There's Something Wrong with the Swanson Marginalia

[mariab]

Jonathan H. wrote:
The overall point about the 'Marginalia' is that it further confirmed that Kosminski is a minor suspect --
Like any rational person wouldn't have known that, even without the Swanson “Marginalia“...
Jonathan H. wrote:
Don't start reading the Evans/Rumbelow until you have a clear run at it; as your normal life will just become a irritating interruption of this wonderful tome, one bookended by terrific chapters on Warren and Anderson. The copious illustrations alone will keep you busy for days!
Actually, I can't wait to read it, and planning to take both Sugden and The ultimate to Paris. (How romantic!) My so-called “normal life“? Nice, really-really nice joke! As for the copious illustrations, I've started wondering a bit about my healthy mental disposition, as my entire (non electronic) lit on Ripperology (consisting of just the 4 aforementioned books, plus Paley and a couple Ripper Notes) is stuck at the foot of a cupboard by my bed, awaiting to be read (as the living room/office is already more or less chock full of stacks of books and materials pertaining to articles and a book manuscript that await completion/editing too), and sometimes I wonder if it's mentally healthy to sleep like a baby with all these postmortem photos practically at the foot of my bed...

[robhouse]

Just a couple points:

The writing Davies compared the marginalia to were written 30 years before the marginalia when Swanson was around 30 years old. Also, these earlier comparison samples were written in ink, as opposed to pencil, with which the marginalia were written. These factors, according to Davies, "restricted" his ability to be more conclusive in his findings.

As both Davies and Stewart have noted, there were 2 different colored pencils used. One pencil was used for the paragraph at the bottom of page 138, beginning "because the suspect was also a Jew..." Another pencil was used both for all the remaining annotations on that page (including the underlinings) AND for the notes written on the endpaper. (see image). This suggests that Swanson first wrote the paragraph at the bottom of page 138, then sometime later he added the remaining notes.

In this second set of annotations, Swanson underlined a part of his previous note ("also a Jew"), underlined a couple of Anderson's statements, added the note "known to Scotland Yard head (underlined twice) officers of CID," added the note in the left margin, then turned to the endpaper and added the final paragraph... all apparently in one sitting.

Davies noted that the first annotation was of slightly better quality than the second, which contained "evidence of occasional tremor." He concluded that it was likely that Swanson wrote the set 2 annotations some time later, but he could not speculate on how much later.

(Note: the image below was uploaded to the message boards by SPE, then I added the highlights. The contrast has been increased so it is easier to read.)

RH

[robhouse]

Here are some sample comparisons between the handwriting at the bottom of pg 138 and the notes on the endpaper.

RH

[mariab]

To Rob House:
Thank you so very much and many-many thanks to SPE for posting these samples here. I hope to not come off as incredibly particular (!), but I almost wish that the blue and yellow highlighting were absent and that we could see the original colour of the two different coloured pencils! By the by, I've NEVER experienced a purplish coloured pencil before for the late 19th century/early 20th century, I've only seen thick red coloured pencil (almost lipstick-like) for short, “highlighted“ annotations (for instance, to give lighting stage directions on musical scores at the Paris Opéra). Some people in the early to mid 19th century used different coloured inks, sometimes Beethoven, but esp. the composer Meyerbeer, who used black, red, and green inks in his intricate sketches, and they look amazing!)
Just a couple other points, if I may:
Rob House wrote:
The writing Davies compared the marginalia to were written 30 years before the marginalia when Swanson was around 30 years old.
I know the story with Davies, but SPE in his post #240 in this very thread attached a page from a letter written by Swanson to Anderson after 1901. I think this letter was in a collection of Anderson correspondence purchased by SPE recently.
Rob House wrote:
Also, these earlier comparison samples were written in ink, as opposed to pencil, with which the marginalia were written. These factors, according to Davies, "restricted" his ability to be more conclusive in his findings.
I'm sorry, but the ink vs. pencil thing should not be an issue. The magnified samples of the handwriting from the bottom of p. 138 vs. the notes on the endpaper which Rob House attached on his post #288 (especially the 2 first samples, “and“ and “the“) look VERY-VERY similar to me, most possibly like coming from the same hand at a different time frame and under different circumstances, and I might even possibly be detecting the “tremor“ in the second samples (or I'm simply imagining it). The third sample unfortunately appears too magnified to cleanly read on my computer screen.
Thank you so very much, again, for sharing these sources with everyone here, but, naturally, the entire document, preferably in its original state (I know, greedy!) is ideally required for a proper assessment.
Thank you again.

[mariab]

Pertaining to my complaining about the blue and yellow highlighting which Rob House added to the samples: What a complete idiot do I make of myself! The reproduction's in black and white, so the different inks would not be visible anyway! (It starts getting noticeable that I'm sleep-deprived...)

[robhouse]

There are color photographs of the marginalia, but the writing is now so faded that it is very hard to make out. They have been posted on here before somewhere... not sure where exactly.

RH

[robhouse]

Actually, here they are:

http://www.casebook.org/images/marginalia1.jpg

http://www.casebook.org/images/marginalia2.jpg

http://www.casebook.org/images/marginalia3.jpg

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

RH

[mariab]

To Rob House:
Wow, thank you so very much for all the info and the help. At some later point I'll have a look at the color photos. (And I've TOTALLY had the problem with color pictures making the writing invisible. I could post a picture of an autograph letter here which would make you guys go blind! And my crappy printer prints it out in all the colors of the rainbow, which is even worse...)

[mariab]

The color photos of the marginalia actually read fine on my computer!

[Simon Wood]

Hi Rob,

Many thanks for the highlighted marginalia. It was as clear as a bell and makes just as little sense as it always has.

"After this identification which suspect knew no other murders of this kind took place in London."

If in his dotage Swanson could recall the minutiae surrounding the Seaside Home identification how could he so easily have forgotten that a week after Kosminski's 1891 Colney Hatch incarceration he was investigating what was thought to be yet another Ripper murder, one in which Lawende was asked if he could identify Sadler as the man he had seen in Mitre Square?

My money stays on the blue highlighted text being the real McCoy, mainly because it can be logically explained.

Colour me highly dubious about the rest.

Regards,

Simon

[mariab]

Simon Wood wrote:
My money stays on the blue highlighted text being the real McCoy, mainly because it can be logically explained.
I wish it were that simple!
In my humble (totally newbie) opinion the yellow highlighted text “known to Scottland Yard head offices...“ on p. 138 appears authentic enough! I don't wish to go out on a limb, but the signatures look honest as well, although the text on the endpaper is starting to appear as a slight variation of the previous handwriting on p.138. But possibly that's simply an effect of my sleep deprivation...

[Jonathan H]

Swanson might be the -- originaly more desk-bound -- Anderson's source for the 'Seaside Home' mythos, for sure.

But it could be the other way round?

That Swanson, faculties intacticus, was simply recording what his ex-boss had told him after he asked for, eh, clarification of the strange story of the treacherous Supergrass in the mag and his memoirs; in which the events of 1891 cease to exist, or rather have popped up in 1888?

I find the Marginalia to be an obsequious, furtive, an even somewhat embarrassed source; very limited in value as you can write what you like to yourself -- with zero accoutability.

It is telling, I think, that Swanson never went public to assist Anderson with his claims of a Polish Jewish chief suspect, nor did he apparently ever show the notation to family members and say: look here I have recorded the identity of the fiend [with a member then asking: really, and what was his first name ...?].

[Tecs]

It is telling, I think, that Swanson never went public to assist Anderson with his claims of a Polish Jewish chief suspect

Absolutely.

I was going to ask this anyway, but you are heading towards it with your post.

What do people think about the theory, that I have always agreed with, that far from supporting Anderson with his annotations, Swanson was actually distancing himself from them?

ie in his private memoirs he could have written "So, after all that, it turned out that JTR was Kosminski." or "The killer was a man called Kosminski" or "Kosminski was the murderer."

But he didn't, he used the lukewarm "Kosminski was the suspect." which coming after a claim that the man in question was the killer, appears to be backtracking?

Regards

[Tecs]

Nothing new anyway?

Also, am I right in saying that apart from the bit about where and how the identification may have taken place, the Swanson marginalia didn't actually tell us much new and it appears to be basically adding details that were already in the public domain from Anderson's serialised memoirs?

The bit about the witness refusing to swear because he was a fellow Jew for example appeared to be amazing new evidence when it first came to light, but it turned out that it had been in the public domain for years as it was in the serialised version of Anderson's memoirs.

Regards

[Jonathan H]

To Tecs

Oh, I totally agree with you--for what that is worth.

I think that over the years Swanson became quite perplexed over Anderson's growing certainty, in his public and written commnets, concerning a Jewish suspect in 1888, one who ended up 'safely caged' in a madhouse after being at large for mere 'weeks'?

A Jewish Super-suspect? Only at large for weeks?

Then came Anderson's 1910 bombshell about a treacherous Jewish witness, triggering ugly, anti-Semtic charges against a sincerely affronted Anderson, and so on.

My theory is that Swanson went to have tea with Anderson and asked him, gently and respectfully, about this 'defintely asecertained fact' and then listened in gobsmacked silence to a pompous train-wreck of suspects and witness fusion; Druitt's early death, Pizer a Jewish suspect in 1888, the useless witness Violenia, the co-operative witness Lawende -- who said 'no' to Sadler and 'yes' to Grainger -- Sadler's Sailor's Home morphing into the 'Seaside Home' [why would we take a suspect there for an identification?] all being held up by the shoulders of that wretch 'Kosminski', one of Macnaghten's disposeable red herrings.

Kosminski was incarcerated before the final Ripper murder, Coles, or long, long after the other possible final murder, Kelly. Was the Polish Jew id'd before he went into an asylum or after, which was so unlikely and unsafe?

I think Swanson went home and scribbled this egocentric nonsense in Anderson's book because otherwise he was never going to rememebr it.

As you say it is as if he is writing: 'Kosminski was the suspect'