Who Do The Marginalia Not Name The Witness?

[Bridewell]

I posted an entry on the Time Travel thread last night and chose to dine with Donald Sutherland Swanson, because I wanted to know more about the "Seaside Home" incident and the circumstances giving rise to his marginalia.

It occurred to me that it's rather strange that DSS went out of his way to name the suspect, but gave no clue whatsoever as to the identity of the witness involved. I could understand this if he was still serving or recently retired, if the events described were recent, or the marginalia likely to see the light of day, but none of these was the case. This was a private note written in
his own copy of a book which was still in his possession when he died. It seems to me an astonishing omission to name the person identified as the killer, but not the individual who supposedly clinched the deal - if only in the minds of the police.

Can anyone think of any logical reason for not including the information? If the marginalia were solely for his own information, there seems little point in creating them at all. If they were for the information of his children - or someone else, why not be more explicit? Could it be that he deliberately provided only detail which could never be challenged, or subjected to thorough scrutiny?

[lynn cates]

explicit

Hello Bridewell.

"If they were for the information of his children - or someone else, why not be more explicit?"

Well, what if, in being explicit, the chap named were to correct the "identification"?

"Could it be that he deliberately provided only detail which could never be challenged, or subjected to thorough scrutiny?"

Hmm, I won't challenge you here.

Cheers.
LC

[Hunter]

Swanson wrote annotations in many of his manuscripts, dating back to reports that crossed his desk when he was with CID. Littlechild did the same thing.

Although, Swanson probably knew that at some point others might read it, he was probably clarifying certain passages for his own benefit. The suspect was the focus of the text in the part of Anderson's book that the marginalia pertained to and Anderson didn't name him. Swanson remembered who he was and did so to clarify that passage.

It would have been nice if he had named the witness too, but he apparently didn't think that was of importance since the focus was on a suspect that Anderson thought to be the murderer.

There are other things I wish that Swanson had elucidated upon as well, but he didn't, for reasons known only to him. He wrote what was important to him at the time.

[Robert]

A possibility is that with two Polish names (and perhaps similarly sounding Polish names, at least to a British ear) Swanson wanted to make sure that he wouldn't mix them up at some point - hence "Kosminski was the suspect" (i.e. "Kosminski was the suspect").

[Hunter]

That's a good point, Robert.

In his Home Office reports, he spelled Lawende's name wrong.

[Bridewell]

Have I Understood You Right?

A possibility is that with two Polish names (and perhaps similarly sounding Polish names, at least to a British ear) Swanson wanted to make sure that he wouldn't mix them up at some point - hence "Kosminski was the suspect" (i.e. "Kosminski was the suspect").

Hi Robert,

In posting the above, are you speculating that Kosminski was the suspect, and that a man with a very similar name was the witness? If so, methinks that's Schwartz and Lawende out of the window!

I don't know if this is helpful or not, but there was a murder committed about 10 years before the commencement of my police service which was never detected. (For obvious reasons, I can't go into specifics). This murder is referred to in a published book of crime scene photographs, which alludes to an unnamed suspect. In my copy of this I have noted, in pencil, the name of the person I was once told had been the suspect concerned. I can't reveal what I was told, and I won't be showing the book to anybody likely to divulge what I have written because, presumably, there was never sufficient evidence to charge that individual; also because I have no personal knowledge of the affair, only a hearsay account that this person was suspected. However, where I acted differently from Swanson, is that I have written the full name of the individual concerned, rather than just a surname.

Kosminski was a common enough name. Why did DSS write only a surname? Had he forgotten the forename, or did he never know it? I don't understand why "Aaron" - or whatever - wasn't included.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Robert]

Hi Bridewell

Well, I don't like to rule anything out. Perhaps someone else did see the Ripper. As for the forename, maybe Swanson trusted himself to remember that. Who knows, perhaps he later forgot it. We've all done that kind of thing, imagining that we'll never forget something that we later do forget. There actually weren't that many Kos(z)minski(y) names in London at the time - they could all be visited in one evening. But from Swanson's point of view, the priority might just have been to get that pesky surname down right. And then, Aaron Kosminski also went by the name of Aaron Abrahams, so DSS may have felt it important to fix his true surname in his memory once and for all.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

The marginalia isn't exactly the Rosetta Stone.

The pencilled notation at the bottom of page 138 of TLSOMOL is merely Swanson appending a version of what his old boss had written in a Blackwoods magazine footnote but a few months later decided to omit, perhaps for reasons of propriety, from the published volume.

Namely that the witness was a fellow-Jew etc. etc., which doesn't suppose any inside knowledge on the part of Swanson. Perhaps just keen readership.

The endpaper, however, supposes a little too much.

Regards,

Simon

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi All,

The marginalia isn't exactly the Rosetta Stone.

The pencilled notation at the bottom of page 138 of TLSOMOL is merely Swanson appending a version of what his old boss had written in a Blackwoods magazine footnote but a few months later decided to omit, perhaps for reasons of propriety, from the published volume.

Namely that the witness was a fellow-Jew etc. etc., which doesn't suppose any inside knowledge on the part of Swanson. Perhaps just keen readership.

The endpaper, however, supposes a little too much.

Regards,

Simon

Having spent many years working with Derek Acorah I can sincerely say your statement is on par with the great psychic...but not as good

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jeff,

Good to know.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

To Simon Wood

That's a very interesting and thought-provoking point!

You're right; all the arguably far-out stuff is at the end -- in a different pencil.

Do I understand your position to be that the fly-leaf comments were written at some later time when Swanson's faculties, understandably, were perhaps failing him?

That that is when he remembered some things correctly, eg. Kosminski's name and that he had a brother-guardian, and remembered correctly something he had been told about (in 1895?) though it was wrong (he's dead) and then a bit his mind has retrieved in a mangled state (eg. Sadler's Seaman's home and/or Lawende's Jack the Seaman plus Grffiths/Sims' policeman witness morphing into the Seaside Home location)?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

I would hazard a guess that the end-paper notation was written some time after Swanson's faculties had finally failed him.

Regards,

Simon

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi Jonathan,

I would hazard a guess that the end-paper notation was written some time after Swanson's faculties had finally failed him.

Regards,

Simon

I'm not quite certain if i should push a large fish fork into my leg and scream bibble!

But where in the 'f' did that piece of 'FACT' come from?

Am i living in a Casebook twighlight zone?

Can you people really beleive this...'well stuff' or has the message board parted with reality?

Both Swanson senior and his jumiors were as sharp as knives and I can testify for that having spent time with at least one of them..

I'm astounded of the depths this message board has plunged towards

Exaspirated Jx

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jeff,

Go ahead.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

To Jeff

His juniors? We were not talking about Swanson's children and their children, at all?

Simon has examined a source, and seen that a section of it can be differentiated from the rest of it, in terms of both content and location.

He has put forward a theory as to why, based on comparing those bits with other sources -- for example the two versions of Anderson's memoirs which have tiny but significant differences.

I have congratulated him on his sharp analysis, and also clarified that I understood its import.

I don't see why this should inspire fish-fork-in-leg apoplexy?