Seaside Home?

[Trevor Marriott]

Your ramblings have completely lost me now. Er, let's see, do you appreciate, understand at all, that Kosminski came to police attention c.late 1890/early 1891, and Druitt emerged as a suspect several years after Macnaghten joined the Met. So what possible bearing does a date up to and including the murder of Mary Kelly have on any of this?

And even if it was true that Macnaghten tells us to remove Kosminski from the list, which he does not, we are still faced with a story told by informed and senior police officers in a document which is authentic. That story may be wrong, but we have no idea why it was believed... But, hell, why am I wasting my time arguing with you.

The marginila you seek to heavily rely on to prop up you theories has not be proven to be authentic so please refrain from keep trying to convince everyone it is.

You are so blinkered virtually everyone can see that Kosminski is a non starter now even without the marginalia. MM exonerates him. Fido traced an Aaron Kosminski and exonaterd him, or do you want to inlcude anyone else who just happened to have a surname Kosminski, Jesus how many more exonerations do you want before you take the blinkers off.

If MM exonerates him why are you and others trying to find someone eles who fits Anderson polish jew fable. Fido tried with Cohen and Kaminsky. You seem to want to readily accpet the word of two senior officers why not accpet the writen word of MM when he says he exonarates Kosminski and Ostrog you cant have it both ways.

[Supe]

Trev,

Earlier today you wrote: I will now finally withdraw and yet here you are back once more to abuse our patience. Promises, promises.

Don

[Abby Normal]

To Abby

Try and acquire a copy of 'Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates' (2006) by Stewart P. Evans and Don Rumbelow. It is a wonderful book, and one of the best on this subect -- and for once I am not alone in my opinion.

One of its last chapters, 'Did Anderson Know', outlines their theory that the Kosminski slam dunk 'confrontation' with a treacherous Jewish witness is a myth.

It sure convinced me, though I add my own minor additions to it for what they are worth.

I will not do this elegantly and lucidly argued thesis any justice here, but you asked for a nutshell summary.

The authors argue that it is too much of a coincidence that a 'Kosminski' (Aaron) was sectioned just days before [almost certainly] Joseph Lawende was 'confronted' with a Ripper suspect [the Gentile sailor, Tom Sadler) who had killed a young, and pretty victim (Coles, not Kelly) for it all to have happened again with 'Kosminski' and Lawende, or another witness.

Why make yourself look like chumps about the Ripper, with Sadler, if you already know he is 'safely caged' in an asylum. Police agitation over the Coles murder -- after Aaron Kosminski had been permanently incarcerated -- argaubly suggests that if this was their best suspect cognition about him came sometime after he was already beyond their reach.

Anderson's magazine version of his memoirs seems to make this slip, as they ahve the 'confrontation' happening after he has been placed in a madhouse, a detail he dropped in the book version. After all, how could the suspect be arrested if he was already an inmate? But the slip may have come from a true though distorted memory: a kosminski sectioned around the time of a 'Ripper' murder, and a prime suspect being 'confronted' with a witness -- a Jewish witness who did not give them the answer for which they hoped.

That this confrontation between Lawende and Sadler, which led to disappointment for the police regarding a Jewish witness and a Ripper suspect, is the only one, and sits there in the extant record -- albeit in a single press source, unlike the 'other'.

Therefore, Anderson and/or Swanson's claims about a successful witness confronation, though the Jew refused to testify, are a product of probably a fading, self-serving memory lapse -- and the tale only enters the extant record in 1910 anyhow. Anderson had mentioned his 'safely caged' lunatic 'Jack' before in several sources and never even hinted at such an event.

That the Marginalia does not necessarily provide confirmation of Anderson's story as the whole thing may have originated with Swanson anyhow who apssed it along to his desk-bound boss. This is arguably the weakest element of the thesis as it requires a simultaneous memory malfucntion by two competent policemen about the same subject at the same time.

That the weird 'Seaside Home' location of the confrontation is perhaps a misremebering of another element of the Sadler story, in which the sailor attempted to sell a knife in a Seaman's Home, aka Sailor's Home.

That another key police figure, Macnaghten, about whom 'Kosminski' begins in the extant record, makes no such claim about a witness identifcation by a Jew -- but did through cronies claim that a beat cop had seen a man who somewhat resembled the Polish suspect with a victim (in his memoirs he pointedly retracted this story). And that, of course, Macnaghten preferred another 'suspect', an odd thing to do if it was so clear-cut that 'Kosminski' was the fiend?

That such a conforntation, in a police hospital no less, would be well known at the very least as a leaked story either at the start certainly later. Instead nobody backed up or defended Anderson, not even Swanson whose annotation is limted in value because he can write what he likes to himself, and his claims were not published; not pubplished in a forum in which they could be tested. They seem to have been of so little significance that the never shared them with his family.

Another objection to the theory is that in a much more rigidly sectarian age, people might misremember names and places and events but not people's race and religion. That to think that a Gentile, English sailor was a poor, Russian-Polish Jew borders on the ludicrous.

The arguable brilliance of the theory is that it makes sense of all available sources which otherwise are a perplexing contradiction?

Thanks JH
i find it hard to beleive that both Anderson and swanson could have made the same mistake in confusing Kos with the sadler ID. This was a whole series of events, not just a date or name. The main point(among many others) was that both witness and suspect were jewish, which is why the ID went nowhere after that.


I think the simplest and most likely explanation for the whole Kos/ID issue is that it took place, but Anderson (and perhaps Swanson) misremembered the significance of the outcome many years later about a "positive" ID-Looking back, with wishful thinking to make himself look better so to speak. At the time of the ID and shortly thereafter it seems clear Anderson had not arrived at his "definitely ascertained fact" which makes then all the subsequent actions with sadler and grant make sense.

[Trevor Marriott]

It is difficult to attempt to conduct a thoughtful debate when a troll is constantly disrupting it with non-sensical and insulting behavior. In my opinion, Trevor should be banned. He does not contribute anything to the debate here.

Rob H

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm you dont like the truth being told you, something you cant handle and you would like to silence me from here, do I care no I dont every dog has is day and I can tell you mine in on the horizon.

You need to take a look at yourself first you and others can try to beliitle me insult me all you like but there will only be one winner in the end, and that winner will be the truth as accepted by the public who wont give a rats arse about the views of six or seven individuals who think they are gods gift to ripperology and everyone else should take notice of what they say.

I quoted a previous casebook link last night in which Stewart Evans wrote and postulated the same things I did with regard to the Id parade and The marginalia I dont see these same persons wanting him banned, funny old world isnt it. I dont see him being taken to task.

Enjoy your summer holidays see you in York then perhaps you can tell me face to face what you think.

[robhouse]

Hello Dave,

It is all how you interpret that "in a very short time..." Paul Begg has interpreted that to mean that the identification happened shortly before February 4, 1891... say within a week or so. I personally do not agree with this and prefer a date of July 1890 for the identification, or even earlier. The fact is, no one knows for sure when (or where) the identification took place.

Rob H

[Cogidubnus]

Thanks Rob et al

I may be none the wiser, but I'm less worried about it now!

Dave

[Trevor Marriott]

Trev,

Earlier today you wrote: I will now finally withdraw and yet here you are back once more to abuse our patience. Promises, promises.

Don

Yes some definatly need further abuse. and now you have got involved just another to add to my list.

But i really do have better things to do than argeu here with individuals who habve no sense of reasong or understanding logic and simply want to read and belive what they read.

Thats the diference between so called historians and me I never take anyhting on face value thats the secret never beleive what you read and never believe what you are told, always check and double check, thats how crimes are solved and criminals caught.

Historians belive what they read what they are told and then the find themselves out on a limb or as i keep saying "up the swanson river without a paddle"

I am happy to leave in the knowledge that the Kosminski suspect has been debunked and the marginalia is not as authentic as those who seek to rely on would have all you people beleive.

[Jeff Leahy]

I quoted a previous casebook link last night in which Stewart Evans wrote and postulated the same things I did with regard to the Id parade and The marginalia I dont see these same persons wanting him banned, funny old world isnt it. I dont see him being taken to task.

Enjoy your summer holidays see you in York then perhaps you can tell me face to face what you think.

Trevor, I think its fairly well known and you can check our past confrontations on casebook that SPE and I haven't always seen eye to eye..

However Stewart Evans is a giant, one of the greats of Ripperology, a man who everyone, including myself , has the utmost respect for...

When those of us youngsters sit and debate 'ripper' stuff over a pint it is he along with, Fido, Begg , skinner and Rumblow that we quote because these are the greats....Like Pele, Best, Moore, Hurst and Allan Clark

But Stewart despite all his faults was always a Gentleman and always always stuck to the sources and the Facts..

You'd do well to learn from such a great exponent of Ripperology

I look forward to seeing you York (hopefully)

Yours Jeff

[Jeff Leahy]

Hello Dave,

It is all how you interpret that "in a very short time..." Paul Begg has interpreted that to mean that the identification happened shortly before February 4, 1891... say within a week or so. I personally do not agree with this and prefer a date of July 1890 for the identification, or even earlier. The fact is, no one knows for sure when (or where) the identification took place.

Rob H

Yes I agree. The exact date of the ID is unknown and could be theorized as earlier.

The illness of Schizophrenia is cyclicur/wave like, with the suffer having periods known as Psychosis and recovery. So Aaron being sane and then insane could be logical..

Also I have speculated that Schizophenia is likely to have had external effects drugs, Alcohol , Chemicals,, Once removed from that environment the suffer might well recover for periods of time...

The fact is we dont know for sure and contrary to what Trevor might say not necessarily knowing does not weaken a case. You just need to keep searching..

Trust you are well Rob

Yours Jeff

[Trevor Marriott]

Trevor, I think its fairly well known and you can check our past confrontations on casebook that SPE and I haven't always seen eye to eye..

However Stewart Evans is a giant, one of the greats of Ripperology, a man who everyone, including myself , has the utmost respect for...

When those of us youngsters sit and debate 'ripper' stuff over a pint it is he along with, Fido, Begg , skinner and Rumblow that we quote because these are the greats....Like Pele, Best, Moore, Hurst and Allan Clark

But Stewart despite all his faults was always a Gentleman and always always stuck to the sources and the Facts..

You'd do well to learn from such a great exponent of Ripperology

I look forward to seeing you York (hopefully)

Yours Jeff

But you missed the point I get slated when i stick to the facts and then told my facts are not correct etc when I posted that long post on the ID parade and the marginalia.

It was after that that I found the previous thread where lo and behold Stewart had said virtually the same as me and no one questioned his facts. But of course as far as the marginalia was concerned I took it one step further and had my own experts examine it with blinding results.

So both of us cant be wrong if you are putting Stewart on a pedestal. Look at it another way you and Begg keep saying you take the word of two officers from 1888. Now we have two officers from the 21st Century with a wealth of investigative experience behind them who have become involved and made our views know on all of this having carefull reviewed, assessed and evaluated everything connected to these issues.

Which two are you going to side with ?

[Jeff Leahy]

But you missed the point I get slated when i stick to the facts and then told my facts are not correct etc when I posted that long post on the ID parade and the marginalia.

It was after that that I found the previous thread where lo and behold Stewart had said virtually the same as me and no one questioned his facts. But of course as far as the marginalia was concerned I took it one step further and had my own experts examine it with blinding results.

So both of us cant be wrong if you are putting Stewart on a pedestal. Look at it another way you and Begg keep saying you take the word of two officers from 1888. Now we have two officers from the 21st Century with a wealth of investigative experience behind them who have become involved and made our views know on all of this having carefull reviewed, assessed and evaluated everything connected to these issues.

Which two are you going to side with ?

Trevor I dont need to be told Stewart's position on the marginalia I know it like the back of my hand ( I spent years debating it with him) and it is NOT the same as yours. Stewart has NEVER stated he beleives it FAKE!

Clearly I'd be interested in any examination you have had done on the marginalia, I photographed it myself in high Def and UV..

But your going to have to come up with something better than Derek Acorah hand writing experts and fortune tellers to convince me..

Yours Jeff

[Jonathan H]

I'm not perplexed about the whole Polish Jew/'Seaside Home puzzle as, for me, it is not one since I read and agreed with Evans and Rumbelow.

What I have been trying and failing to get across is that the press were salivating over Coles as a Ripper murder.

All Anderson and/or Swanson had to do was what the latter pair did do in 1895 after Grant -- quash this notion either by saying that she was obviously murdered by a different hand (eg. no mutilations) or go even further and say that the real 'Jack' was safely caged and/or dead.

In 1891, presumably after all the machinations over 'Kosminski' when he, according to the Marginalia, had practically confessed at the 'confrontation' they did neither?

To try and break this logjam I will quote from 'Scotland Yard Investigates', Chapter Sixteen, 'Did Anderson Know':

From p. 250:

Om Sat 14th of Feb. 1891, the day of Sadler's arrest, the 'Daily Chronicle' reported" 'At three o'clock the authorities circulated an announcement that the crime was supposed to be the work of "Jack the Ripper", and ordered all docks, wharves, and stairs to be searched. 'The Evening News and Post' of the same enlarged the story: 'In the minds of the police officials who have been summoned to investigate the murder there is pratically no doubt that it is the handiwork of the terrible miscreant who has earned the name of "Jack the Ripper" ... which was thought to have been closed with the discovery in Sept. 1889, of the trunk of a woman in Oinchin St. ...'

[Note that Kelly as the final victim -- let along that 'Jack' as soon off the scene -- is not a notion that had yet become the rigid paradigm, and won't until 1898 when Macnaghten locked this in because, from his point of view and his alone, it was due to the inconvenient timing of Druitt's suicide two years before the Coles murder.]

Continuing from SYI:

Still p. 250:

It is unlikely that the police would have risked causing another panic in London if they did not seriously think that the Ripper might have been at work again ...

P. 251:

The events of 7 to 17 Feb. throw up a remarkable series of coincidences. Anderson's suspect was almost certainly Aaron Kosminski and a Kosminski had been detained very shortly before Sadler's arrest and investigation as a possible Ripper suspect. Aaron Kosminski was permanently 'caged in an asylum' and shortly after his detention there was a failed attempt to identify a suspect (Sadler) as Jack the Ripper by a Jewish witness, Jospeh Lawende ... It may benefit the reader to pause and cosndier the implications of this coincidence. Over two years after the generally accepted Ripper killing (Kelly) we have a Polish Jew lunatic locked up and within a week a Ripper suspect is subjected to a failed identification as the Ripper by a Jewish witness ...

P. 252:

Some who adhere to the theory that the identification took place exactly as Anderson described it say that there must have been another witness and that he (probably Schwartz) had been used to identify Kosminski, but was not used again because of his refusal to testify against the Polish Jew. This idea is not tenable. First, as Lawende was used in the attempt to identify Sadler he would, naturally, also have been used in any other attempted identification of a Ripper suspect. Secondly a witness cannot simply 'refuse to give evidence' if it is required ...

... Swanson's poor grammar [in the Marginalia] adds another complication. If he was referring to Aaron Kosminski, then the identification in question appears to have taken place in July 1890 whereas Anderson's reference relates to Feb. 1891, the time of Kosminski's final incarceration. So here we have a discrepancy between the two men's stories ...

... Swanson's reference to the man being watched by the 'City CID' is also interesting because the suspect described by Inspector Cox of the City Police (see Chapter 15) although apparently a Jew, was clearly not Aaron Kosminski, who had not worked for years, did not occupy a shop, and, so far as we know, did not enter a Surrey asylum ...

[I would add that both Anderson and Swanson give the strong impression that all these events happened soon after Kelly murders -- when Macnaghten has 'Kosminski' wrongly permanently incarcerated. This error is so profound that it misled Cullen-Farson-Rumbelow into thinking that Anderson must mean Pizer, because surely he did not have the timing so far out. Similarly it was one of the factors which led Fido to reject Aaron Kosminski as Anderson's suspect; that it must be a Jewish madman who was 'safely caged' around late 1888, or early 1889.]

From p. 253:

... allowing for faulty memoiies, confusion or deliberate invention, the idea of a 'home' is also to be found in the story of Sadler and his identification. Two of the witnesses who attended identification paardes for Sadler were from the Sailor's Home (or Seamen's Home) and here is another telling coincidence. A bedraggled Sadler had finally gravitated to the Sailor's Home in Wells St. while seeking shelter on the morning of the murder of Coles. There he sold a foreign clasp knife to a witness, Duncan Campbell. Campbell attended the police station and identified Sadler as the man who sold him the knife from a line-up of fifteeen or sixteen men dressed as seamen ... So even a Sailor's (or Seamen's) Home figures in the Sadler identification scenario (albeit not the failed identification by Lawende) -- and Seamen's Home could easily translate to Seaside Home.

[I would add that an element of Lawende's sighting was a man dressed rather like a seaman. A fading memory would have to eliminate that Gentile suspect or else correctly recall that the Jewish witness was looking at a Gentile sailor, Sadler -- because he had reported seeing a Gentile sailor in 1888. The bridging source for this bit of transpostion is Sims' 1907 opus in which he writes, mistakenly, about a beat cop seeing a man who resembled the Polish suspect and saw him later but could not confirm. This puts 'Kosminski' into the investigation of 1888. Out of this cocktail, in a failing memory but one seeking the best gloss on it all, comes three elements: 'police' and 'sea-' and 'Home' which equals, I believe, the 'Seaside Home'.]

Still from p. 353:

... Anderson's claim is rendered even more unlikely by the fact that his second-in-command, confidential assistant and, ultimately successor as assistant commissioner, Sir Melville Macnaghten, makes no mention of an identification. In fact, he reached an entirely different conclusion to Anderson and felt that Montague John Druitt was the most likely of the unlikely suspects in his list. This hardly enhances the view that the Polish Jew's guilt, was a definitely ascertained fact. And it cannot be claimed that Macnaghten did not know of the Polish Jew Kosminski theory as it is his report in which it is first outlined in the surviving records ...

[I would add that Macnaghten, via 'Aberconway', knows that 'Kosminski' is alive, unlike Anderson and/or Swanson, and why shouldn't he since this madman was sectioned after Mac had been on the Force for nearly two years! Via Sims in 1907, Macnaghten made it clear to the public that this was a weak suspect partly because he had been too long out in the community without killing anybody before being locked up. Both of these details about the real Aaron Kosminski are correct]

[Trevor Marriott]

Trevor I dont need to be told Stewart's position on the marginalia I know it like the back of my hand ( I spent years debating it with him) and it is NOT the same as yours. Stewart has NEVER stated he beleives it FAKE!

Clearly I'd be interested in any examination you have had done on the marginalia, I photographed it myself in high Def and UV..

But your going to have to come up with something better than Derek Acorah hand writing experts to convince me..

Yours Jeff

I never suggested Stewart said it was a fake. Without going back to it I think he stated he had some doubts and stated it should have been properly examined.

Now now, dont try to water down the strength of my handwriting expert with those type of comments naughty naughty.

Derek Acorah would probaly do a better job than the document examiners. If you think its genuine get Nevill Swanson to hand it over for further examination then we will all know wont we

If not then as I mentioned previous dont keep saying its authentic in fact in one of your earlier posts you yourself stated and these are your words "that in all probabality the marginalia was wriiten by Swanson" not a very convincing statement to make if you are so sure as you would have us beleive.

[Jeff Leahy]

I never suggested Stewart said it was a fake. Without going back to it I think he stated he had some doubts and stated it should have been properly examined.

I know exactly what Stewart said. And it has been examined by two home office experts and those results discussed endlessly.

Now now, dont try to water down the strength of my handwriting expert with those type of comments naughty naughty.

You know perfectly well that people who study hand writing largely belong in a fortune telling side shows.

Derek Acorah would probaly do a better job than the document examiners. If you think its genuine get Nevill Swanson to hand it over for further examination then we will all know wont we

Well I simply took him for a drink and asked him nicely. And let me assure you that no nicer and more reliable gentleman exists than Nevill.

If not then as I mentioned previous dont keep saying its authentic in fact in one of your earlier posts you yourself stated and these are your words "that in all probabality the marginalia was wriiten by Swanson" not a very convincing statement to make if you are so sure as you would have us beleive.

I was quoting the last home office examination by christopher Davies P502 of the A to Z

PS Its Genuine

[Trevor Marriott]

I know exactly what Stewart said. And it has been examined by two home office experts and those results discussed endlessly.



You know perfectly well that people who study hand writing largely belong in a fortune telling side shows.



Well I simply took him for a drink and asked him nicely. And let me assure you that no nicer and more reliable gentleman exists than Nevill.



I was quoting the last home office examination by christopher Davies P502 of the A to Z

I repeat the results were not conclusive and now we have another expert who says the opposite. I am sure you will keep referring to it but dont keep saying its authentic theres a good chap it tends to mislead people and we have enough on here already who seem to want to do that.