How Are The Mighty Fallen

[Scott Nelson]

Oh good. I'm glad I know now. It's so nice to be set straight every now and then.

I wonder if I should buy your book?

No, maybe not.

[Jonathan H]

Or, as with Druitt and the Tory MP, information about Kosminski bypassed all other police except for Macnaghten, Anderson and Swanson. If that information was about a suspect too late to officially investigate [eg. 'safely caged'] then it makes sense that no other police would know of his existence.

[Roy Corduroy]

Which brings us, Jonathan, back to Crawford's letter to Anderson.

Because the family was local, the name Kosminski was in police notebooks from the inquiries in the area. I think we could safely say that. If Anderson received a plea from Kosminski's sister at some point, was there cross-checking done? I don't see why not.

To me, the probing of Anderson, the way Stewart has demonstrated a timeline of how Anderson's own words coalesced into the "definite fact" in his memoir, all this is good material and greatly appreciated. It's not gonna knock Aaron Kosminski out of the box. As a suspect. But it adds depth to our understanding.

Roy

[Jonathan H]

Roy,

Certainly ythe undated Crawford Letter might be by a Kosminski, or near relative.

I think probably not as I subscribe to the theory that Kosmisnki coming into the frame in a major way post-dates his Feb 1891 incarceration.

So why bring such dangerous attention to the family then?

Also, it would mean a very, very bitter Anderson who converted a family member who was trying to be candid into 'certain' low-class Polish Jews who were hiding their member from Gentile Justice.

My conjecture is that Macnaghten found [an already incarcerated] Kosminski from the house to house list, which he reinvestigated in 1891. I think that he did checked out this list to prove that the Ripper was Druitt, and not anybody else -- not a local, foriegn, Jew. Mac thought, rightly or wrongly, that the Kosminski family's fears, or a member's fears, about Aaron were sincere but unfounded -- unlike the Druitts.

To Macnaghten's consternation, Anderson -- rightly or wrongly -- fastened onto this nothing suspect for the rest of his life, thus beginning, from 1895, this weird chief-suspect feud between the two police chiefs.

I think Anderson partly did this to muddy the waters, to forever deny Macnaghten the credit of finding the Ripper -- albeit posthumously.

[Trevor Marriott]

Or, as with Druitt and the Tory MP, information about Kosminski bypassed all other police except for Macnaghten, Anderson and Swanson. If that information was about a suspect too late to officially investigate [eg. 'safely caged'] then it makes sense that no other police would know of his existence.

So they kept the information all to themselves never wrote anyhting down at the time as to where this info came from or who provided, never told anyone, just their little secret. I dont think so.

A major case such as the ripper and the only persons who appear to have any made any inroads into the enquiry are all senior officers who all seem to have obtained these vital pieces of info without anyone else within the goverment or the police having any knowledge of it at the time or therafter.

[Trevor Marriott]

Roy,

Certainly ythe undated Crawford Letter might be by a Kosminski, or near relative.

I think probably not as I subscribe to the theory that Kosmisnki coming into the frame in a major way post-dates his Feb 1891 incarceration.

So why bring such dangerous attention to the family then?

Also, it would mean a very, very bitter Anderson who converted a family member who was trying to be candid into 'certain' low-class Polish Jews who were hiding their member from Gentile Justice.

My conjecture is that Macnaghten found [an already incarcerated] Kosminski from the house to house list, which he reinvestigated in 1891. I think that he did checked out this list to prove that the Ripper was Druitt, and not anybody else -- not a local, foriegn, Jew. Mac thought, rightly or wrongly, that the Kosminski family's fears, or a member's fears, about Aaron were sincere but unfounded -- unlike the Druitts.

To Macnaghten's consternation, Anderson -- rightly or wrongly -- fastened onto this nothing suspect for the rest of his life, thus beginning, from 1895, this weird chief-suspect feud between the two police chiefs.

I think Anderson partly did this to muddy the waters, to forever deny Macnaghten the credit of finding the Ripper -- albeit posthumously.

Macnaghten or Anderson never did any actual physical investigating, officers of that high rank get others to do the work for them and is still the case today

[Trevor Marriott]

Oh good. I'm glad I know now. It's so nice to be set straight every now and then.

I wonder if I should buy your book?

No, maybe not.

Well I am sure i will not starve this week then due to missing out in your purchase. In any event the book is in the non fiction catergory. By your posts you seem to aspire to fiction only,

[Chris]

Because the family was local, the name Kosminski was in police notebooks from the inquiries in the area. I think we could safely say that.

We don't know for sure where Aaron Kozminski lived in the Autumn of 1888, but 34 Yalford Street is a possibility, and the other addresses we have for his family around that time are outside the area covered by the house-to-house search. So there's no particular reason to think his name would be in police notebooks.

[Jonathan H]

Chris makes a very good point about the Kosminski address(es) falling outside of the house search. Nevertheless, though admittedly very unreliable, Anderson n 1910 links that search with the un-named Kosminski. Perhaps it was just the ethnic profile which he linked, between a search which included a number of Polish Jews and Kosminski, a Polish Jew. That he darn well SHOULD have been on that list, in Anderson's fading memory.

Trevor, your take on Macnaghten as a desk jockey totally reliant on the investigative work of others is completely at odds with how everybody in the Victorian and Edwardian eras described him -- including Macnaghten.

Besides, sitting in your exclusive gentleman's club and having a 'quiet word' with an old school chum, now a blabbermouth politician, over a brandy and a cigar and listening to what he supposedly knows ['his doctrine'] about some long deceased Winchester/Oxonian Gentile gent -- who was supposedly the Fiend?! -- is hardly taxing work for a clubby insider.

[Natalie Severn]

I, for one ,greatly appreciate the information,re the likely management of the case by the police hierarchy, that is provided by Trevor,and ofcourse Stewart Evans, both having had experience of years of Police procedure to base their conclusions upon.
However, I still believe that the evidence that Aaron Kosminski was not the ripper, and never could have been , is held in the Colney Hatch and Leavesdon Asylum records,brief though they are, of his 30 year stay there.
It is frankly inconceivable that a dangerous killer ,suffering from the paranoid form of schizophrenia , at that time -1891- 1919 when there were no anti psychotic drugs to control the illness would have had no record of such attacks.
To imagine that such a patient,ie one who had become a dangerous killer such as Jack the Ripper, would have been incarcerated for thirty years,with no warning information to accompany his hospital notes is absurd and ridiculous.
Ofcourse a young man of 25 would have been perceived as dangerous and unpredictable by hospital doctors for many years .Ofcourse there would have been warnings and advice about when and how to use the conventional restraints of Victorian and Edwardian mental institutions during episodes of paranoid psychosis,those restraints being what are still used today when such a psychosis is not under control from the anti psychotic drugs for any reason ie the use of straight jackets and isolation in padded cells.
And believe me, there would certainly have been traces of information about such episodes and what methods had been used to control the patient.
Myself I believe that although Aaron Kosminski may well have suffered from schizophrenia, it was not the dangerous paranoid form of that illness.Therefore he would not have been Jack the Ripper;therefore he would not have needed the traditional forms of "restraint" to control any difficult behaviour.
If anyone wants to get a picture of how a dangerous paranoid schizophrenic might behave when experiencing a psychotic attack,just read carefully that section of the book Martin Fido wrote on David Cohen, his preferred suspect.Here you will see the type of behaviour that a patient suffering from such episodes has----viz violent assaults on staff, furniture and other patients which David Cohen is recorded as having made, recorded that is by the same hospital staff,presumably, who had care of Aaron Kosminski a few years later at the very same institution, Colney Hatch.David Cohen"s notes also contain information I understand, of the restraints used by that institution to control him, in December 1888, when there were no drugs available to do the job-viz straight jackets and the padded cell, during the episodes of violent psychosis.

[Trevor Marriott]

Chris makes a very good point about the Kosminski address(es) falling outside of the house search. Nevertheless, though admittedly very unreliable, Anderson n 1910 links that search with the un-named Kosminski. Perhaps it was just the ethnic profile which he linked, between a search which included a number of Polish Jews and Kosminski, a Polish Jew. That he darn well SHOULD have been on that list, in Anderson's fading memory.

Trevor, your take on Macnaghten as a desk jockey totally reliant on the investigative work of others is completely at odds with how everybody in the Victorian and Edwardian eras described him -- including Macnaghten.

Besides, sitting in your exclusive gentleman's club and having a 'quiet word' with an old school chum, now a blabbermouth politician, over a brandy and a cigar and listening to what he supposedly knows ['his doctrine'] about some long deceased Winchester/Oxonian Gentile gent -- who was supposedly the Fiend?! -- is hardly taxing work for a clubby insider.

That last para if anywhere near correct is nothing more than hearsay

Well I and many others would be grateful if you tell us who that person was ?

I can tell you now that any of those senior offices would not have gone out and done their own enquiries. You can offer no explanation as to how any of these senior officers supposdelyobtained the information they sought to rely on.

Furthemore you can offer no explantion as to how Otsrogg appears in the memo or where Macngatnen obtained all the content for the memo from. Dont forget he wasnt around at the time of the murders.

Ask yourselfanother question having regard to the fact that the memo was compiled as a result of the Sun newsapaper wanting to know what the police had done on the ripper enquiry. Would the suggestion that Druitt was a suspect have ever have got into the public domain at the time.

[caz]

Well I and many others would be grateful if you tell us who that person was ?

You mean those who have not been paying the slightest attention to Jonathan's numerous and lengthy posts on the subject, Trev?

Jonathan has asked himself more questions and answered them all in more ways than you can evidently imagine. I'm sure he and many of us would be grateful if you could keep up.

Love,

Caz
X

[Jonathan H]

Thanks Caz, much appreciated.

Sorry to repeat myself yet again.

1. The person from whom Macnaghten probably learned about Montie Druitt is the Tory MP Henry Farquharson, in 1891. This line of argument can be found in two secondary sources; 'The West of England MP -- Identified' by Andrew Spallek, and 'The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper' by Evans and Connell.

2. Ostrog's inclusion is a puzzle, for sure. I subscribe to the theory that Macnaghten put him there because he knew he was NOT the Ripper. He was a straw man, one in no position to sue, to make up a short list for the Liberal Home Sec. Macnaghten knew that to have just Druitt and Kosminski would look indecisive, or that there was a split at the top of CID -- which there was. But add a third 'unlikely' suspect and you have camouflage. Moreover, a suspect who combines features of Druitt and Kosminski: a foreign doctor. For that reason Ostrog is also a stand-in for a genuine contemporaneous 'unlikely' suspect and dodgy, foreign medico: Dr Tumblety. [an honest list would have been Tumblety, Pizer and Sadler -- but that was not Tory Macnaghten's potential agenda before a Liberal govt.]

3. Macnaghten began disseminating the un-named Druitt into the public domain in 1898 via his pal, crony, and fellow officer of state, Major Arthur Griffiths. In that account -- and in Sims' various writings from 1899 to 1917 -- the un-named Kosminski and the un-named Ostrog are written off. In Macnaghten's memoirs of 1914 they are not even bothered with even to debunk. There was only one chief suspect and he had been dead for years before Macnaghten discovered -- outside of normal police channels -- that Druitt was probably the Ripper.


If I had the time and the resources -- and I don't -- I would be scouring whatever primary sources have survived involving the Conservative Party from 1891 to 1894. To see if the sudden emergence, and then just as sudden submergence, of a 'Jack the Tory' scandal/tremor created by Farquharson/Druitt is reflected in any diaries, letters, internal party correspondence, and so on?

[The Good Michael]

Jonathan,

Thoughtful post.

Mike

[Roy Corduroy]

We don't know for sure where Aaron Kozminski lived in the Autumn of 1888, but 34 Yalford Street is a possibility, and the other addresses we have for his family around that time are outside the area covered by the house-to-house search. So there's no particular reason to think his name would be in police notebooks.

Hi Chris, and thank you for your response. I tried to be extra careful in what I said, but apparently not specific enough. Quoting myself:

Because the family was local, the name Kosminski was in police notebooks from the inquiries in the area. I think we could safely say that.

Whether it be Yalford, Berner, Goulston or other addresses, there is every reason to think the name Kosminski was in the file. Not Aaron necessarily.

Roy