New Article on the Swanson Marginalia in Ripperologist 128

[Phil H]

None of the suspect names (Ostrog, Druitt or Kosminski) was made public. When I first started to read about the Ripper case with any seriousness, the "game" (of Ripperology) was to try to identify who might have been under suspicion and named on the file.

Clearly Kosminski was not so secret that he could not even be named on an official file, open to any authorised officer - MM did it!

Interestingly, Anderson never named his suspect, but the information he gave narrowed it down quite a bit. Swanson named Kosminski, but in a private place unlikely to be seen in his lifetime by anyone unknown to him and without his permission.

As ALL the suspect files appear no longer to exist in the archive, one must assume that all were treated similarly (destroyed) or prove the most attractive to pilferers. They (or some of them) may still exist in private hands.

I too am interested in the reading of the marginalia which makes them a RECORD of a conversation about which DSS may have had no prior knowledge. But we cannot prove that, and DSS's views and opinions remain unknown. there are equally valid readings which would have DSS setting out his own knowledge alongside a colleagues. There is nothing I have yet seen that allows us to make a choice, but the latter is probably the safer reading in the absence of other evidence and for internal reasons relating to the marginalia.

It is also possible given the phrasing and absence of a forename, that Kosminski was code of some sort for another polish Jew. But no likely candidate has appeared apart from Kaminski and Cohen identified years ago by Martin Fido. they did not find much support.

So where does that leave us?

There is to my mind the possibility of a past and present "cover-up" but it would relate to fenian involvement. I make that statement based on the police attitude to release of the SB registers and to possible angles in regard to Eddowes and MJK. (There is, in my view, a slight possibility that Cutbush was the sensitivity.) Thus MM's three suspects would be a diversion, put on the file to distract attention. That would explain why there is nothing to link any of the three with the case directly and the errors included.

But that would not explain Anderson and DSS's focus on someone called Kosminski - one of the three.

So I conclude that the simplest solution (reverting to Occam's razor) is that the police simply did not know who the killer was, and had differing views. They had no evidence against any of the men. That is why the name was sensitive but not secret.

I am not satisfied by that reasoning, but it is the best I can do for the moment. and it is my working hypothesis. I do not believe in sustained conspiracies or cover-ups (having been a civil servant for 40 years). I also cannot explain why the names Ostrog or Druitt were ever linked with Kosminski (except as stated above) though we do know how MM may have heard of MJD.

Happy to discuss further,

Phil H

Phil H

[Jonathan H]

But we also know how Macnaghten had heard of Ostrog too; the future police chief was there at Eton, as an old scholar playing cricket, when the Russian absconded with some of the school's valuables.

Years later he wrote to an institution about Ostrog, eg. keeping tabs on the defiler of his beloved alma mater.

In 1894, post the version(s) of his 'Report', Macnaghten learned that Ostrog had been in an asylum in France at the time of the murders (and he had to be released from jail for a theft he, for once, had not committed). We see this in Sims in 1907, who refers to the Russian suspect being in an asylum abroad (in an article in which the best alternative to the 'drowned doctor' is not the Polish Jew but a young, American medical student).

Yet in 1898, Macnaghten let Griffiths and Sims go ahead with Ostrog as a Ripper suspect knowing he was cleared.

On the other hand, this was not really Ostrog but Mac's fictional variant of him: the real figure was not a real doctor, did not carry knives, was not 'habitually' cruel to women, and was not a homicidal maniac.

It's like a schoolboy prank, by a man whose memoirs reveal him to besomething of an arrested adolescent who learned at Eton from his headmaster that the justification for sly behaviour is not to get caught.

Ostrog himself reading Grffiths in 1898 and Sims in 1907 would, understandable, not have recognised himself in the 'mad Russian doctor' as he was a thief and a con man, and not a very good one.

The notion that all the cops are hopeless sources on all this is a legit point of view, but not the only one and not automatically the strongest.

For example, Macnaghten via his proxies and himself attempted, rightly or wrongly, to debunk the Polish Jew suspect as minor and then via Sims in 1910as a ludicrous fantasy of Anderson, and then in his own memoirs he debunked the notion of the Ripper as a Jew (he blamed Jews in writing!), that there was a ever a slam dunk witness, or that he had ever been sectioned by the state for madness.

Therefore we have a police primary sourve who knows about 'Kosminski' and is attempting to quash him as a viable suspect.

In his memoirs, the defacto third version of his Report, that suspect is not worth mentioning at all.

[Jenni Shelden]

I think we have to ask ourselves 3 questions
1) who was the intended audience of the MM
2) who was the intended audience of the marginalia
3) who was the intended audience of the Lighter Side of My Official Life

Whilst these three sources all lead back to the same place ie Scotland Yard top brass and all indicate Kosmnski was a suspect at the time they are written with different audiences in mind.

The Memo is an official document - I am not sure if I am wrong in saying not intended for public use - possibly intended to be used to base a statement re Cutbush on if necessary. In this sense its purpose was not to prove anyone was the Ripper but to disprove it (ie disprove Cutbush). In this sense the facts about all the other suspects mentioned, Druitt, Ostrog and Kosminski were not necessarily 100 % accurate (as we have seen) but they did not need to be accurate - no one was setting out a criminal case, they were saying these are three better candidates than Cutbush. Im guessing these names were not plucked out of thin air, clearly Kosminski is a contemporary police suspect and Anderson/Swanson's suspect, possibly Druitt is too but of other officials - as you point out Ostrog as a petty criminal apparently known to MM. Maybe this is how he made his list.

the Marginalia seems to have just been intended for DSS. He did not appear to have divulged the information in conversation in his lifetime, he therefore had probably not got designs on publishing what he knew. Therefore we must be pretty confident these are his genuine recollections and the most near to the plain facts of any document.

The Lighter Side of My Official Life written to be read and enjoyed and to be sold. It perhaps benefited from a little bigging up of Anderson in places. Anderson despite his indiscretions by saying anything at all had to be careful not to break codes or commit libel. He knew the public and potentially relatives of the suspect would see it. If he could not prove in a court it was defo the Ripper he couldnt prove it in a civil court either. He didnt name them but provided enough information to satisfactorily recount the story and his reasons for believing it.

Whatever MM thought of Kosminski that he thought Druitt a better candidate seems at odds with people who should know better

just my thought
Jennu

[Jonathan H]

To Jenni

When you write the 'Memo' by Macnaghten you are actually talking about two similar yet significantly different documents -- one of which was for public consumption and was so consumed between 1898 and 1917.

In the official version, placed on file presumably in 1894, the three suspects are deployed as examples of better candidates to be the Ripper than Cutbush. This is because, unlike Cutbush who fuctioned for some time after 1888, this trio were all driven mad soon after the 'awful glut' at Miller's Ct.

There was no actual proof against them, not even proof's shadow -- and no witnesses -- just that they were not able to function after that date; one killed himself, one masturbated his way into an asylum, and the other was Russian (and they're all mad anyway).

Ergo the might-be-a-doctor, M J Druitt, is the best of these might-be-suspects because he killed himself immediately after the mind-shattering mutilation-murder of Kelly.

Yet, paradoxically, Macnaghten concedes that this same, minor suspect's family 'believed' he was the fiend not because of the timing of his self-murder but because he gained erotic pleasure from ultra-violence against harlots.

In the extant record there is no evidence that anybody knew of this document's existence, let alone had read it. A Home Office Report but never sent to that dept. -- a trigger never pulled.

Whereas the version shown or verbally communicated to two reliable cronies of Macnaghten in 1898, nicknamed the 'Aberconway' version after Mac's aristrocratic daughter who had it copied-preserved, and written sometime between 1894 and 1898 was a trigger pulled.

In this version Dr. Druitt is definitely a middle-aged medico and the prime suspect, 'Kosminski' may have been seen by a cop with a victim, and Dr. Ostrog was a very dangerous, elusive and armed mysoginist.

In that 'sexed-up' version Macnaghten claims that he is the prime mover of this data, and he also pretty much exonerates the Pole and the Russian in favour of the real life Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Major Griffiths and George Sims, the reliable mouthpieces, were apaprently told by Macnaghten that they were privy to a definitive document of state. It is not. It does not even reflect the opinion of the document which was filed (at Scotland Yard and not the Home Office).

This information was disseminated to the public, especially by the widely read Sims, both under his own name and as Dagonet for his regular column in 'The Referee'. Furthermore Sims provided extra details which must come from Macnaghten because 1) they were close and 2) they are not true about Druitt but are fictitious amplifications of that real person (eg. he was found with some substantial checques on his wet, rotting body and so he becomes fabulously wealthy and never had to work, when the real man held down two jobs).

Both versions contain no reference to the graffiti, both have Cutbush and Cutbush deceitfully related (the retired cop becomes the madman's defacto father!) and both mislead the reader into believeing that Druitt must have been a suspect in 1888 or early 1889. Certainly this misled two experienced crime writers who wrote of Druitt -- actually unknown to Macnaghten until 1891 -- as a contemporaneous suspect. Soms goes even further; the mad doctor was about to be arrested as he drowned himself in the Thames.

What you have here is, arguably, a propaganda offensive which recast a Scotland Yard debacle into a near-triumph.

[harry]

Phil,
No,no conspiracy.Whatever gave you that idea?All I am asking,is the location of a building ,which must surely have been known to the person who first stated an identification was held there.It has been given a name,but the name,on it's own, means nothing.It is central to the theory that Kosminski was responsible for the Ripper killings.When I pay money for books,I expect the explanations contained therein,to be more substancial than that I accept solely on the basis of unsupported claims.The claims that Kosminski was taken to a location and identified of anything is unsupported.There is no other evidence a gainst him.

[Phil H]

When I pay money for books,I expect the explanations contained therein,to be more substancial than that I accept solely on the basis of unsupported claims.

I'm surprised you read about the Ripper then!!

Seriously there aresome very good books around now, with solid material - much better than when I was younger.

I think we can take it that an ID did take place and probably at Brighton - given specific comments about the suspect being taken there with difficulty. Swanson's marginalia may not be the BEST evidence, but they do come from an informed source, so cannot be dismissed. It is other circumstances, as well as the unusual location for the ID that puzzle me and others.

Historically speaking there are many exchanges between people - famous ones - where we do not know where they took place - precisely. But we do not doubt that what was said, was said. In this caase we have the senior office co-ordinating the investigation and the AC Crime in agreement. Not bad verification that something happened even if mutually dependent. We have no evidencde that says an ID did not take place - even from those who dount AK, such as MM.

I think, one day, we might get confirmation of the ID from other sources. I think the pilfered Suspect Files are probably out there somewhere, and other papers may be discovered which explain or fill in details.

Until then, however, I'm afraid you have to live with not knowing. If that means you dismiss the ID completely, sobeit.

Phil H

[PaulB]

Phil,
No,no conspiracy.Whatever gave you that idea?All I am asking,is the location of a building ,which must surely have been known to the person who first stated an identification was held there.It has been given a name,but the name,on it's own, means nothing.It is central to the theory that Kosminski was responsible for the Ripper killings.When I pay money for books,I expect the explanations contained therein,to be more substancial than that I accept solely on the basis of unsupported claims.The claims that Kosminski was taken to a location and identified of anything is unsupported.There is no other evidence a gainst him.

I'm sorry, but I don't follow you here. The identification took place in what Swanson described as "the Seaside Home". The location of that place was known to Swanson, unless you have evidence to the contrary, and is generally accepted as being a reference to the Convalescent Police Seaside Home, the location of which is known, as is the history of that establishment. Unfortunately, as Swanson didn't specify the place he meant with pinpoint precision, it is possible that he meant somewhere else.

You are correct when you say that there is no independent support for Swanson's claim that Kosminski was taken somewhere and identified, but it is common to have claims made in lone documents and the further back in time you go there are whole events known to us only from a single source. Sure, it is always possible that somebody lied and that is always kept in mind when one asks questions of a source such as why was it written, did it serve a purpose, how doe it fit with other sources, and so on, but just because somebody could have lied (and it is easy to theorise reasons) doesn't mean that he did lie.

I have a feeling that you are expecting far too much from the historical sources. They don't always tell us everything we want to know and there is no reason why we would should expect them to. Swanson knew where "the Seaside Home" was and he was writing for himself, so why would he have gone into greater detail? The fact that we don't know where is meant is irrelevant.

But maybe if somebody has the time they'll go through assorted files at the National Archives and elsewhere and see if there are references to "the Seaside Home" in documents which clearly identify the place. But then you'd have to accept that source or sources as telling the truth.

[Monty]

Hey Phil,

None of the suspect names (Ostrog, Druitt or Kosminski) was made public. When I first started to read about the Ripper case with any seriousness, the "game" (of Ripperology) was to try to identify who might have been under suspicion and named on the file.

Clearly Kosminski was not so secret that he could not even be named on an official file, open to any authorised officer - MM did it!

However Macnaghten didnt name those 3 men as suspects. He actually wrote -

No one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer; many homicidal maniacs were suspected, but no shadow of proof could be thrown on any one. I may mention the cases of 3 men, any one of whom would have been more likely than Cutbush to have committed this series of murders:

Would have been more likely....

Not they were suspected of. Its a carefully worded paragraph.

Phil Carter,

Yeah, whatever I say. When I say. How I say.

Monty

[AdamNeilWood]

Whereas the version shown or verbally communicated to two reliable cronies of Macnaghten in 1898, nicknamed the 'Aberconway' version after Mac's aristrocratic daughter who had it copied-preserved, and written sometime between 1894 and 1898 was a trigger pulled.

Jonathan,

You've obviously convinced yourself that the early, non-official version of Macnaghten's notes was a re-write rather than a draft and that's your choice, but I think you're referring to the Donner version - Lady Aberconway was four years old in 1894 and I suspect not very interested in copy-preserving anything to do with Jack the Ripper.

Best wishes
Adam

[Jonathan H]

No, I'm not.

Actually I think that the 'Aberconway' version could have been his first draft, or a parallel draft because Sir Melville may have expected that the Cutbush near-scandal might pry loose the drowned surgeon's son from Dorset -- again -- in 1894.

That's possible for sure. It was first but I do not believe it was for file.

It was to convince Sims -- in 1894 -- that Scotland Yard had worked out that Dr. Druitt was probably the Ripper.

Then he put it to one side and wrote another version for file in which he pulled back on his own personal involvement. He also hedged as to whether Druitt was a doctor, or not, perhaps because the story which could re-emerge from Dorset would not have him as one. He also turned Druitt into just one suspect among a trio who were better than Cutbush based on the 'awful glut' criteria -- a minor suspect about whom we did not even ascertain as to whether he was a medical man, or from a good family or for exactly how long his body was in the Thames.

Yet as a little insurance against what might be about to be exposed he conceded that the Druitt family were convinced of his guilt because he, eh, you know, was a sexual maniac.

In effect he swapped places between versions over who was sure about Druitt, eg. Mac or the family.

Both versions contain the essential deception that Druitt was a suspect at the time of the murders. His 1914 memoirs -- arguably the real third version of the 'Report' -- conceded that this was not true.

The overarching point is that 'Aberconway' was written to be disseminated to the public and in 1898, with the coast clear, it was, an aspect which has been missed by most secondary sources.

From 1898 the Ripper mystery was supposedly solved. Sir Robert forthrightly agreed but advocated a different suspect who was also deceased (and wasn't).

I do not think the Donner version ever existed, and I am hardly the first to make that provisional judgement.

It makes no sense, that so-called earlier draft, as it names Cutbush as a possible suspect. Anyhow it does not enter the extant record as a claim until after an ageing, memory could have been thoroughly contaminated by Cullen's book.

Could that be wrong? Sure.

[harry]

I do not think I am asking too much.The 'Seaside Home' by itself ,is as vague to me,no matter the originator of the description,as the terms,'Village Cemetary',or,'Village Church'.Certainly the writer would be aware of the truth,and others may have such faith in the writer to accept without doubt,but not everyone is so inclined,and historically,in such a case as the Whitechapel murders,I believe,truth should be beyond doubt,to all.

[PaulB]

I do not think I am asking too much.The 'Seaside Home' by itself ,is as vague to me,no matter the originator of the description,as the terms,'Village Cemetary',or,'Village Church'.Certainly the writer would be aware of the truth,and others may have such faith in the writer to accept without doubt,but not everyone is so inclined,and historically,in such a case as the Whitechapel murders,I believe,truth should be beyond doubt,to all.

Harry,
Sure, it would be nice if the truth was there beyond doubt, but it's unlikely that's ever going to happen. We've got the records we've got, and wanting more from them than they give is futile. We have no control over the content of the documents that come down to us and you can't demand more than you've got. Swanson was writing for himself, he had no need to write more than he did, and what he wrote was sufficient for him. If I wrote in my diary that I went to the village yesterday, I'd know where I meant and it's tough luck on someone 100 years from now who doesn't know, and they'd have no justification for so much as suggesting I'm a liar just because they don't know. The task before every historian, ever, is to do the best job they can with the tools they've got, so I'm afraid you are asking too much. Way too much in fact.

Maybe one day fresh information will come to light that will clear these problems up. Just right now, and maybe for the future to come, all we have is what we have.

[Bridewell]

The Seaside Home

Having established the authenticity and authorship of the Marginalia beyond any reasonable doubt (TM's doubt - if still held - is surely no longer reasonable), the issue has to be why DSS wrote what he did. If he wrote only for himself there would be no logic in suggesting that he wrote anything which wasn't true. He was in possession of all his faculties and he quite unambiguously asserts that a suspect named Kosminski was identified at 'the Seaside Home'.

The authentication of the Marginalia is a real breakthrough, because we can now start to look seriously at why Swanson wrote what he did and what exactly he was talking about.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Scott Nelson]

The authentication of the Marginalia is a real breakthrough, because we can now start to look seriously at why Swanson wrote what he did and what exactly he was talking about.

It's already been done, many, many times.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Here's a couple of Inspector Swanson signatures taken from two 1882 reports.

29th September 1882, countersigned "J Shore, pro Ch. Supt."—



16th October 1882, countersigned "F Williamson, Chief Supt."—



Regards,

Simon