How Are The Mighty Fallen

[Hunter]

I know Ripperologist’s moan about Suspect and theory driven Ripperology but it does keep the subject interesting, so for me we need the likes for Jonathon and Rob…Trevor and even Mei Trow for that matter. It helps re-examine our thoughts. Perhaps even change our positions.

As long as they don't distort, misinterpret or even dismiss evidence to support their suspect or theory or to propose one of the latter because they have a predetermined agenda in mind. Many suspects or theories are put forth before the evidence is properly examined by that individual... when it should be ( if that person wants to call themselves a credible researcher) the other way around.

[Natalie Severn]

Sound and prudent words Hunter.But dont forget that when it comes to Anderson and his" definitely ascertained fact" all caution seems to go to the wind!.
Many Thanks for your input.

[Jonathan H]

Robhouse,

Why are you bothering with somebody you regard as unable 'to get it'?

We could just go round and round and round ...

On the other hand, have you read 'Scotland Yard Investigates' by Evans and Rumbelow?

[robhouse]

Yes of course I have read it.

[DVV]

Yes of course I have read it.

So have I.
Any reward ?

Amitiés all.

[Jonathan H]

Than if you have read it you will know why, from the well argued chapter 'Did Anderson Know', I think the Riverman killer is not an apt comparison with 'Jack'.

Gary Ridgeway was a prime suspect contemporaneous with the long investigation into the Green River murders.

Aaron Kosminski, as Fido realized in 1987, was not a prime suspect during the Ripper hunt and therefore he thought the name must be confused. The more likely explanation, as Evans and Rumbelow argue, is that Kosminski was not 'Anderson's Suspect' until after he was incarcerated. This theory would explain the ignorance/scoffing of men like Abberline and Reid, and the magazine version of Anderson's memoirs being 'wrong'.

The comparison with the Green River Killer would work if Ridgeway had been a minor suspect, on a long list, which a mass screening via DNA had revealed him -- to the surprise of the police -- to be the killer.

[robhouse]

Well, I do not agree with that. How do you explain the fact that Swanson said that Kozminski was a suspect before he was entered into the asylum? I am sure you will say he was simply confused. I simply do not buy any of the hypotheses that are based on confusion or failed memory. Yes there may have been some mistakes on minor details, for example Swanson's confusion over when kozminski died... but I do not believe there was confusion to the extent that you seem to be suggesting. I do not believe that both Anderson and Swanson were as inept as that. Again, we do not know when Kozminski came into the frame, we do not know when the identification was for certain, and we do not know how much the police knew about Kozminski. So you cannot really say that Kozminski "was not a prime suspect during the Ripper hunt." To be honest, I think a lot of writers on the subject have simply jumped to conclusions that may well be wrong. I will not accept any theory that is either too complex, or which is based on unfounded speculation. So no, I do not agree with the confusion/ Sadler theory put forth in Scotland Yard Investigates if that is what you are getting at. I tend to think that we should be looking for an Occam's razor type of solution to questions which on the surface may seem very confusing and confounding. In my opinion, the answers to many of these conundrums are probably very simple, and do not involve police intrigue, infighting, egos, ineptitude, etc. I also do not think many people have taken into consideration the question of memory in general... or failing memory. Yes, the memory fails. I have a terrible memory. But I think people are much more inclined to forget (or get confused over) minor things, such as dates. They will not be so likely to get confused over larger things.

But I am more than happy to leave it at that, if you would like. I am starting to realize the futility of discussing these issues on the mesage boards. By the way, I do not think that Abberline, Smith etc ever said that Kozminski was not a suspect, nor did any of these people ever say that there was not an identification. It wouldn't matter much anyway, since I think it is likely that they might not have known much about it.

[Jonathan H]

I was asking you to examine the Evans-Rumbelow thesis, for unlike myself here are two of the most distinguished and thoughtful writers in this narrow field.

Instead of that you have just focused on my post which mentions them. You keep making it sound as if this only my opinion?

If you do not have their book to re-familiarize yourself with that chapter, well, that is fair enough, but you did not say that either.

I honestly do not think you understand how to weigh the values and limitations of historical sources [only get dates wrong?? God, are you in for a shock if you ever read about people's accounts of non-Ripper subjects!!], sadly do not understand Anderson, and do not understand that the Ripper narrative is one in which the middle section is almost enytirelyt missing, hence the confusion in the surviving sources.

Swanson claims that Kosminski was a suspect before incarceration.

Therefore, Kosminski was a suspect before he was 'safely caged'

Yes, that is one interpretation.

What I cannot make any headway, with certain people here, is that ambiguous sources can be interpreted differently.

It maybe, as you say, that Swanson is recording a story that he experienced, that he is remembering absolutely correctly.

That would mean 'Kosminski', almost certainly Aaron Kosminski suspected and brought before a Super-witness preceding his permanent incarceration, for sure.

That's possible.

You argue, it is the simplest explanation and the simplest should be favoured.

I agree -- if it was the simplest.

Which is not?!

If we examine the limitations of this source they become glaring.

It is not official, though it is by an ex-official. It is not for publication. It was so obscure it was apparently unknown to Swanson's own family who only stumbled upon it.

Swanson, so far as is known, never communicated this opinion to the public, to help out his ex-chief who was under siege over a number of issues in 1910.

That is a severe limitation from our point of view because it is just a notation by a person -- for their own eyes only. They can write as they please knowing it never has to be held accountable.

Therefore another interpretation is that Swanson is repeating Anderson's story. not necessarily one he agrees with.

Why complicate the interpretation with this claim?

Because it matches every other source.

Abberline, and Reid, and Smith are all unaware of the suspect as outlined by Anderson in 1910, and are also unaware of any slam dunk witness identification.

Yet these sources match Swanson if the latter is merely recording an anecdotal story to which he is not subscribing his own approval.

This interpretation is, by the way, not what Evans and Rumbelow argue on this issue. They argue that the story may indeed originate with Swanson, sincerely and completely, and he supplied it to his desk-bound chief.

This would still mean repetition by the sources not indepedent confirmation.

Another significant police source, Macnaghten, dismissed this suspect and never mentioned a witness i.d. by a Jew of a Jew -- even to debunk it?

Robhouse, you are so innocent about the issue of bias in sources.

You do not appreciate that Anderson was a man who rarely, in published form, admitted error.

So we would not expect him to concede defeat with the Ripper mystery -- and right on cue he does not.

But then are you are so consumed by your own bias, which you mistake for clear, simple, common-sense thinking. This bias is so hegemonic that you refuse to concede that there is a problem AT ALL with Anderson and the other sources.

For example, to say that getting Kosminski's death date wrong is a minor error by Swanson is just laughable -- and lamentable.

What you fail to see is that a colossal errors like that needs to be measured against the bias of the person who made it.

Sure enough, it would be better for Anderson and /or Swanson's tale if Kosminski was conveniently dead -- and hey presto he is.

It would better for his/their pride, and for their tale, if there were no more murders of this type after Kosminski was incarcerated.

Again, that is what he/they claim and he/they are dead wrong -- on both claims.

In facts, just days later from K's incarceration, on Feb 13th 1891, a Whitechapel prostitute, Frances Coles, was murdered with a knife, and the police treated this -- to the scathing tabloids -- as a possible Ripper atrocity.

Again, Swanson's error -- if it was 'his' error -- is all about the self-serving bias of wishing it were true.

You say that your explanation is simpler?

It is not, that's the problem.

It leaves so many sources in flailing contradiction with Anderson's account?

If it were so straight-forward, Martin Fido would have been happy to take credit for finding Jack the Ripper in Aaron Kosminski, as he did not because his critical thinking was too admirably rigorous.

Whereas, the Evans/Rumbelow 'Sailor's Home' thesis is diabolically simple: the puzzling reason Anderson never refers to the Coles murder, never refers to the Sadler suspect, never admits that the police Ripper hunt was over two years in duration, is because, in a self-serving, egocentric way, he always does!

There were not two witness identifications involving a Jewish witness in 1891, or before, because this makes no sense?

Why get in Lawende, or anybody else to look at Sadler -- especially knowing what the press might do with that inflammatory development -- when you already supposedly know from a witness, may be that same treacherous witness(?), that the Ripper was a 'safely caged' Polish Jew -- nothing like a burly bruiser of a Gentile sailor, one likely to have killed Coles??

It defies logic?

Unless, as Evans and Rumbelow argue, that this is the SAME witness identification with Anderson sincerely but mistakenly [and self-servingly] substituting Sadler -- whom he never mentions -- with Kosminski.

The reason that the field detectives are so ignorant of Kosminski is that, as his medical records show, he was incarcerated not in 1888 or 1889 but as late as 1891.

Therefore, if information pointing to him as the fiend came to senior police AFTER he was locked away we would not expect the field detectives to necessarily know anything about him -- and they didn't and never did.

The Evans/Rumbelow thesis finally makes sense of a 1910 story, involving a late primary sourced backed by a private late primary source, which before did not make sense due to comparison with a range of earlier primary sources.

It's a great achievement, one you have totally and sadly missed.

Unlike the American police fuming over Ridgeway -- and other promising suspects -- for years, Anderson does not tell a story in which there is frustration over the killer being at large for a considerable time, because of a lack of hard evidence. He claims that the Ripper was identified, quickly and efficiently, but the witness let them down. That there were no other murders of this kind beyond 1889.

To read Anderson is to remain ignorant of the hunt for Sadler in 1891 for in his version this tale does not exist?!

Except it does, redacted mythically back into 1888 with the Polish Jew, not the Gentile sailor, as the star of the show.

Had Fido grasped that Anderson's memory was failing, and that he was unreliably vain, or that Macnaghten's alleged errors [as opposed to lies] could extend even to Kosminski's incarceration date, then he should have begun looking for Kosminski AFTER the Sadler debacle, or just before -- and that is exactly where this Polish Jew's incarceration is located!

This is all put so much better in Evans/Rumbelow book, and so please don't reject it because of your antipathy to me, or because I am so clumsy in my prose.

Do yourself a favour and read it again.

[robhouse]

You are totally clueless. But whatever... please carry on. I won't continue to bother with you here.

By the way, I really just skimmed your post. I can't bother to read that type of drivel. And I have heard it all before anyway.

[Jonathan H]

What makes you think I wrote it for you..?

A number of my History students monitor this website to see how certain people are suffocatingly close-minded and totally biased -- to the point of denying bias in themselves.

That the moment somebody, anybody, puts a reasonable argument this minority always stoops to insults -- whilst suffering a tantrum.

This Easter they will enjoy your childish meltdown.

Rather than dealing with the counter-argument you call it 'drivel' -- without even reading it according to you -- then make the same promise, always broken, that you won't engage with me anymore.

Priceless stuff for me as a teacher, thanks!

[The Good Michael]

A number of my History students monitor this website to see how certain people are suffocatingly close-minded and totally biased -- to the point of denying bias in themselves.

This Easter they will enjoy your childish meltdown.

Rather than dealing with the counter-argument you call it 'drivel' -- without even reading it according to you -- then make the same promise, always broken, that you won't engage with me anymore.

Wow! I'm a history teacher (among other things), and I'd be ashamed to have my students read this. For one thing, there's no wit in it. If you must insult, be amusing. Those must be some sleepy students.

Cheers,

Mike

[Jonathan H]

Ah, there you are Mike.

What's wrong? You're running late for the pile-on.

So, not content to have a go at me -- perish the thought you might engage with the argument -- you now have a go at high school students who have done you no harm.

They are learning that the close-minded and the fanatical must be stood up to. What you call 'insults' are just meeting fire with fire to Robhouse, whom I initially tried to argue with in a civil manner, knowing that it would be hopeless -- and it was.

Of course you don't criticize him for being insulting, do you?

[robhouse]

Jonathan, let's get real here... there is absolutely no point in my providing a counter argument... I did it before. You didn't get it. You didn't respond to my critiques of your flawed argument, except for providing further flawed arguments. If I thought anything you were saying had any merit at all, I would "debate" with you. But I don't, so what's the point. Your theories are entirely based on your own unfounded speculations, and what you have absorbed, spongelike, from reading a few books on the subject.

[Jonathan H]

So, that did not take long did it?

Bad Cop, followed by Good Cop.

You just can't stay away can you?

You have never engaged with the debate, ever. Ylu just repeat the same cliches.

And according to you, you did not even read my last post so how would you know what it said, or did not say?

'a few books' (?)

You really are graceless and arrogant, aren't you, to reduce the collaborative work of Stewart Evans and Don Rumbelow to 'a few books'.

I would think the same if you said this about Paul Begg too.

'Spongelike' (?)

Considering Stewart Evans and I do not agree, politely and positively, about Macnaghten and Druitt [or Kosminski for that matter] that will come as news to him?

Why can't you just take the time to re-read that Evans/Rumbelow chapter?

[robhouse]

Jonathan,

Perhaps you might want to read back over this thread to see who is being arrogant and rude.

RH