The Swanson Marginalia

[Robert]

He wasn't a policeman, if the ID occurred after July 89.

[Bridewell]

If the "Seaside Home" was indeed the Police Convalescent Home in Brighton, why was Kosminsky/Kaminsky or whoever "sent" there? I can see how the police might have wanted the ID process to be done away from the prying eyes of the press, but surely that wouldn't have necessitated sending a troublesome suspect as far away as Brighton? Is it not more likely that he was sent there because that's where the witness was?

I would suggest Harvey as he was a Sussex lad originally, but he was on the City Force and I believe they had their own arrangements (& he probably wasn't a Jew!).

[Bridewell]

Hinting by signing the statements.

Writing for just himself by signing the statements.

Regards, PIerre

Hi Pierre,

These are not statements; they are marginal annotations in his copy of Anderson's book followed by a one sentence inscription on the end paper. Neither is 'signed', although the initials that appear (DSS) are Swanson's.

[Bridewell]

because his evidence would convict the suspect, and witness would be the means of murderer being hanged

This is troublesome. All the witness (assuming it was either Lawende or Schwartz) could have done was to identify (in confrontation) a man seen with, respectively, Eddowes or Stride shortly before her demise. A half-competent barrister would have torn this ID process to pieces (even by the standards then pertaining). This evidence would not, indeed could not be the means of the person thus identified being hanged. There would still be no proof that the man seen was the actual killer. For this to be the case the witness would need to have witnessed the fatal attack for the chain of evidence to be complete. IMHO either Swanson was over-egging the pudding or the witness was someone else - perhaps the "City PC that was (on) a beat near Mitre Square" (Aberconway version of the MM). I don't buy this as a reference to Lawende.

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Elamarna;392482]

Hi Abby

tend to agree with you, I think be was both adding stuff Anderson had omitted, and trying to hint rather than categorical state himself.

Hinting by signing the statements.

of course he was writing for an audience of just himself. so we probably have to say that there was no need to say he was the killer.

Writing for just himself by signing the statments.


Regards, PIerre

[Elamarna]

Hi HB (and Wick)

"...because the suspect was also a Jew and also 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...And after this identification which suspect knew, no other murder of this kind took place in London...after the suspect had been identified at the Seaside Home where he had been sent by us with difficulty in order to subject him to identification, and he knew he was identified. On suspect's return to his brother's house in Whitechapel he was watched by police (City CID) by day & night. In a very short time the suspect with his hands tied behind his back, he was sent to Stepney Workhouse and then to Colney Hatch and died shortly afterwards - Kosminski was the suspect - DSS"[


Although Swanson dosnt say it explicitely, I think its rather obvious he was tacitly agreeing with Anderson that he thought Kos was the killer., not just clarifying.

Note those statements (in bold). repeated twice-suspect KNEW he was IDed.Its a statement one can only make if you think suspect is guilty.

and saying no other murders occurred after also points to swanson thinking this was their man.

Hi Abby

tend to agree with you, I think be was both adding stuff Anderson had omitted, and trying to hint rather than categorical state himself.

of course he was writing for an audience of just himself. so we probably have to say that there was no need to say he was the killer.


Steve

[Abby Normal]

Originally Posted by YomRippur
Sorry for bringing up an old thread (in case an apology is needed). But I'm in the camp which believed Swanson's writing may not necessarily indicate his certainty of Kosminski's guilt.

The Marginalia doesn't give an indication either way. It's meant to clarify what Anderson hedged at.

Although "Kosminski was the suspect" sounds pretty definitive, it would have sounded even more definitive if he had written "Kosminski was the murderer".

That's true....but all the witness was asked to do was merely affirm that he saw the person in question with the victim ( most likely Eddowes ).

I think Swanson was simply reporting on what he saw.

Unless something has materialized recently, we do not know that Swanson OR Anderson were at the actual identification attempt in person. What both state may well have been told to them.

The fact that he was a suspect was simply an observation. His belief that the witness refusing to identify Kosminski because he was a fellow Jew could also be Swanson's way of grasping at straws and ending up succumbing to prejudices at the time.

You're confusing Anderson ( who stated that the witness refused to identify the man under scrutiny because he was a Jew) with Swanson here, YK.
It would be prejudicial if Jews were an insignificant (numerical) entity in the neighborhood, but they weren't. One can argue ( and I would ) that the hysteria over Pizer and Leather Apron ( created ,I might add, by a liberal left wing newspaper, The Star...go figger....) was based on base prejudice...but I would dispute this in the case of the man Anderson is talking about.


It could simply be that the witness refused to identify Kosminski because he didn't think he was the killer. All we know is that Swanson believed Kosminski was the killer, but "believed" may also mean "didn't really know".

Again, Swanson's end notes are a clarification of what Anderson wrote....not his opinion....unless something new has materialized.

Cheers
HB

Hi HB (and Wick)

"...because the suspect was also a Jew and also 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...And after this identification which suspect knew, no other murder of this kind took place in London...after the suspect had been identified at the Seaside Home where he had been sent by us with difficulty in order to subject him to identification, and he knew he was identified. On suspect's return to his brother's house in Whitechapel he was watched by police (City CID) by day & night. In a very short time the suspect with his hands tied behind his back, he was sent to Stepney Workhouse and then to Colney Hatch and died shortly afterwards - Kosminski was the suspect - DSS"[


Although Swanson dosnt say it explicitely, I think its rather obvious he was tacitly agreeing with Anderson that he thought Kos was the killer., not just clarifying.

Note those statements (in bold). repeated twice-suspect KNEW he was IDed.Its a statement one can only make if you think suspect is guilty.

and saying no other murders occurred after also points to swanson thinking this was their man.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Swanson's pencillings on Page 138 more or less filled-in what Anderson had written in Blackwoods Magazine but omitted from the collected volume TLSOMOL.

Regarding the endpaper notes, I would like to know the reason why the concluding line, "Kosminski was the suspect," did not appear in Charles Sandell's 1981 typewritten article for the News of the World.

Regards,

Simon

[Howard Brown]

Originally Posted by YomRippur
Sorry for bringing up an old thread (in case an apology is needed). But I'm in the camp which believed Swanson's writing may not necessarily indicate his certainty of Kosminski's guilt.

The Marginalia doesn't give an indication either way. It's meant to clarify what Anderson hedged at.

Although "Kosminski was the suspect" sounds pretty definitive, it would have sounded even more definitive if he had written "Kosminski was the murderer".

That's true....but all the witness was asked to do was merely affirm that he saw the person in question with the victim ( most likely Eddowes ).

I think Swanson was simply reporting on what he saw.

Unless something has materialized recently, we do not know that Swanson OR Anderson were at the actual identification attempt in person. What both state may well have been told to them.

The fact that he was a suspect was simply an observation. His belief that the witness refusing to identify Kosminski because he was a fellow Jew could also be Swanson's way of grasping at straws and ending up succumbing to prejudices at the time.

You're confusing Anderson ( who stated that the witness refused to identify the man under scrutiny because he was a Jew) with Swanson here, YK.
It would be prejudicial if Jews were an insignificant (numerical) entity in the neighborhood, but they weren't. One can argue ( and I would ) that the hysteria over Pizer and Leather Apron ( created ,I might add, by a liberal left wing newspaper, The Star...go figger....) was based on base prejudice...but I would dispute this in the case of the man Anderson is talking about.


It could simply be that the witness refused to identify Kosminski because he didn't think he was the killer. All we know is that Swanson believed Kosminski was the killer, but "believed" may also mean "didn't really know".

Again, Swanson's end notes are a clarification of what Anderson wrote....not his opinion....unless something new has materialized.

Cheers
HB

[GUT]

Swanson's notes read to me like he was only putting a name to Anderson's suspect, not his own.
We don't know who Swanson suspected.

My reading too.

[Wickerman]

Swanson's notes read to me like he was only putting a name to Anderson's suspect, not his own.
We don't know who Swanson suspected.

[spyglass]

Sorry for bringing up an old thread (in case an apology is needed). But I'm in the camp which believed Swanson's writing may not necessarily indicate his certainty of Kosminski's guilt. Although "Kosminski was the suspect" sounds pretty definitive, it would have sounded even more definitive if he had written "Kosminski was the murderer". I think Swanson was simply reporting on what he saw. The fact that he was a suspect was simply an observation. His belief that the witness refusing to identify Kosminski because he was a fellow Jew could also be Swanson's way of grasping at straws and ending up succumbing to prejudices at the time. It could simply be that the witness refused to identify Kosminski because he didn't think he was the killer. All we know is that Swanson believed Kosminski was the killer, but "believed" may also mean "didn't really know".

Hi,
Exactly...many people assume " suspect and murderer " are the same thing.
The same goes with " helping police with their inquiry's " meaning they got their man.
Even Tumblety only came to light as a " likely suspect".

Regards

[YomRippur]

Sorry for bringing up an old thread (in case an apology is needed). But I'm in the camp which believed Swanson's writing may not necessarily indicate his certainty of Kosminski's guilt. Although "Kosminski was the suspect" sounds pretty definitive, it would have sounded even more definitive if he had written "Kosminski was the murderer". I think Swanson was simply reporting on what he saw. The fact that he was a suspect was simply an observation. His belief that the witness refusing to identify Kosminski because he was a fellow Jew could also be Swanson's way of grasping at straws and ending up succumbing to prejudices at the time. It could simply be that the witness refused to identify Kosminski because he didn't think he was the killer. All we know is that Swanson believed Kosminski was the killer, but "believed" may also mean "didn't really know".

[Ash]

fido
12th February 2007, 12:37 PM
Agreethat the 3-point division is a useful and sensible starting-point for discussion of the notes, RJP. And would add that the reiterted 'the suspect knew' could well be adduced to suggest that, whenever the ID took place, it explained the cessation of the murders. (Cf Green River and BTK murderers, who stopped when the chase was too close. This, of course, reduces the value of one of my own earliest arguments in favour of Cohen). There would follow, of ourse, lengthy argument as to whether Kosminski's state of mind allowed him such self-control... etc, etc etc....
But I'm not gettingnto all that: merely hoping that as little time as possible will be spent on the totally improbable suggestion that anyone but Swanson had a hand in writing the notes.
Martin F
________________________________________
chrisg
12th February 2007, 01:13 PM
Hi Martin

Many thanks for providing such a detailed explanation and background to your firm belief that the Swanson marginalia are genuine. Your posts on this issue are much appreciated.

Chris
________________________________________
robert
12th February 2007, 01:24 PM
Hi all

It's strange that Swanson seems to be adducing the suspect's awareness of the identification as an explanation for the end of the murders - one would have thought that the police surveillance would have been explanation enough (assuming that there wasn't the odd night when they "lost" him).

Robert
________________________________________
Grey Hunter
26th December 2007, 01:25 PM
Here are early photocopies of the Swanson annotations (page 138, top and rear free endpaper, bottom) -

9985
________________________________________
RJM
26th December 2007, 03:15 PM
GH,

Any particular reason for reposting these images you originally put on on page 1, or are you just bored this particular Boxing Day!

Hope the hoiday season is treating you well.
All the very best,

Robert
________________________________________
Sox
26th December 2007, 04:22 PM
Is a certain suspension of belief required here?

If all this is true, then we have to believe that at least two senior officers were involved in complicity. Taking an innocent man, apparently by force, to an illegal ID parade (that is supposing they actually did a 'parade') at a private location.

Moreover, they obviously do not inform other senior officers of the results of all this subtefuge. According to Anderson & Swanson Jack the Ripper is identified by a witness and, not only do they let him go free, but they allow fellow officers to continue to hunt for this 'unknown' killer.

If Anderson and/or Swanson held such a firm belief as to the identity of Jack the Ripper then, I suggest, that it is beyond belief that they would keep their fellows in the dark about it. That serves NO purpose at all.

Now it is all well and good to 'investigate' Swansons writings, but until someone comes up with an explanation as to why two senior police officers would be involved in complicity, then I think that any such investigation is utterly irrelevant.

Now we come to the meat.

They claim that this witness identifies Jack the Ripper. With the exception of Liz Stride, no attack on any of the victims is ever witnessed. So unless this witness is identifying the man who attacked Liz Stride then it is no identification at all. If the witness Id's the man seen with Kate Eddowes/Mary Kelly/Annie Chapman just before they die, then such an identification would be useless without some kind of corroboration - which they obviously did not have.

And so to my ultimate question.

If this witness could identify a man, seen with a victim just before she is killed, then why is this suspect not arrested on sus, taken to a police station, and placed in a legal identity parade?

Such a man would, without question, be subject to arrest until, at the very least, the police could investigate him further. Suspects were arrested, and held until questioned, under far less incriminating circumstances throughout the autumn of terror.

Not one of the men seen with any of the victims prior to her death was ever identified, and yet these notes beg us to believe that Anderson & Swanson had just such a man within their grasp. These same notes ask us to believe that not only did they not arrest this man, on any charge, but that they did not inform their fellows of his existance either....and in the next breath many authors will claim, that if all this is true, that Anderson & Swanson were responsible & competant policemen. I am sorry to be a doubting Thomas but all this simply beggars belief.
________________________________________
Natalie Severn
26th December 2007, 04:36 PM
GH,

Any particular reason for reposting these images you originally put on on page 1, or are you just bored this particular Boxing Day!

Hope the hoiday season is treating you well.
All the very best,

Robert

I must admit that to me this older photocopier reveals a different tempo to the writing between one and the other.For example the writing in the margins appears to be concise-it says what it needs to say briefly,concisely,whereas the writing on the endpaper is like -the writer is "overegging the pudding"a bit.The letter formation is a bit uneasy and there are inconsistencies in the lettering sometimes----look at the "3" in page "38" its all twists and curls.Some of the "c"s are closed so they look like "o"s,while others are open and match the letter formation from the margins.
We also have a curious sort of "capital" in "afterwards"-like a lower case "a"
writ large so it looks like a capital in the middle of a sentence----whereas in the margin notes neither a capital "A" or a big "a" starts the note in the side margin which begins with "after" --- quite a different look to it somehow.
Finally Swanson"s initials appear different in the two sets of notes.In the margin notes a full stop follows each initial whereas in the endpaper notes no full stop follows any of his three initials.

PS also in the second sample note the spaced out presentation of the word "dif ficulty" and the same thing happening in the word "identi fication" immediately underneath-----note that no such separation occurs in the margin notes above them.

(the end)

[Ash]

fido cont...

And what about Swanson's handwriting? Well, Grey Hunter and I have seen a good deal of it on the Scotland Yard files: it sounds as though Dr Davies (like Richard Totty earlier) only saw one sample for comparison purposes. Swanson's handwriting is reasonably distinctive. There is, in fact, no one else leaving minutes and memoranda on the files with whom one would easily confuse it. The initials D.S.S. are appended to many of his memos. And they are manifestly formed in exactly the same way whenever written and exactly the same way as the initials in the endpaper notes
[A brief note on document examinartion. I have some training in paleography (the decipherment of old handwritings): it was a compulsory component in the Oxford postgraduate degree B.Litt in the days when I took it. A vital stage is to look at each individual letter to see how it is formed. For the purposes of deciphement this is done in the hope that a letter in a legible word (where, say, the legible letters Sw nson offer the certainty that the illegible letter is an a) and then seeing whether an illegible letter in an undecipherable word is formed in the same way. A glance at a facsimile of the Lusk letter will show anyone how this functions. Look at every i and o in the letter: then look at the address 'Dear Sor'. It is obvious that the writer wrote and intended 'Sor' and not 'Sir'. If you have read (say) Lovett's offensive comedy of Irishness 'Handy Andy', you will then see that 'Sor', 'prasarved' and 'Mishter' combine to propose a silly 'stage' brogue, as though Irishmen wrote a phonetic imitation of their accent. Now, as Grey Hunter rightly says, a document examiner's opinion is only his opinion, and the badness of some document examiners is revealed by one who, some years ago, wrote an analytical commentary on the Lusk letter, yet trabscribed 'Sir'. With that point given, I end the methodological digression and return to Swanson.]
A casual glance indicates that the hand and initials appear to be Swanson's, as familiarized in MEPO files. A character-by-character inspection reveals no discrepancy in the letter formations. Therefore, any proposal of tampering now has to postulate a highly skilled forger capable of making an expert imitation of DSS's hand. (This is a much more difficult job than convincingly disguising one's own hand. Haigh the acid bath murderer who forged powers of attorney with his victims' 'signatures' was a far more accomplished forger than Madeleine Smith, acquitted of poisoning her discarded lover, though she had very adroitly addressed her secret correspondence to him in a variety of apparently completely different hands). Adding this to the provenance leads us into the conclusion that the unlikelihood of the notes being by anyone other than DSS is so great that one may safely put it beyond a peradventure.
Since the content is mysterious, containing strange errors of fact (Kosmiski died soon after entering the asylum) and places that are hard to establish with certainty (the Seaside Home; Mile End Infirmary) and deductive hypthesis is inevitable in trying to explain them, I referred to setting up the red herring of a possible forger as 'muddying the waters': distracting valid research and commentary on the real historical problems posed by the notes into a pointless and unnecessary discussion. My phrase, apparently offended GH, and he further wrongly interpreted as a threat my friendly intentioned warning that British libel laws are a sort of blackmailers' charter (as I know to my cost, having twice had proceeding started or threatened by convicted criminals - respectively an armed robber convicted of manslaughter and a confidence trickster, the former of whom ultimately became a good friend and admitted that his whole effort was to secure money from publlshers who would willingly shell out a reasonable small amount rather than incur the horrific costs of mounting a court defence against someone incapable of meeting their costs). My warning was offered because a statement that a document that had never left the hands of the Swanson family had been tampered with might be interprted as libelling Mr Swanson. This, of course, no longer as applies as Mr Swanson has died.
I feel as firmly as I ever did that all discussion postulating that the Swanson marginalia are not genuine is a waste of time and should be consigned to File 13 with Maybrick. But I hope that this strong disagreement will not be interpreted as virulent attack.
Martin Fido
________________________________________
Ally
11th February 2007, 03:30 PM
Howdy Martin.

Always glad to take the other side into consideration. I am sure others appreciate it as well.
________________________________________
rjpalmer
12th February 2007, 01:21 AM
Martin - Many thanks. Forgive me, I don't know if you time to read all the posts on the marginalia (some of them are inconveniently over on the Ripperologist 75 thread), or have time to respond, but I'd like to make sure that we are all on the same page...


" Since Grey Hunter and Dr Davies have fascinatingly revealed that the endpaper notes were written in a different pencil at a different time from the notes in the margins of the text..."

This is somewhat ambiguous. Do we know this? You see, as noted elsewhere, I'm not entirely sure if it has been determined that the endnotes are in a different pencil than both sets of notes on pg. 138.

Bear with me a moment while I become tedious.

For the sake of convenience, the Swanson annotations can be divided into three parts.

1. The annotation in the left margin of pg. 138. (grey)
2. The 'foot-note' on the bottom of pg. 138 (blue)
3. The 'end-note' continuing on the back fly-leaf. (grey)

The 'odd man out' is the footnoe on pg. 138. I think the photographs show this quite clearly.

http://www.casebook.org/images/marginalia4.jpg

It is much less certain whether or not the end-notes are in a different pencil from the margin notes on pg. 138. It appears to me (and Chris Phillips makes the same suggestion) that the end-notes might, in fact, be entirely compatible with the margin notes. They are in the same colour of pencil, the handwriting seems to have the same 'tremor,' and the same thought is continued.

(p. 138) "and after this identification which suspect knew....."

(endnote) "After the suspect had been identified at the Seaside Home where he had been sent by us with difficulty in order to subject him to identification, and he knew he was identified..."

These two notes evidenlty go together. As I say, the 'odd man out' is the footnote on pg. 138.

Further, the footnote is independently initialed "DSS," whereas the margin note isn't, which suggests the latter is connected to the end-note, which is also initialed.

In short, I tend to agree with Chris Phillips' that the blue 'footnote' on pg. 138 is the original annotation. The writing is more crisp. It's written in a different pencil. It doesn't seem to be expressing the same thought as the other two. My guess is that both the margin note on pg. 138 and the endnotes where written at the same time--a later date. But perhaps Grey Hunter or Dr. Davies have drawn a different conclusion based on something else they're seeing. Best wishes, RP