There's Something Wrong with the Swanson Marginalia

[Chris]

Sorry if I'm sounding a bit dim, but who first suggested that the marginalia notes had been 'retraced' over? I keep seeing mention of this.

Don Souden posted on the other thread that he had been told that "on page 137 they appear to have gone over Swanson's pencil lining with fresh, ruled pencil lines."

[Ally]

Sorry if I'm sounding a bit dim, but who first suggested that the marginalia notes had been 'retraced' over? I keep seeing mention of this.

I don't know who first suggested it. Apparently it's more obvious on one of the pages not up on the boards.

Regardless, as I have said, the actually extent of the tampering is not my concern. My concern is that the argument that "the Swanson family would never" is now gone.

[Ally]

I think I may be missing the point somewhat here. I don't really understand why there is any suggestion of anything sinister in these lines. To me they look like they have been put there to highlight a particular piece of text that was of interest. They in no what detract from what is written in the marginalia. When I was at uni we would often find journals and copies of 'History Today' marked in similar ways, annoying and disrespectful yes, sinister no!

If the Swanson family added red lines, who is to say what else they added. The only thing we have to go on is their word that the marginalia is genuine. I could point to a dozen examples where the only argument in favor of the Marginalia being genuine is "The swanson family would never tamper with it".

People say well it hasn't defaced the actual marginalia, so who cares. It doesn't matter if the marginalia is defaced. What evidence is there now that the marginalia was genuine in the first place?

How do we know where the tampering begins and ends. People say "ah well we have Stewarts original photos". Sorry those now prove nothing. If Stewart had photographed the document 5 years prior to when he did, would "Kosminski was the suspect" have been there?

If Stewart had never taken those earlier photographs and the first images we were getting were now, how would we know what was later additions and what was original?

We cannot say that the earlier photos are of pure, untampered document. That's not possible now. The only thing we had to go on, was the belief that the Swanson family "would never".

SO again, if the earlier photographs were never taken and all we had to go on was the current, how can we possibly say, what precisely has been tampered with? There is now no evidence that the document was not tampered with to start from.

Who is to say, that "Kosminski was the suspect" wasn't also an addition prior to the first photos being taken?

[KatBradshaw]

I think I may be missing the point somewhat here. I don't really understand why there is any suggestion of anything sinister in these lines. To me they look like they have been put there to highlight a particular piece of text that was of interest. They in no what detract from what is written in the marginalia. When I was at uni we would often find journals and copies of 'History Today' marked in similar ways, annoying and disrespectful yes, sinister no!

[John Bennett]

Maria, no offense, but no one gives a flying frak about the freaking fogelli. It's completely irrelevant.

Aw, that's a bit harsh. Maria's post was giving an example of archival tampering and how the issue was dealt with in her field.

[John Bennett]

The issue is it has now been established is that despite claims to the contrary, someone in the Swanson family or circle HAS knowingly marked up the book AND apparently "retraced" the marginalia in fresher pencil.

Sorry if I'm sounding a bit dim, but who first suggested that the marginalia notes had been 'retraced' over? I keep seeing mention of this.

[Ally]

[B]PaulB wrote:

The entire rhetoric about the document having been “vandalized“ or “defaced“ is highly exaggerated. The red lines (as seen in the photo kindly posted by John Bennett) in the margins of the Swanson marginalia do NOT obstruct the visibility of the document. Moreover, since they've evidently been added about 2 years ago, long after SPE photographed the book in 2000, they have obviously nothing whatsoever to do with the original annotations and are not relevant for our Ripperological research.

Maria, no offense, but no one gives a flying frak about the freaking fogelli. It's completely irrelevant. How much defacement is not even the issue. Now that it is clear it occurred while in the Swanson's keeping, it's not even defacement. It's their book. They can do what they want with it. They are now just "additions". The lines themselves are not the issue.

The issue is it has now been established is that despite claims to the contrary, someone in the Swanson family or circle HAS knowingly marked up the book AND apparently "retraced" the marginalia in fresher pencil.

Considering there are people who have doubted the marginalia all along, this has added fuel to the idea that the marginalia may well have been forged by someone in the Swanson family or circle. If they were willing to trace over parts of it a couple of years ago, who is to say that same person didn't forge it to start with? If they are that willing to make "additions" where precisely does their willingness to make additions begin and end.

They obviously don't consider the document to be of sufficient value to prevent them tampering with it. Who kept the book if not Neville Swanson? Who handed the book to the crime museum? Did he not open the book and look at the marginalia even once before handing it over the crime museum? Just picked it off the pile, wrapped it up and handed it over without one final glance?

I am dumbfounded to think that the lines were present when Mr. Swanson handed it over...but he had no idea they were there.

[Trevor Marriott]

My understanding is that the red lines highlighting the marginalia in Swanson's copy of The Lighter Side.. were present when the Crime Museum took charge of the book and a photograph taken at the time proves this beyond question. Mr Swanson, who owns the book, has no knowledge of the lines and they are as much of a surprise to him as to anyone else.

I notice that on JTR forums you refer to both the swanson marginalia and the Magnachten memo as being historical documents which i toally agree with.

However as you know there are issues surrounding the authenticity of both documents which have been raised by not only myself but many others. In the interest of historical accuracy do you not think the time is right for you and your co writers to publish the full forensic handwritng report on the marginalia. A report which we know is contentious. A report that as I previoulsy stated from corrsepondence with Alan McMormcik the curator of the crime museum has strangely now gone missing from the museum.

I have written twice to the Police Commissioner with a request that consideration be given for new forensic tests to be carried out on the marginalia. The first negative reply came from Alan McCormick the second letter has not been replied to.

[mariab]

Do you have any evidence that these lines were added while the book was in the keeping of the Crime Museum?
I have seen none whatsoever.

PaulB wrote:
My understanding is that the red lines highlighting the marginalia in Swanson's copy of The Lighter Side.. were present when the Crime Museum took charge of the book and a photograph taken at the time proves this beyond question. Mr Swanson, who owns the book, has no knowledge of the lines and they are as much of a surprise to him as to anyone else.

The entire rhetoric about the document having been “vandalized“ or “defaced“ is highly exaggerated. The red lines (as seen in the photo kindly posted by John Bennett) in the margins of the Swanson marginalia do NOT obstruct the visibility of the document. Moreover, since they've evidently been added about 2 years ago, long after SPE photographed the book in 2000, they have obviously nothing whatsoever to do with the original annotations and are not relevant for our Ripperological research.
As unfortunate as this incident is, I'm afraid it's fairly common. Just for comparison, I'm citing a serious problem my boss and I are having in our field: 2 years ago, during my research in Italy, we were shocked to establish that Rossini's autograph score of his work Maometto II (which contains 3 different, superposed versions of the work, from 1820, from 1823, and from 1826), currently owned by an Italian Foundation I won't name, has been carelessly and recklessly manipulated, with the result that the foglii have ended up in a completely different order than what my boss consulted in 1971, when the autograph in question first became available. Instead of wasting time with making accusations, we are concentrating in stoical efforts of reconstructing the original order of things, which will take several months.

[PaulB]

My understanding is that the red lines highlighting the marginalia in Swanson's copy of The Lighter Side.. were present when the Crime Museum took charge of the book and a photograph taken at the time proves this beyond question. Mr Swanson, who owns the book, has no knowledge of the lines and they are as much of a surprise to him as to anyone else.

[cerburusuk]

Has anyone any knowledge as to whether Mr. Swanson has been asked if he has any information as to where the markings came from? And if so what his response was?

[John Bennett]

I apologize for misrepresenting what you wrote. I am sure I saw the surprise thing somewhere, but it probably wasn't you and I don't know now where I read it. So again, apologies for the misrepresentation.?

No problemo.

Uhm. Isn't the entire documentary handing people information on a plate?

Absolutely. But when that documentary is made public is down to the TV company's broadcast schedule, and not decided by Bullseye Lantern Productions.

[Ally]

I did not say that at all - where did that come from?

What I said was that no mention was made about our filming of the Marginalia because we were wary about publicising the fact after the hoo-hah regarding the Aberconway papers.

I apologize for misrepresenting what you wrote. I am sure I saw the surprise thing somewhere, but it probably wasn't you and I don't know now where I read it. So again, apologies for the misrepresentation.

If this isn't good enough for those who want information handed on a plate then sorry. Though why I am apologising... I don't know.

Uhm. Isn't the entire documentary handing people information on a plate?

[John Bennett]

Earlier in this thread, John said no prior mention was made because they wanted it to be a surprise.

I did not say that at all - where did that come from?

What I said was that no mention was made about our filming of the Marginalia because we were wary about publicising the fact after the hoo-hah regarding the Aberconway papers.

In response to other comments (which are now too numerous to quote) about us not publicising our observation of the red lines at the filming session, the reality was very simple.

Paul had not seen the book for about 20 years. Jeff and I had NEVER seen it before. We basically filmed it because we wanted a good resolution version of it for the HD documentary and realised we may be able to get access to it (unlike the Dear Boss letter which would have had funding implications).

Jeff noticed the red lines, Paul said that they weren't there all those years ago and that was it. I should know, I've got the footage. We just got on with the job in hand. The moment lasted seconds. We had a job to do and were getting on with it.

If this isn't good enough for those who want information handed on a plate then sorry. Though why I am apologising... I don't know.

[Ally]

Well Ally, its not clear when it was done.If it was my book and it had been done while in my care by a member of the family -for any reason-or an OCD person,I would not feel I had to explain it to anyone.

There is no explanation required. But an answer actually is. Because if it was defaced prior to the book being handed over to the museum, then they at least owe it to the museum's reputation to admit that the additions occurred prior to the museum taking possession. They don't need to offer an explanation. It's their book. They can light the thing on fire if they want with no explanation required. But a simple yes or no to save the crime museum grief would seem to be in order.

If it was done by somebody at the museum then perhaps I would remove it---unless I was reassured by the curator that it would not happen again.

How can they possibly assure it won't happen again? Isn't there supposed to be an assurance that it won't happen in the first place that one operates under when loaning something to a museum?

I suppose it's possible that the family just doesn't give a rat's rear about the safety of the book, which could explain them leaving it there, but I think most people upon finding out a possibly valuable item has been damaged would yank it out so fast the pages would singe.