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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **

Anderson's Suspect!

Casebook Message Boards: Police Officials: General Discussion: Anderson's Suspect!
Author: Leanne Perry
Tuesday, 21 August 2001 - 07:33 am
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Dr. Robert Anderson had achieved greater success than any detective of his time. He was appointed Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard on 31 August 1888. At the time of Annie Chapman's murder he went to Switzerland on rest-leave because of stress, and returned after the 'Double-Event'.

In an article of the 'Daily Chronicle' 1 September 1908, Anderson wrote:'In two cases of that terrible series there were distinct clues destroyed - wiped out absolutely - clues that might very easily have secured for us proof of the identity of the assassin. In one case it was a clay pipe. Before we could get to the scene of the murder the doctor had taken it up, thrown it into the fire-place and smashed it beyond recognition. In another case there was writing in chalk on the wall.....'

Anderson was obviously referring to the clay pipe found in Mary Jane Kelly's room on the morning her body was discovered.
At Kelly's inquest, Abberline explained that Joseph Barnett had told him that a clay pipe found in the room had belonged to him.

Reading page 188 of Bruce Paley's book, which describes the scene when Kelly's door was smashed in: 'Dr. Phillips was amoung the first to enter the room'. Dr. Bond was also present, but obviously Anderson wasn't. If the pipe was found soon and Barnett was able to say: "It's OK that's my pipe and I don't want it back", why did he let them break the door down to get in?

And if Anderson was satisfied with Barnett's release and innocence, why mention the destruction of the pipe as a potentially important clue?

Leanne!

Author: The Viper
Tuesday, 21 August 2001 - 08:03 am
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Leanne.
The incident referred to relates to a clay pipe belonging to Alice MacKenzie and not to the one found at Miller's Court belonging to Joe Barnett. It is mentioned in several accounts of the MacKenzie inquest. Here is one such example from the Eastern Poste.
Regards, V.

Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Tuesday, 21 August 2001 - 11:28 am
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The incident Anderson speaks of clearly relates to a doctor having thrown the pipe into a fire-grate...which seems rather a dubious statement...
but no more dubious than every other statement in this case.
Still, Anderson throws some interesting curves!
Rosey :-)

Author: Christopher T George
Tuesday, 21 August 2001 - 02:39 pm
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Hi, Leanne:

Dr. Robert Anderson was not a detective, he was an administrator in the Metropolitan Police. To those who put more weight on the opinions of "real" policemen this is one reason why his remarks on the case are dismissed.

Best regards

Chris George

Author: Leanne Perry
Tuesday, 21 August 2001 - 06:26 pm
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G'day,

I don't think his statement should be totally dismissed!

Viper: How can we be certain that Anderson's statement was about Alice Mackenzie's pipe/pipes?
I doubt it very much and I'll tell you why: The first thing to give it away was the mention of the fire-place! The only other mention of a clay pipe is in Alice Mackenzie's inquest report, so its handy for anyone that thinks Barnett could not possibly deserve a closer look.

Reading about Alice's clay pipe, I see that a mortuary attendant threw it on the ground and broke it after it fell from the victims clothing. It wasn't thrown on the fire-place by a doctor!

When the coroner asked: "Was the deceased a great smoker?"
John McCormak replied: "Yes".
Elizabeth Ryder added later: "She used to borrow pipes which were short clay ones like the one produced".

Why would Alice's pipe have been such a potential clue?

Leanne!

Author: John Hacker
Tuesday, 21 August 2001 - 07:49 pm
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Leanne,

The reason that the pipe would have been a potential clue is in the passage you cited above. "She used to borrow pipes which were short clay ones like the one produced".

The implication was that the pipe was not hers, and was possibly borrowed from the murderer. That is why it would have been an important clue, because it could have provided a hint to the killers identity.

No import would have been given to Barnett's pipe in the investigation into the death of MJK because they knew it was his. They certainly didn't need that to tie him to the murders if they had had any reason to. Apparently they didn't. Unlike the Mackenzie case, no great import was given to the pipe.

Andersen's statement in regards to the fireplace is indeed confusing, but it was 20 years after the fact and memory is imperfect at best.

John Hacker

Author: Leanne Perry
Wednesday, 22 August 2001 - 06:54 am
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G'day John,

She was known to borrow pipes, so it could have been anyones and that may have started a lot of false accusations. That wouldn't have made for effective police work!

If they could have found out how long since Barnett's pipe was lit, they'd know whether he returned there later that night or went straight to bed! Who was to say that the killer, if he wasn't Barnett, never borrowed that pipe?

Chris: Dr. Robert Anderson was a barrister in the Prison Department before he was appointed to the Metropolitan Police Force and he went on to become the head of the C.I.D.

In 1895 Major Arthur Griffiths, Inspector of Prisons, wrote in an article how Anderson achieved great success as a detective.

I admire Anderson's belief that the killer lived in the immediate neighbourhood and so was able to get rid of his blood-stains in secret, but I do not agree that this automatically made him a "low-class Jew". That comment has a ring of prejudice about it!

In 'Blackwood's Magazine' Anderson implied that the police knew who Jack the Ripper was, but he failed to name him for fear of libel action. If they were convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, why didn't they arrest him and give him the chance to prove his innocence in court? Anderson's beliefs turned sour because he told of 'low-class Jew', and because of that people want to just forget every word he said.

Before he wrote that bit, he expressed his disgust at the destruction of two clues. One was the obliteration of the chalk writing, which has caused discussion, and the other was the destruction of the clay pipe.

Leanne!

Author: Robeer
Thursday, 23 August 2001 - 01:44 am
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Does anyone know if it's true that Anderson originally thought JTR to be a young Jewish medical student? If so, what is the source of this story and what reason did he have for thinking JTR was not only a medical student, but a Jewish medical student?

Author: Leanne Perry
Thursday, 23 August 2001 - 08:12 am
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G'day Chris,

To disprove your comment that Anderson was just an administrator, let me quote selected parts from the Home Office Files dated 9 November 1888:
A letter from Charles Warren: 'The matter has been placed in the hands of Mr Anderson, Assistant Commisioner'.
A report cut from 'The Daily Telegraph' that was included with the files: '.....Mr Anderson, the recently appointed Assistant Commisioner had driven up in a cab at ten minutes to two o'clock'. So he arrived three hours after the door had been opened. That's plenty of time for a doctor to pick up a pipe and toss it in the fire!

Leanne!

Author: Jon
Thursday, 23 August 2001 - 11:25 am
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Leanne
I think the point Chris was making was that Anderson was a lawyer, assigned to the role of Assistant Police Commissioner. That he was an office waller with no actual policing experience, just a beaurocrat.
Though he had been deputy head of the Fenian Intelligence Branch in 1867.

Regards, Jon

Author: Christopher T George
Thursday, 23 August 2001 - 11:59 am
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Hi, Leanne:

I think Major Arthur Griffiths' characterization of Dr. Robert Anderson as "an ideal detective officer" is highly misleading. That Anderson was chief of the C.I.D., the detective department of Scotland Yard, is true but does not make him a detective. Rather, as you yourself have pointed out, he was a highly experienced barrister. He most assuredly was not a hands-on detective involved in the day-to-day solving of crime as we would know it and as your statement that he was a "detective" (and to which I objected) appears to imply.

Anderson was more properly a "public functionary" as he is termed in an article in the Police Review published on his retirement. This article strongly dispells the notion that Anderson even had the necessary character to be a good detective:

". . . his temperament, so admirably adapted to his social and religious proclivities, was not such as best fits one for the work of the CID. A Biblical scholar of repute, and a literary recluse, such as he is, would hardly be the man to take an active part in fighting the criminal classes of London." (Quoted in Begg et al., JtR A to Z, 3rd ed., p. 16).

Thus, as implied in this same review of Anderson's qualities as a police official, Sir Robert was remembered as an intellectual not a crime-buster.

I believe that Sir Robert Anderson's sweeping statement that it was "a definitely ascertained fact" that the Ripper was a poor Polish Jew is based not on detective work but the later opinion of a religious and sacrosant--we might even say sanctimonious--individual who mistakenly thought he remembered from his time in Scotland Yard that the case had been solved when his own papers from 1888 prove that the case had not been solved!

Best regards

Chris George

Author: David Radka
Thursday, 23 August 2001 - 12:35 pm
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Mr. George's sweeping, religious, sacrosanct, and sanctimonious assessment of something he doesn't know about and can't check up on--Dr. Anderson's contemporaneous statement that the identity of the murderer was a definitely ascertained fact--speaks volumes about the rewriting of history by those who don't respect it.

David

Author: Christopher T George
Thursday, 23 August 2001 - 03:52 pm
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No comment.

Author: David Radka
Thursday, 23 August 2001 - 04:54 pm
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Mr. George,
How can a logical person nowadays speak exactly concerning what Dr. Anderson did or did not know concerning his suspect? We were not there, he didn't write it down or tell anyone, so how can we know? As frustrating as this may be to us, wouldn't we be overstepping an important restriction on knowledge by second-guessing him? Socrates tripped people up on this frequently--people who thought they knew about something, but really didn't know. He'd ask them a series of questions about their subject, and at the end, everyone, including usually the subject himself, recognized where the knowledge was and where the ignorance was.

Saying "no comment" in the situation above is, I think, about the same thing as sticking one's nose up into the clouds and feeling oneself above another, it is not facing up reasonably to the nature of the discussion.

Please explain how you think that you are not presupposing something you simply can't know in your statements above. We'd like to hear your answer, so as to be able to determine what you know and what you don't.

Thank you.

David

Author: Leanne Perry
Friday, 24 August 2001 - 06:26 am
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G'day,

Chris: I think I understand what you are saying now!

Robeer: As far as I can tell, Anderson never even considered that the killer needed to have medical expertise. He just seemed to know that he was a 'low-class Jew, being shielded by his fraternity'. He didn't even seem to care whether he had medical expertise or not!

Leanne!

Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 24 August 2001 - 09:28 am
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Hello David:

My "No comment" was written in place of the stronger response that you earned in labeling my post "sweeping, religious, sacrosanct, and sanctimonious". . . . or was that another example of your wit?

You are wrong in saying that Anderson's statement that the identity of the Whitechapel murder was a definitely ascertained fact was "a contemporaneous statement." It was written decades later. In fact, as I indicated in my post above of 23 August 2001 at 11:59 am, to which you were reacting, Anderson's own memo written to the Home Office on 23 October 1888 shows that three weeks after the Double Event he did not have a clue who the Ripper was. I quote: "That five successive murders should have been committed without our having the slightest clue of any kind is extraordinary. . ." (A to Z, 3rd edition, p. 19). Note that this statement was written weeks after the police interviews of both Israel Schwartz and Joseph Lawende if we were to summize that either of those Jewish witnesses was the man whom Anderson later implied refused to testify against a fellow Jew.

Best regards

Chris George

Author: David Radka
Friday, 24 August 2001 - 09:24 pm
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Chris,

Dr. Anderson was a contemporaneous figure in the case in every way. He was in a position to know the most intimate details of the police investigation beginning with his debriefing by Mr. Swanson following his return to London after the double event. From there forward, he knew everything that happened. HE WAS THERE. He wrote his statement concerning the "definitely ascertained fact" some years afterward, but that statement concerns WHAT HAPPENED CONTEMPORANEOUSLY, e.g., in 1890.

I wonder what it was that Mr. George wrote to Ms Perry concerning me that caused her to say above "I think I understand what you are saying now." I believe Mr. George may be setting up a coordinated mass negative demonstration concerning me by as many people as he can enlist onto his side who post on these boards. These people would then wait for a signal from him, and then would all write to the Administration at once, complaining about me and asking for my being banned from the boards. This happens very commonly in politics and business. Mr. Ryder should be on the lookout for such shennanigans.

David

Author: Robeer
Saturday, 25 August 2001 - 12:42 am
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Leanne,

After reading numerous entries on the message board it is often hard to remember where I came across that one bit of information. It seems that after returning to London and being briefed on the Double Event, Anderson's first impression was that a medical student might be the killer. That would insinuate the killer lacked expertise but had a basic primary knowledge of anatomy, just enough to find the organs he was after in a short time, effective without being efficient.

The diagrams of the mutilations provided in the Casebook leads one to believe JTR was experimenting with each victim. With Chapman he cuts a circle around the abdomen to access the internal organs. With Eddowes he cuts a straight line up her centerline like unzipping her anatomy. If JTR was already an expert would he not use the same method each time? It appears JTR was on a surgical learning curve.

Anderson expressed the opinion you quote several years later upon reflection of all available information. Based only on initial information he could have formed an early opinion that he would change at a later date with access to much more info to work with. Did he indeed begin with any reference to a medical student or a Jewish medical student? If so, what made him think it was a Jewish medical student? Martin Fido has studied Anderson in great detail. Perhaps he can answer this question.

I'm not sure Anderson's quote was as bigoted as it sounds, as some have suggested. Assuming he did not mean this in a pejorative way, he is expressing the thought that the suspect was both Jewish and from the resident population of this rough East End neighborhood, one which could never be confused as an upper class section of London. There are well informed ripperologists who agree with this opinion who don't sound bigoted at all. Anderson's blunt appraisal could have used a more judicious choice of words to be sure.

Robeer

Author: Christopher T George
Saturday, 25 August 2001 - 01:24 am
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Hi, David:

You are an extremely paranoid person. I am setting up nothing against you. Leanne Perry was merely acknowledging that she saw my point of view about Sir Robert Anderson. Her remark, "I think I understand what you are saying now" had nothing whatsoever to do with you.

Best regards

Chris George

Author: Joseph
Saturday, 25 August 2001 - 04:09 am
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More World News after this word from our sponsers.

Author: Leanne Perry
Saturday, 25 August 2001 - 08:23 am
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G'day David,

Relax mate! Mr George wrote nothing to me. I simply re-read his posts and began to understand his argument!
The book I read Major Arthur Griffiths praise from, does state that the two were very close friends.
It's silly to think that anyone could be banned from these boards for disagreeing, because that's what it's all about....debate!

CHRIS: I really don't think Anderson was referring to Alice McKenzie's pipe/s while referring to 'The Ripper Crimes'. I am looking at an 1889 report from Dr. Phillips to Robert Anderson Re:- Alice McKenzies murder: 'I cannot satisfy myself on purely anatomical and professional grounds that the perpetrator of all the Whitechapel murders is one man'. This could have marked the start of the belief that McKenzie wasn't one of the canonical Ripper Crimes.

Leanne!

Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Sunday, 26 August 2001 - 12:44 am
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As Jon pointed out, Anderson had been involved in
the government campaign against the Fenians in
Ireland in the 1860s, and was still attached to
the government in Dublin in 1882. With the
Phoenix Park Murders and the Dynamiters Campaign
in the 1880s, the C.I.D. was created, and
Anderson was brought over due to his administrative expertise. However, he had been
best in organizing secret police operations, not
in analyzing clues.

I have had some opportunities to look over his
memoirs, The Lighter Side of My Official Life.
The record of his involvement in the Jack the
Ripper Case is not the only one that seems shaky.
He has a section dealing with his involvement with
an ex-secret policeman from France (unemployed after the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s).
This Frenchman gave him information regarding the
"real story" behind the 1857 Waterloo Bridge
Mystery, where the remains of a cut-up body were
found in a carpet bag that (apparently) was lowered over the side of Waterloo Bridge onto one
of the bridges buttresses by an elderly woman.
The body was that of a young man. The identity was never discovered, but the Frenchman told
Anderson it was a man spying on a group of Italians who were plotting the unification of
their homeland. The Italians discovered this, and
killed him, then cutting up the body to make it's
identification impossible. Anderson never tells
us who the man represented (one of the unsympthetic Italian states or the Austrians or
the French). The story is vaguely possible, just
like the Jack the Ripper story is vaguely possible. The Ripper operated in the East End
of London, where many Jews lived, so he could be
a Jew. In 1857, groups of Italians were plotting
the reunification of Italy in England, like the
group around Orsini, who decided to assassinate
Napoleon III of France the following year, and
killed over a dozen people with bombs made in
England. But having said that, both statements
also leave an unpleasant image in the mind, of
bloody-minded, uncooperative "low" Jews in England, and of deadly, secretive Italians. To
add to the uncertainties, when dealing with
Anderson, his French secret policeman told him
that the famous dandy, Count D'Orsey, was killed
when he took a bullet in the back meant for
Napoleon III in 1851. I checked out what killed
D'Orsey, and it was cancer, not a bullet. But
besides checking several biographies on the dandy,
I also contacted the historian, Roger L. Williams,
who wrote several books about the Second Empire
period. He too dismissed this story as garbage.

Anderson may prove to be right that a Jew did the
Whitechapel Murders, but it is not due to brilliant insights or knowledge of a great detective. A lot of mediocrities can occasionally
voice an opinion that may be right. He comes
across as a puffed up little man, successful in
some ways but not all ways, who could be quite
gullible in the long run. Unfortunately, his
gullibility interferes with his value as a source
in the issue of the identification of Jack the
Ripper.

Jeff

Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 26 August 2001 - 03:46 am
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Hi, Jeff:

I am glad that your assessment of other statements by Anderson backs up my skepticism about the truthfulness of Anderson's claim that the Ripper was identified, a claim that was denied by Major Smith and others of his contemporaries. I think this message board in that sense is well named, "Anderson's Suspect" as in "Anderson's Opinion Is Suspect"!!! Anderson may actually by the beginning of the twentieth century have believed a man had been identified as the Ripper but his memory may not be correct.

Thanks for your interesting discussion of other statements made by Anderson in regard to other cases and incidents. I have read a lot of reminiscences by Victorian British gentlemen in my work with military history. One of the things that comes across to me quite powerfully is that their memoirs are full of chummy anecdotes that may be truthful but are more likely to contain errors since they remembered these incidents years later or are repeating stories told them by others. I think Littlechild's story of "Bullen" i.e., journalist Thomas J. Bulling, being "fired outright" because of the cable he sent in regard to "Bloody Bismarck is dead" may fall into this category. The incident bears investigation. Littlechild's anecdote about Bulling may be similar to your finding about Anderson's misstatement that Count D'Orsey was killed when he took a bullet in the back meant for Napoleon III in 1851. As you say, your enquiries revealed that D'Orsey died from cancer not a bullet.

Such statements sound colorful when written, and are given the ring of truth because the person telling us the anecdote was (supposedly) "there." The writer may actually believe what they are saying is true, but their memory is either playing them tricks or they never received the correct facts to begin with.

Best regards

Chris George

Author: David Radka
Sunday, 26 August 2001 - 01:46 pm
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Jeff,
Why can't a puffed-up, gullible little man like Dr. Anderson have been adequately informed? How do you know he was or he wasn't? A puffed-up, gullible little man who sincerely believes in God may well be in a better position than most.

Speaking of which, we've got two puffed-up, cynical little men posting to these boards, who almost certainly aren't capable of believing in anything.

I must admit to a wish to operate a massage parlor, especially concerning a certain very attractive person whom I will not name, who may apply for a FREE massage anytime.

David

Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Sunday, 26 August 2001 - 03:19 pm
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David,

My point was that Anderson might still be correct
about a Jewish Ripper, or Italian revolutionaries
killing the unknown victim of the Waterloo Bridge
Mystery or 1857, but that the way he tended to
present his findings or suspicions, or what he
claimed was told to him, always tended to show
some racial bigotry. I have been told that
Anderson was a friend of Chief Rabbi Adler of
England. That's nice, but it does not mean he
is devoid of prejudice. His contemporary, Mayor
Karl Lueger (I think that is how the last name is
spelled) of Vienna, ran on an anti-Semitic platform, and was the most popularly elected Mayor
in the city's history. But having attacked Jews
in his campaigns, he would be seen talking to the
Rothschilds and other Austro-Hungarian Jews of the
upper classes on a daily basis. When confronted
by this, he would say, "I decide who is a Jew!"
Class distinctions played a role with Lueger.
Possibly they played one with Anderson.

If the Ripper turns out to be a Jew from the East
End, it will not be due to brilliant detective
fact finding of Sir Robert Anderson - it will be,
in his case, a lucky guess.

Jeff

Author: Scott Nelson
Monday, 27 August 2001 - 03:48 pm
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"a lucky guess"... really Jeff? When challenged by the Jewish Chronicle for his statement that the Ripper was a Polish Jew, Anderson responded in the Globe (7.3.10), "When I stated that the murderer was a Jew, I was stating a simple matter of fact. It is not a matter of theory." Nor would I suspect "a lucky guess". There was evidence that he based his statement on, evidence we no longer have.

Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Monday, 27 August 2001 - 08:26 pm
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Well Scott, unless the evidence Anderson used
resurfaces, I will stick to "a lucky guess".

I was trying to think of a parallel situation that
could be termed a lucky guess by another figure in
history. Only one came to mind. In the third
book of his satire, Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan
Swift spoofs the Royal Society in his floating
island of scientists and mathematicians, Laputa.
At one point Lemuel Gulliver is shown their
academy, and he learns that one of the scientists
has discovered that Mars has two moons! Well, in
the 1720s, when Swift wrote this masterpiece,
none of the existing telescopes could see the tiny
moons about Mars. The two moons were not actually
discovered until the 19th Century. How did
Swift, a poet, theologian, polemicist, and satirist, know Mars had two moons? I would say it
was a lucky guess!

Jeff

Author: R Court
Tuesday, 28 August 2001 - 01:10 am
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Hi all,

Anderson, like many other leading figures in politic and government, would not have had day-to-day street experience. He would not have had the time or knowledge to gain it. His information was almost always gained second-hand through reports, files etc. or through second or even third parties.

Those of us who have read official reports over some matter, especially those which have been through a number of hands, will know what absurdity can slip in. Dates, persons, acts, places can get transposed, misinterpreted and corrupted, fiction becomes fact and fact, fiction. This is by no means confined to official papers alone, but in Anderson's case plays a role.

Anderson would have been led by these sources and it is IMHO no wonder that he made so many seemingly stupid blunders. Add his own errors and beliefs plus the irritating conceit detected by people who knew him and I can certainly perceive why he reached the conclusions he did.

How did he get some things right then? "Even a blind hen "-say the Germans, "can sometimes find a corn."

Bob

Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Tuesday, 28 August 2001 - 10:27 am
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Dear Bob,

I must remember that German adage...very pithy.By the way how will it find the water to survive to find that corn. Have you hear about the monkey who was Shakespeare...same problem.
Rosey :-)

Author: Jon
Tuesday, 28 August 2001 - 11:09 am
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Row 'C' Orion
I recall Bob Newhart did a comedy skit called "An infinite number of monkeys", (will eventually re-write all the great books)

I preferred "The driving instructor" & "Sir Walter Raleigh".

Regards, Jon
(told you I was having a slow day)

Author: David Radka
Tuesday, 28 August 2001 - 01:18 pm
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Another pithy German adage, often heard repeated at women's gatherings, such as baby showers:

"If the dog hadn't stopped to take a sh*t, he would have caught the fox."

David

Author: R Court
Tuesday, 28 August 2001 - 04:21 pm
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Hi Rosey, Hi David,

Rosey, if you knew how much it rains in Germany, you'd know why the blind hen finds water. It usually has a fight on its wings not to drown.

David, a new one on me, but I can't know everything....

'Wenn der Hund zum Scheissen nicht angehalten hätte, hätte er den Fuchs gefangen'. Hmmm.

Bob

Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Tuesday, 28 August 2001 - 08:18 pm
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Dear Bob,

I have never doubted the ingenuity and dogged determination of the hun...sorry, hen! It reminds me of an ancient Cumric verse, when the magical child Taliesin turns himself into a speck of corn in the miller's court-yard. He gets eaten by a black hen...which in turn is eaten by a red fox.. while the dog is...
Rosey :-)

Author: R Court
Wednesday, 29 August 2001 - 08:26 am
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Hi Rosey,

Hun hens are, I suspect, not cleverer than others, certainly they don't taste (depending, of course, on the chef) any different. What that may have to do with Anderson is not clear to me, but it is intresting, especialy about Taliesin.

It seems to me that the people of 1888 had the same trouble with Jack as we do now, a theory for every thinker, and they had at least access to contemporary matter and witnesses. If the cleverer ones like Anderson couldn't get it right then, what chance have we today?

Anderson was, I believe, not much different to his fellows. He may have been a bit more out-spoken, or talked too much, but Major Henry Smith did his fare share of bunkum, fine fellow he may have been.

Ho hum... Feierabend (Time to go home)...

Bob


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