence which is the Okhrana files, archived at the Hoover Institution in Palo Alto California, at Stanford University.
I thought you had already engaged someone at Stanford to do this, Lynn? Have you encountered any complications pertaining to this project?
I've just emailed you with the internet links to sweater lists (courtesy of Debra Arif and Chris Phillips) for researching a possible connection between William Wess and Israel Schwartz. There's no point for me to engage in such a search, as I'll no doubt encounter tons of names of Victorian minor anarchists who I won't be able to identify from Adam. Also, for the parlipapers link it might be of benefit if you approach it from your University's site.
I'll post the French translations in your Kaufmann thread ASAP, followed by more French spy reports about Whitechapel anarchist activity.
And in a week or two I hope to be able to research BS. I've thought of 2 ways of researching him, through tribunal and police files – but for the latter, I very much doubt that anything might have survived.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Fiona. I've held back from commenting on your article because I have one coming out in Casebook Examiner in a few days discussing a fascinating connection between five or so 'suspects', all of whom knew each other. In some ways it touches upon art and anarchy. Once that's out and I can discuss its contents, I'd be curious to exchange feedback and see what Lynn and others think as well. Outside of Le Grand, the anarchy/socialist connection is probably the area of research I'm most interested in pursuing.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[lynn cates]

errata

Hello Fiona. I agree that no stone should be left unturned.

Given that de la Ree Bott and Nettlau are identical, would the mathematical plan (etc) refer to a motive for the killings themselves or the clue left in the writings? I should hardly think the former given the haste with which C3 & C4 were performed.

On the other hand, if the remark is made as a guide to a possible deposited clue, it would not be implausible.

My intuition says (for what little it is worth) that this is a young scholar who wishes to bring his work to the attention of the public. Still, I am not prepared to dismiss it out of hand.

As I said, my IISG files contain mostly signatures of the Hammmersmith club members. I think I posted some of that on my Kaufmann thread under general discussion. If I still have some of these and if you'd like a copy, just PM me with your email address.

I hope shortly to obtain some of the Victor Dave files relating to his feud with Peukert. Each man charged the other with being a police spy. Dave was a member of the council at the Hammersmith club.

Perhaps I can look into the Nettlau files as well, now that I have a couple of spare minutes.

Cheers.
LC

[Fi Saint]

Hi Lynn,

I would love to look at the records you have. For what it's worth, this is my theory about Nettlau...

On November 3rd 1888, a statement was made to the Metropolitan police in London by a man who claimed to have information about the “Whitechapel outrages” {Hatfield House, transcript no. 3M/E 176}. The man’s name was recorded by the policeman who took his statement as Charles de la Rée Bott. De la Rée Bott stated that the murders "may have been committed by perhaps twenty persons with connivance". {This and other excepts of the statement were made public for the first time in Trevor Marriott’s 2007 book Jack the Ripper, A Twenty-First Century Investigation}

The word ‘connivance’ has several shades of meaning, but as a legal term, it has a very specific one: to give tacit consent to wrong-doing by another. De la Rée Bott added that the murders “are stopped for the present unless they occur again for mere bravado". Less than a week later, of course, the murder took place of Mary Kelly, a crime of such audacity that it is I guess possible to see it as an act of bravado.

According to the transcript, Sir Charles Warren apparently considered de la Rée Bott to be “an educated man”, who although he appeared “to have some eccentric ideas”, was “probably not a lunatic”. Nevertheless, the police seem to have ignored his statement, which had been made with the motive of obtaining an audience with Crown or Government in order to put forward “a plan”. De la Rée Bott explained that the plan was not intended for the ears of the police, because it was “mathematical, archaeological, classical and scientific and requires a man of education to understand”.

In the middle of his statement, Charles de la Rée Bott made a most curious digressesion, complaining that he had been unable to publish his Celtic studies. He said: “the Blasphemy Laws … have prevented me from publishing my book “Celtic” which took me five years to write – five years of wasted labour”.

If the Chief Commissioner was correct in his assumption that de la Rée Bott was in full possession of his intellectual faculties at the time he made the statement, then there has to be a very good reason he mentioned his Celtic studies in the middle of his statement, which otherwise, in this context, makes no sense at all.

As I am sure you are aware, Max Nettlau was in London in 1885 finishing his PhD and while there became a member of William Morris’ Socialist League. He began to collect papers and documents relating to the anarchist movement and amongst the entire collection now housed in the IISH in Amsterdam - all relating to anarchist matters - are thirteen files containing Nettlau’s studies of Celtic grammar.

As the online introduction to the archives states: “Where his Celtic studies are concerned the volumes of notes may still contain some interesting information according to Nettlau in 1919. It continues: “Also still of interest to the expert he thought the excepts and copies in folio made in London and Oxford in 1885 – 6, which could not be identified, but if present can only be mixed in with his notes relating to Welsh and Irish text (inv. No 1433 – 1438).”

Is this 'interesting information' about the murders. Did Nettlau have the foresight to bury what would have undoubtedly been at the time incendiary information where it was absolutely guaranteed to remain undisturbed (unless anyone knew where to look): among his PhD dissertations relating to the grammatical obscurities of the Cymric language? And did he have the presence of mind to leave the key to this fact – the Celtic reference - in his statement to the police, knowing the request of a young student for an audience with the heads of state would never be taken seriously – but that it would have to be recorded and therefore preserved for posterity?

Writing in 1919, Nettlau himself was doubtful the ‘interesting information’ would even still “be there”. Nevertheless this is obviously a stone which ought not to be left unturned.

Could his “twenty” be a thinly veiled reference to les Vingt? ('les XX')

Fi