The Seaside Home: Could Schwartz or Lawende Have Put the Ripper's Neck in a Noose?

[Darryl Kenyon]

I really don't understand what you are saying. Is it your contention that Swanson fabricated the entire incident in a private note, in a personal copy of a book, which he isn't known to have shown anyone during his lifetime and which was only discovered by his family many years after his death?

While you may not understand how police procedure worked in the nineteenth century, you're not qualified in any way, whereas Swanson was literally expert in the subject. He knew more about police operations than any person living today could ever dream of. If he tells us something happened a certain way, we can be sure that such a thing was entirely possible and realistic. I'm sorry that he didn't explain everything to your satisfaction but he didn't need to.

You are completely right Herlock . Why fabricate a supposed ID in private notes in his personal copy of a book and then as far as we are aware never show said notes to anyone. It just doesn't sit right .

Regards Darryl

[Darryl Kenyon]

No magistrate would have authorised Kosminski's transportation to a place 50 miles from London in order to meet someone who was also based in London!

How do you know the witness was in London ?

Regards Darryl

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Readers are being expected to believe that:


The police were able to take Kosminski against his will from London to the coast without an arrest warrant.

The police had no legal alternative but to allow him to return home after being identified as the Whitechapel Murderer.

Kosminski was placed under surveillance in case he committed a murder some two years since the last was committed.

Kosminski had his hands tied behind his back by the police even though he was not under arrest.

Kosminski was taken by the police to a workhouse even though he was not under arrest.


I suggest such a sequence of events is not credible.

Any refutation of the points I made above that rests on the argument that Swanson must have known what he was talking about and must have known all about the correct legal procedures, and that therefore what he wrote in the marginalia must be true, is a circular argument and therefore invalid.

Anderson knew all about legal procedures, but that did not prevent him from making the almighty howler of claiming that police were trying to obtain a murder conviction of a man who was caged in a lunatic asylum, in order, according to Swanson, to have him hanged.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I think it was in order to explain why no-one apparently knew of the identification.

Had it taken place at a London police station, as it surely would have, then how could it have been kept secret?

There were reports of Grainger's attempted identification and they didn't come to us from anyone's marginalia!

I would suggest, nevertheless, that it is not credible that the police would have put convalescents at risk of being attacked by the Whitechapel Murderer.

The difficulty to which Swanson refers is an impossibility.

No magistrate would have authorised Kosminski's transportation to a place 50 miles from London in order to meet someone who was also based in London!

And he would not have authorised the transportation of a man suspected of being a homicidal maniac to a place where people were convalescing.

My answer in #586 applies here too.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Readers are being expected to believe that:


The police were able to take Kosminski against his will from London to the coast without an arrest warrant.

The police had no legal alternative but to allow him to return home after being identified as the Whitechapel Murderer.

Kosminski was placed under surveillance in case he committed a murder some two years since the last was committed.

Kosminski had his hands tied behind his back by the police even though he was not under arrest.

Kosminski was taken by the police to a workhouse even though he was not under arrest.


I suggest such a sequence of events is not credible.

I really don't understand what you are saying. Is it your contention that Swanson fabricated the entire incident in a private note, in a personal copy of a book, which he isn't known to have shown anyone during his lifetime and which was only discovered by his family many years after his death?

While you may not understand how police procedure worked in the nineteenth century, you're not qualified in any way, whereas Swanson was literally expert in the subject. He knew more about police operations than any person living today could ever dream of. If he tells us something happened a certain way, we can be sure that such a thing was entirely possible and realistic. I'm sorry that he didn't explain everything to your satisfaction but he didn't need to.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I'm not sure why you think a magistrate would be involved. If Kosminski was incarcerated in a mental institution all you would need would be the acquiescence of those in charge of that institution. If staff from that institution accompanied him and were present throughout he wouldn't technically even leave their custody.

Well, what are the chances of those in charge of a London lunatic asylum, on being informed that a person in their care is suspected of being the infamous homicidal maniac known as the Whitechapel Murderer, giving permission for him to be transported 50 miles to a place where people are convalescing in order to meet someone who is already in London?

Another problem is that, according to Swanson, Kosminski was not yet incarcerated in an asylum.

Are you saying that everything he claimed happened after the alleged identification - the return to his brother's house, the surveillance, the tying of his hands behind his back, and being taken to a workhouse - never happened?

[Bridewell]

I think it was in order to explain why no-one apparently knew of the identification.

Had it taken place at a London police station, as it surely would have, then how could it have been kept secret?

There were reports of Grainger's attempted identification and they didn't come to us from anyone's marginalia!

I would suggest, nevertheless, that it is not credible that the police would have put convalescents at risk of being attacked by the Whitechapel Murderer.

The difficulty to which Swanson refers is an impossibility.

No magistrate would have authorised Kosminski's transportation to a place 50 miles from London in order to meet someone who was also based in London!

And he would not have authorised the transportation of a man suspected of being a homicidal maniac to a place where people were convalescing.

I'm not sure why you think a magistrate would be involved. If Kosminski was incarcerated in a mental institution all you would need would be the acquiescence of those in charge of that institution. If staff from that institution accompanied him and were present throughout he wouldn't technically even leave their custody.

[Bridewell]

Swanson is categoric in the marginalia that Kosminski was positively identified as the Ripper despite there being no corroboration to this mythical ID procedure

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Anderson claimed that the murderer had been identified but that the witness refused to swear to it. Swanson then adds "because the suspect was also a Jew and because his evidence would convict the suspect and witness would be the means of murderer being hanged which he did not wish to be left on his mind".

That looks like corroboration to me. Swanson places the ID at The Seaside Home; Anderson is silent on the location. You may not believe an ID procedure took place, and you may be quite right not to believe it, but your claim that it is uncorroborated is disingenuous.

(And of course a witness account doesn't have to be corroborated in order to be true; it just helps if it is).

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

That's a fair point but I think it's more likely that they gilded the lily a bit than that they fabricated the whole thing. Quite apart from anything else, if you were going to invent an ID procedure, why would you place it in such an unlikely setting?

I think it was in order to explain why no-one apparently knew of the identification.

Had it taken place at a London police station, as it surely would have, then how could it have been kept secret?

There were reports of Grainger's attempted identification and they didn't come to us from anyone's marginalia!

I would suggest, nevertheless, that it is not credible that the police would have put convalescents at risk of being attacked by the Whitechapel Murderer.

The difficulty to which Swanson refers is an impossibility.

No magistrate would have authorised Kosminski's transportation to a place 50 miles from London in order to meet someone who was also based in London!

And he would not have authorised the transportation of a man suspected of being a homicidal maniac to a place where people were convalescing.

[Herlock Sholmes]

That's a fair point but I think it's more likely that they gilded the lily a bit than that they fabricated the whole thing. Quite apart from anything else, if you were going to invent an ID procedure, why would you place it in such an unlikely setting?

Good question Colin. Why would they invent this? Why risk being called a liar? We know how important reputation was to people like Anderson.

[Bridewell]

I think now I understand what you meant in # 537: that Swanson had not sought a conviction, and that he was not telling the truth about that.

If Anderson and Swanson did not tell the truth about such an important detail, why should we believe anything else in their story?

That's a fair point but I think it's more likely that they gilded the lily a bit than that they fabricated the whole thing. Quite apart from anything else, if you were going to invent an ID procedure, why would you place it in such an unlikely setting?

[Darryl Kenyon]

Are you saying you think the identification of Kosminski at a place on the coast did not happen?

It may have happened, or it may have happened at another seaside home. I believe Adam Wood has proposed an alternative [ I have just started reading his book on Swanson and the murders ]. My own personal view [ and I could be wrong ], is that seaside home could be seaman's home and the attempted ID happened in Whitechapel. What I don't believe however is that Swanson was completely wrong and there was no ID and nothing of a tangible nature behind it.

Regards Darryl

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

If you were researching this series of murders from scratch and you could interview one police officer about the case, to me it is difficult to look beyond Swanson. After all he was the man in charge of the investigation.
And here is someone who wasn't seeking any sensational exposure for his biography etc. He is also someone who never gave any detailed interview regarding the crimes to any newspaper or magazine . He made a few private notes for personal consumption .
But his thoughts should be discarded, especially regarding an attempted ID which apparently was mythical .
I believe the saying is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, instead of trying to make sense of what Swanson wrote.

Regards Darryl

Are you saying you think the identification of Kosminski at a place on the coast did not happen?

[Darryl Kenyon]

If you were researching this series of murders from scratch and you could interview one police officer about the case, to me it is difficult to look beyond Swanson. After all he was the man in charge of the investigation.
And here is someone who wasn't seeking any sensational exposure for his biography etc. He is also someone who never gave any detailed interview regarding the crimes to any newspaper or magazine . He made a few private notes for personal consumption .
But his thoughts should be discarded, especially regarding an attempted ID which apparently was mythical .
I believe the saying is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, instead of trying to make sense of what Swanson wrote.

Regards Darryl

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Readers are being expected to believe that:


The police were able to take Kosminski against his will from London to the coast without an arrest warrant.

The police had no legal alternative but to allow him to return home after being identified as the Whitechapel Murderer.

Kosminski was placed under surveillance in case he committed a murder some two years since the last was committed.

Kosminski had his hands tied behind his back by the police even though he was not under arrest.

Kosminski was taken by the police to a workhouse even though he was not under arrest.


I suggest such a sequence of events is not credible.