Did Anderson Know

[Trevor Marriott]

Jonathan
Well you got one thing write Jack The Ripper is a mystery.

But that mystery since 1888 has deepened so much that the real truth has become thoroughly obscured. The real true facts have been over dramatised and distorted to the extent that new researchers and the general public seem to want to accept the fiction more readily than the reality.

There is no room in the Ripper mystery for wild uncorroborated speculative theories and no room for un corroborated police officers opinions about likely suspects.

[Jeff Leahy]

Jonathan

There is no room in the Ripper mystery for wild uncorroborated speculative theories and no room for un corroborated police officers opinions about likely suspects.

What appears interesting about Anderson's claim is that it does appear corroborated by the Marginalia. And no one appears to have put forward any real evidence that he would have lied or made up the claim.

I except of course the possibility that they made a mistake about kosminski but of all the Ripper leads this is the best. Not least because the suspect they put forward most matches the profile of poor (ish) local man suffering mental trauma.

Its not much I agree. But its all we have.

Pirate

[Natalie Severn]

Jonathan,
I don" t disagree that historical inquiry and analysis are legitimate approaches.But I do think that the way you are presenting these,almost in counterpoint to forensic and criminal research, could be misleading.Surely the two need to go hand in hand?
Surely you cannot base the entirety of your case solely on "Macnaghten"s ""word" or Anderson"s word? while ignoring the fact that they presented no evidence-not even circumstantial to back up their claims?
That is not the pursuit of historical truth ,its like accepting what happened to the King of England at the Battle of Hastings, solely on the account that the scribes of "William the Conqueror " were told to write down and wanted us all to believe ,just because William had appropriated for himself the crown of England . In point of fact , information and evidence has now been unearthed from a different historical source altogether , an Anglo Saxon monk , totally contradicting the French account as well as what happened afterwards in terms of scorched earth devastation by William and his soldiers. So it has now become necessary to subject these two accounts to fair testing to arrive a better approximation of the truth and decide for ourselves where bias and the power of William"s authority may have twisted that truth to serve William"s wish.
Taking at their word the many and varied " theories" of who the Ripper was , by senior police such as Anderson and Macnaghten is not and never could be viewed as evidence still less as written claims that cannot be challenged simply because they happen to have been written by a senior police officer [or in Anderson"s case senior police officer and puzzled PA " which Swanson had been before writing his marginalia].
The very fact that they all seem to have contradicted one another-Anderson ,Smith ,Macnaghten cautions most who consider this case and should immediately set us on our guard and help us resist the temptation to speculate on their word without the back up of supporting hard evidence.

[harry]

It is not the suspect,but the evidence that nominates him that is at fault.There never has been evidence that an identification was made,there has only been a claim that it was so.A claim that has no backing,and would not stand the slightest chance of being accepted in any court of law,neither now nor then.So why should it be accepted here on these boards.Reverse the onus of proof, and see where that leads.

[Trevor Marriott]

What appears interesting about Anderson's claim is that it does appear corroborated by the Marginalia. And no one appears to have put forward any real evidence that he would have lied or made up the claim.

I except of course the possibility that they made a mistake about kosminski but of all the Ripper leads this is the best. Not least because the suspect they put forward most matches the profile of poor (ish) local man suffering mental trauma.

Its not much I agree. But its all we have.

Pirate

There have always been doubts surrounding the marginalia and they have been fully documented and aried on here so i am not going to start that debate up again

Anderson was superior to Swanson, logically if swanson knew the name of the ripper (Kosminski) why didnt Anderson and if he had have known surely he would have written the name instead of just referring to a polish jew

[Jeff Leahy]

There have always been doubts surrounding the marginalia and they have been fully documented and aried on here so i am not going to start that debate up again

Very wise, you could not possibly win.

Anderson was superior to Swanson, logically if swanson knew the name of the ripper (Kosminski) why didnt Anderson and if he had have known surely he would have written the name instead of just referring to a polish jew

Its most unlikely Anderson didn't know the name. He clearly had his reasons for not divulging it, speculation is simply why?

But hardly surprising.

Pirate

[Jeff Leahy]

It is not the suspect,but the evidence that nominates him that is at fault.There never has been evidence that an identification was made,there has only been a claim that it was so.A claim that has no backing,and would not stand the slightest chance of being accepted in any court of law,neither now nor then.So why should it be accepted here on these boards.Reverse the onus of proof, and see where that leads.

I dont think anyone is claiming it would stand up in court. It clearly wouldn't at the time and wouldn't now.

What is being claimed is that this is the best lead we have in a case full of very poor leads. No one is ever going to 'prove' the case now. If you want proof your probably on the wrong site.

Pirate

[Stewart P Evans]

Where?

What appears interesting about Anderson's claim is that it does appear corroborated by the Marginalia. And no one appears to have put forward any real evidence that he would have lied or made up the claim...
Pirate

Now where have I heard that before?

There is plenty of real evidence that Anderson would lie and/or made up the claim. You obviously haven't internalized all that has gone before.

[Stewart P Evans]

Pleased

I dont think anyone is claiming it would stand up in court. It clearly wouldn't at the time and wouldn't now.
What is being claimed is that this is the best lead we have in a case full of very poor leads. No one is ever going to 'prove' the case now. If you want proof your probably on the wrong site.
Pirate

I am pleased to see the use of the word 'claim' as I think there are many who would disagree that 'this is the best lead'.

[Jeff Leahy]

Now where have I heard that before?

There is plenty of real evidence that Anderson would lie and/or made up the claim. You obviously haven't internalized all that has gone before.

On the contrary I have given considerable time and thought to the question. And certainly taken onboard the various expert opinions.

I have simply reached the conclusion, given the balance, that some elements of truth exist in the identification story.

I readily except the various problems with that story and whether or not Swanson and Anderson were correct in their conclusion?

So I'm not saying Anderson 'Knew' I saying he probably 'knew' more than we do.

Pirate

[Jeff Leahy]

I am pleased to see the use of the word 'claim' as I think there are many who would disagree that 'this is the best lead'.

Tis the nature of Ripperology.

Pirate

[Jonathan H]

To Natalie

But that is the point I have been trying to make all along.

Sources which have an inherent bias must be treated with caution, though not dumped either. Anderson and/or Swanson chose a suspect, un-named in public, who seems to fit all too neatly the sectarian prejudices of the time: mad, poor, foreign, local, and not a Christian.

On the other hand, Anderson seems to have been a genuine admirer of Jewish theology and, unusually for the time, happily mixed with English Hebrews on a social level. Therefore, he may have preferred that the Ripper not be a Jew, but honestly came to the conclusion that the murders were committed by this particular Jew.

Yet, Macnaghten rejected the Jewish suspect in favor of a fellow Gentile gentleman and belatedly admitted, in the one public document under his own name about the Ripper, that this suspect was unknown to police until 'some years after' he killed himself. Arguably, both of those elements go against the expected bias of the source.

I do not think a great deal of the book Dan Farson eventually published in 1972, his tome being too thin, too obsessed with a bum lead, too over-reaching in its conclusion, and totally off-track claiming Druitt was a contemporaneous suspect [Mac's memoirs are as usual misunderstood].

Nevertheless, there are lines and thoughts in it I do agree with, provisionally speaking.

'The suicide in the Thames is no evidence in itself. Yet at the very point where the evidence might seem weakest, I can see its strength ... Druitt was the last person to be suspected unless there was evidence ... The very 'innocence' of such a man suggests he must have been guilty to be suspected in the first place.'

JACK THE RIPPER
p. 125, History Book Club

If there was evidence against Druitt, for example the testimony of the brother or a written confession, it is long gone. What is left is a jaunty amateur's claim that there was evidence which he destroyed. The Etonian 'hail fellow-well met' attitude of Macnaghten would bend over backwards to get Druitt off, to reassure the family -- if he had any contact with them at all -- that they must be mistaken.

Perhaps Macnaghten just hated Anderson so much he chose a suspect who would upset his boss: the antithesis of Kosminski?

On the other hand, the Edwardian propaganda Mac engaged in with Sims gave backhanded praise to the CID of 1888 for allegedly nearly catching the killer, which is unavoidably praise for Anderson [which maybe why Anderson never challenged this rep-enhancing paradigm in public, just switched prime suspects: Jack the Jew, not Jack the Cricketer]

The Tory MP is another gentleman whom we would not expect to want to believe in a fellow Gentleman, and an ex-constituency member, to be the Ripper -- yet it was apparently his 'doctrine'. People who heard the story as he told it were 'convinced'. One of them was so thrilled they leaked it to the press who treated it like Macnaghten: a fabulous scoop which has to be handled, even mangled, due to fear over the libel laws. On the other hand, Farquharson may have been a complete twit who believed that fairies lived at the bottom of his garden?

But would not Mac know this too?

But then what did he really know ...?

Another issue I have with some people's approach to this conundrum of the competing police suspects is that they do not take into account that this competition was not conducted in isolation. In Feb/March 1891 all these suspects may have come into play in a rush: Druitt, Sadler, Kosminski, even Cutbush. I think there was furious jostling, and lobbying, and backbiting, which is all veiled from us by too-discreet memoirs which nevertheless seethe with mutual enmity.

Furthermore, this sudden gusher of suspects maybe how Kosminski became known to Macnaghten and/or Anderson at all.

In that the hunt for the hapless sailor flushed out the information about the Polish Jew suspect. That a Kosminski -- or somebody who knew them well enough to be intimate with their deepest fears -- approached the police during the Sadler imbroglio, anxious not to see an innocent man charged with murders they believed, rightly or wrongly, Aaron had committed?

[Scott Nelson]

In Feb/March 1891 all these suspects may have come into play in a rush: Druitt, Sadler, Kosminski, even Cutbush.

Yes, I don't think it needs to be any more complicated than that.

[Natalie Severn]

Yes Jonathan,thoughtful and thought provoking ideas in there! I really enjoyed reading this last post I must say.
Its getting late here so must leave any further thinking on this till tomorrow.
Best
Norma

[Jonathan H]

Thanks Natalie.

By the way do you have a favorite Ripper movie?

Mine are 'Time After Time' (1979), 'The Lodger' (1927) and, in a sequence inspired by the Whitechapel murders, 'The Ruling Class' with O'Toole in 1972.

Which reminds me. We have just had Down Under the first two episodes of the UK TV series: 'Whitechapel'.

God, its awful!?