The Swanson marginalia - a new interpretation?

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon, Whilst I try to avoid 'blowing my own trumpet', may I just correct you on this minor point.

My sincere apologies Stewart, I was not actually thinking how I worded that, perhaps I should have wrote, "Rob presented" as opposed to "unearthed", sorry about that.

All the best, Jon S.

[mariab]

There's a full transcript of this article (and also a scan) on the G. R. Sims page of the press reports section:
http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/dagonet.html

Thanks so much, Chris, for providing the link. I'll read the article transcript when I manage (possibly very late tonight).

[jason_c]

There's a full transcript of this article (and also a scan) on the G. R. Sims page of the press reports section:
http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/dagonet.html

Thanks Chris.

That Casebook page on Sims' JtR articles is my favourite page on the site. Sims' backhanded compliment on the police investigation always makes me smile -

"The wrong man has not been arrested this week quite so frequently as he was last........"

[Stewart P Evans]

Thanks

There's a full transcript of this article (and also a scan) on the G. R. Sims page of the press reports section:
http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/dagonet.html

Thanks for that Chris. I supplied Stephen with the Sims transcripts many years ago (in the 1990s).

[Chris]

I alerted my colleague and ace researcher Keith Skinner and he quickly found the piece, 'My Criminal Museum' in Lloyd's Weekly News of Sept. 22, 1907. It has been published, and discussed, before.

There's a full transcript of this article (and also a scan) on the G. R. Sims page of the press reports section:

http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/dagonet.html

[Stewart P Evans]

Correct

I think we must thank Rob House for unearthing another piece of information.
Apparently George Sim's wrote a piece for Lloyds Weekly News, Sept. 22, 1907. This article appears to have been sourced from the writings of Macnaghten, but as Macnaghten identified the location as 'Mitre Square' and Sims uses 'Mitre Court', the source just may have been Griffith's who also used 'Mitre Court'.
...
Regards, Jon S.
Ref: Jack the Ripper and the case for Scotland Yard's Prime Suspect, Robert House, 2011, pp224/5.

Hi Jon, Whilst I try to avoid 'blowing my own trumpet', may I just correct you on this minor point.

Rob did not 'unearth' this 'piece of information', I discovered it by sheer serendipity back in 1993. When I purchased the Littlechild letter there were several other letters to Sims with it. One of these was from an Ernest Crawford of Bath, dated 24 September 1907, and Crawford started 'I was much interested in your theories respecting the identity of Jack the Ripper in your recent article in Lloyd's.'

I alerted my colleague and ace researcher Keith Skinner and he quickly found the piece, 'My Criminal Museum' in Lloyd's Weekly News of Sept. 22, 1907. It has been published, and discussed, before.

[mariab]

I think we must thank Rob House for unearthing another piece of information (ref: Robert House: JTR and the case for Scotland Yard's prime suspect, pp. 224-5.) Apparently George Sim's wrote a piece for Lloyds Weekly News, Sept. 22, 1907. This article appears to have been sourced from the writings of Macnaghten, but as Macnaghten identified the location as “Mitre Square“ and Sims uses “Mitre Court“, the source just may have been Griffith's who also used “Mitre Court“. (...) Sims rewords Macnaghten's summary of what the police new about Kosminski.
Macnaghten had wrote:
"This man in appearance strongly resembled the individual seen by the City P.C. near Mitre Square."
Yet Sims writes a more telling version:
"The policeman who got a glimpse of Jack in Mitre Court said, when some time afterwards he saw the Pole, that he was the height and build of the man he had seen on the night of the murder."
We might well ask about the part which reads "... when some time afterwards he saw the Pole,...".(...)We might wonder if this is a degree of (...) confirmation that there was indeed a policeman who was a witness, and who did take part in a subsequent identification - the second identification! A policeman who could only recognise the suspect by his height and build hardly suits Anderson's witness who had a "good view" and "at once identified him". Because we are dealing with George Sims I would not believe it is just a poor choice of words, Sims was among the elite in his field.

This cannot refer to Robert Sagar, as Sagar didn't see a man in Mitre Square himself. Apparently the suggestion has been made that PC Harvey might have seen someone during his beat in Mitre Square? As for PC Collins, I don't recall the specifics.
I'll have a look at this when I get the Robert House book in my hands, but I won't be able to really concentrate on this book before June.

[Jonathan H]

Actually, I can hardly see much of anything ...

[Jeff Leahy]

We can actually see the fictionalisation of the Druitt data.
.

Is that a royal 'We' or self-serving opinion?

Pirate

[Phil H]

Or were Macnaghten's sources on Kosminski just different to those relied upon by Anderson (and Swanson?)?

There could also be evidence hereof office politics at work - as seen in almost any workplace with a significant number of staff - with rival theories being touted.

Phil

[Jonathan H]

Self-serving does not mean deliberate deceit. It is just about bias.

I have never suggested that Anderson and.or Swanson was being deceitful -- though I do argue that motive for Macnaghten.

I have also been arguing for some years now that the Sims piece from 1907 was the trigger for Anderson and/or Swanson to correctly remember that the wtiness was not a beat cop, but rather a Jewish passerby.

But Lawende claimed to see a Saiolrish, Gentilish man. If you can correctly recall that, then the Polish Jew element of Sims' account will be voided.

Unless a fading, self-serving memory does a sincere switch, and turns the SEAman into a SEAside location, and a police location thus somewhat matching the concept of a police witness.

Evans' and Rumbelow's argument is not necessarily in equipoise with Fido's.

I think it is better argued, based on available sources.

I think that people misunderstand Griffiths and Sims if they see them as independent about the Ripper. They were both Mac sources by proxy. They were both manipulated by Macnaghten.

For example, Sims has the 'doctor' bobbing up in the Thames less than a month after the Kelly murder. That makes for a much better story, yet it is untrue as 'Aberconway' has the date as 31st of Dec. 1888.

Sims has the friends of the doctor trying to find him, and in touch with police when they cannot locate the mentally deranged medico. We know that 'Aberconway' says 'family', and that Macnaghten and/or Griffiths changed that detail into 'friends'.

We can actually see the fictionalisation of the Druitt data.

Of course that 1907 piece by Sims also dismisses the Polish Jew as the fiend because he was alive for a considerable time after the final murder, eg. not incarcerated soon after and not dead soon after. That is correct, unlike anything that Anderson and/or Swanson wrote or said.

To be fair, I think that Macnaghten misled one, or both men about 'Kosminski'.

[Wickerman]

I think we must thank Rob House for unearthing another piece of information.

Apparently George Sim's wrote a piece for Lloyds Weekly News, Sept. 22, 1907. This article appears to have been sourced from the writings of Macnaghten, but as Macnaghten identified the location as 'Mitre Square' and Sims uses 'Mitre Court', the source just may have been Griffith's who also used 'Mitre Court'.

That said, Sims rewords Macnaghten's summary of what the police new about Kosminski.

Macnaghten had wrote:
"This man in appearance strongly resembled the individual seen by the City P.C. near Mitre Square."

Yet Sims writes a more telling version:
"The policeman who got a glimpse of Jack in Mitre Court said, when some time afterwards he saw the Pole, that he was the height and build of the man he had seen on the night of the murder."

We might well ask about the part which reads, "... when some time afterwards he saw the Pole,...".

Presumably Sims is meaning, "sometime after the initial sighting at the murder site". We might wonder if this is a degree of coincidential confirmation that there was indeed a policeman who was a witness, and who did take part in a subsequent identification - the second identification!

A policeman who could only recognise the suspect by his height and build hardly suits Anderson's witness who had a "good view" and "at once identified him".
Here then once again we have an interesting perspective on the potential of two witnesses and two separate identifications.

Because we are dealing with George Sims I would not believe it is just a poor choice of words, Sims was among the elite in his field.

Regards, Jon S.
Ref: Jack the Ripper and the case for Scotland Yard's Prime Suspect, Robert House, 2011, pp224/5.

[TomTomKent]

Thankyou Chris.
We are all too trusting that these police officials recalled the facts correctly. Yet we have clear examples that such was not the case.
We have no need to agonize over a convalescing policeman if Swanson's memory failed him with respect to this 'Seaside Home', maybe the identification took place elsewhere.

The fact remains that within a decade of Kelly's murder Macnaghten, then Griffith's, had referred to a policeman as a witness. None of which is readily recognizable in surviving testimony.
The idea of a citizen witness did not surface until 1910, a clear 30+ years after the murders, unless Anderson's allusions to 'moral proof' be references to this citizen witness.

Presently, we are required to envisage a citizen witness and a detained lunatic being both transported out of London to Brighton to face each other, and then returned to their rightful places. The 'identification' of Sadler was not so contrived so why promote this strained scenario at the Seaside Home?
Something is amiss...

Regards, Jon S.

If the seaside home was the venue, it would strongly suggest a police officer had seen the suspect, and if there was an iffy air to the meeting it would make sense to fall back on a police officers word that may seem reliable. Although it is possible, maybe even probable, that a record of a police witness has been lost in history, I find it unlikely that there are no other mentions of it,or references to it, in the contempary documents. I can't claim to be an expert, but if there had been a Policeman who saw Jack I would have expected his description to have been widely circulated.

[Wickerman]

...
Regarding the possibility of the officer's convalescence beginning earlier than 1890, I think he would still have to show up in these records, because detached sick leave was recommended for an initial period and then periodically extended as required (2 months is the longest I have noted either for the initial period or for an extension).

Thankyou Chris.
We are all too trusting that these police officials recalled the facts correctly. Yet we have clear examples that such was not the case.
We have no need to agonize over a convalescing policeman if Swanson's memory failed him with respect to this 'Seaside Home', maybe the identification took place elsewhere.

The fact remains that within a decade of Kelly's murder Macnaghten, then Griffith's, had referred to a policeman as a witness. None of which is readily recognizable in surviving testimony.
The idea of a citizen witness did not surface until 1910, a clear 30+ years after the murders, unless Anderson's allusions to 'moral proof' be references to this citizen witness.

Presently, we are required to envisage a citizen witness and a detained lunatic being both transported out of London to Brighton to face each other, and then returned to their rightful places. The 'identification' of Sadler was not so contrived so why promote this strained scenario at the Seaside Home?
Something is amiss...

Regards, Jon S.

[TomTomKent]

Oh, and it was the New York police who apparently said that they'd have caught Jack the Ripper, which was just hot air and I suspect Anderson would have known it.

If I were a cynic, I would make a joke here that they would certainly have found somebody tocharge, even if it wasn't the Ripper. But I'm too nice to crack wise.