New Article on the Swanson Marginalia in Ripperologist 128

[PaulB]

Hello Paul,

Something caught my attention in one of your postings to Garry..



my emphasis

I am going to walk with that one a little. Let's just suppose that was the only reason he did it. He picked out Druitt because he killed himself just after the murders "stopped", all went quiet, and I will even throw in a "the family thought he was mad" for free. So MM gets two and two and puts together his four. Case solved.

Now MM is taking one heck of a risk to his reputation if Druitt ISN'T the killer. Because he puts the whole thing together, minus name, in a book.
He is asking to be laughed at.

Yet various others, Reid, Abberline etc, have heard all the "other" theories etc and dismiss then out of hand. Now they wouldn't do that if he really had some hard evidence to go by.

But they WOULD dismiss it out of hand...if the"evidence" he had was merely timing, suicide and a belief that the man was mad from the family.


Just a thought.

best wishes

Phil

That's basically what I was saying, but unfortunately we don't know what evidence Macnaghten based his conclusions on or how much the likes of Reid et al knew about it, so it's all pure conjecture.

[Phil Carter]

That's basically what I was saying, but unfortunately we don't know what evidence Macnaghten based his conclusions on or how much the likes of Reid et al knew about it, so it's all pure conjecture.

Hello Paul,

Thanks..thought that is what you meant.

The street has another avenue of course.

Replace Druitt for Kosminski, Macnagthen for Anderson.

Let's just suppose that Anderson's reasons were similar. He picked out Kosminski, because he was local, insane and according to his family, threatening a female with a knife...the murders "stopped", all went quiet. So Anderson gets two and two and puts together his four. For him this time, case solved.

Now Anderson is taking one heck of a risk to his reputation if the Polish Jew ISN'T the killer. Because he puts the whole thing together, minus name, in a book as well. He is asking to be laughed at, by his peers.

But various others, Reid, Abberline etc, have heard all the "other" theories etc and dismiss then out of hand. Now they wouldn't do that if Anderson really had some hard evidence to go by.

But they WOULD dismiss it out of hand...if the"evidence" he had was merely placement, insanity and a belief that the man was dangerous to females whilst threatening with a knife.. from the family.

Same construction. Sure.. it's supposition, but it is very simple indeed.
The simplest solutions, I am told, are normally the best.

And it would explain why all the other policemen, bar Swanson, denied that the killer was caught or they knew the name of the killer.

And as for Swanson... he is simply giving us the name and some odd details of the suspect in Anderson's story.

The rest of their peers would certainly then NOT be of the same mould, would they? They would, infact, be telling us the truth.

It's that simple.

Just a thought.

best wishes

Phil

[jason_c]

Hi Jason,

Lets review your 4 points and see which if any constitute "evidence" that links a person to a murder;



For #1, we have varying witness descriptions of a suspect within the 5 Canonical murders, there is no consensus as to what ethnic background or height or weight we should be looking for in a suspect. We have a man or men, between 28 and 35 years old, all wearing different clothing. That last point is relevant...of the desperately poor in that area many had one change of clothes to their name.

#2, we cannot assign suspect status to every man within walking distance to the crimes based solely on his living alone. In fact the killer or killers might have boarded in lodging houses, like on Batty Street for example, and even had "bolt holes" to leave bloodied clothing and souvenirs in.

#3, only 2 Canonical killings show obvious knowledge and knife skills, the other 3 do not. Therefore, we need to look for someone with those attributes for only the first 2 murders.

And finally, 4. Without knowing whether 1 man killed all 5 women, without knowing whether or not the motives for all 5 murders were based on the killers mental illness, without knowing whether or not the woman were killed by a stranger, particularly in the case of Mary Kelly, we cannot assume that the man we should look for was ever institutionalized, or .....that he wasnt already institutionalized when the 3rd victim dies.

When you have quotes from all the senior men handling the cases that differ from each other by something as innocuous as inaccurate spelling, that include unsubstantiated rumors and unproven assertions and proclamations, and when we have one of the most flagrant abusers in that regard making false statements for the rest of his career, we do not need to consider their voiced opinions the bottom line on the investigations.

Best regards

Michael, apologies for my short reply. Im typing with an on screen keyboard which makes every paragraph as time consuming as writing out War & Peace. We will have to agree to disagree. Im not saying Kosminski is the killer. Rather I mean that the police had reasonable grounds for suspicion. Any young single male living in the heart of the district with sole occupancy of a room, and one who also had mental frailties would have been a decent suspect, Jew or otherwise. It's when the Jewish angle became of such importance to Anderson that im unsure of.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Phil,

Anderson's "perfectly plausible theory that Jack the Ripper was a homicidal maniac, temporarily at large, whose hideous career was cut short by committal to an asylum” didn't make its public debut until May 1895, following the Grainger investigation and trial, so it's a reasonably safe bet he lifted the idea from Macnaghten's February 1894 memorandum.

And we all know the accuracy of that particular document.

Regards,

Simon

[Phil Carter]

Hi Phil,

Anderson's "perfectly plausible theory that Jack the Ripper was a homicidal maniac, temporarily at large, whose hideous career was cut short by committal to an asylum” didn't make its public debut until May 1895, following the Grainger investigation and trial, so it's a reasonably safe bet he lifted the idea from Macnaghten's February 1894 memorandum.

And we all know the accuracy of that particular document.

Regards,

Simon

Hello Simon,

Exactly. Therefore a safe bet that this whole mess was started by that document in the first place. You know, the really reliable one written by a man who wasn't involved in the investigation at the time of the murders themselves... the unofficial document that was never recorded as recieved into the Police archives and was never stamped. No better, infact, than just an after the fact, personal view.

Thank God his name wasn't Dr Tuke, eh? lol


best wishes

Phil

[PaulB]

Hi Phil,

Anderson's "perfectly plausible theory that Jack the Ripper was a homicidal maniac, temporarily at large, whose hideous career was cut short by committal to an asylum” didn't make its public debut until May 1895, following the Grainger investigation and trial, so it's a reasonably safe bet he lifted the idea from Macnaghten's February 1894 memorandum.

And we all know the accuracy of that particular document.

Regards,

Simon

It's not a reasonably safe bet at all. There is no evidence whatsoever that Anderson was even aware of the memorandum's existence, let alone took his information from it.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Paul,

If Anderson was unaware of the memorandum, it would be interesting to know where he thought Major Griffiths' information had come from.

Regards,

Simon

[PaulB]

Hi Paul,

If Anderson was unaware of the memorandum, it would be interesting to know where he thought Major Griffiths' information had come from.

Regards,

Simon

Indeed it would, assuming he knew what Major Griffiths was saying. And, of course, Anderson and Swanson say more than Macnaghten does, so the memorandum clearly wasn't their source. Both men may have had a common exemplar, but Anderson stated that he was speaking as "a man who investigated the facts" and was stating a simple matter of fact and no a matter of theory. Seems like the words of a man who at worst checked into what he was told, and at best was involved in the events he describes, not one who merely repeated what a subordinate said in a report.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Paul,

"One was a Polish Jew, a known lunatic, who was at large in the district of Whitechapel at the time of the murder, and who, having afterwards developed homicidal tendencies, was confined in an asylum."

Anderson couldn't have failed to know what Major Griffiths was saying. After all, he'd said much the same himself in 1895.

And a year earlier than that, so had Macnaghten.

Regards,

Simon

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

and I will even throw in a "the family thought he was mad" for free.

a belief that the man was mad from the family.

You've said it twice so you obviously believe it.

How do you get from "from private information I have little doubt but that his own family believed him to have been the murderer" to the family simply thinking the "man was mad" ???

That's a serious downgrading of what Macnaghten is telling us.

[Phil Carter]

You've said it twice so you obviously believe it.

How do you get from "from private information I have little doubt but that his own family believed him to have been the murderer" to the family simply thinking the "man was mad" ???

That's a serious downgrading of what Macnaghten is telling us.

Hello Robert,

On the information that came out, through the family, that Druitt thought he was going the same way as his mother. As I said, it is supposition..but seeing that comment about his mother was known to the family, the thought of madness must have been considered by the family themselves.

The point was that the simplest answer is, we are told, the best.

So I just took two very simple answers. One from each of them. Kosminski..Anderson and Druitt...MM

all supposition and like I said,,just a thought.

Which was basically what Paul was saying.

best wishes

Phil

[Garry Wroe]

We're not using Macnaghten for evaluating anything. We are merely observing that he said there were many circs which made Kosminski a good suspect.

It has been stated, Paul, that Macnaghten’s naming of Kosminski adds weight to the contention that Kosminski was a strong police suspect. The point I’ve been trying to make is that Macnaghten is an untrustworthy source. The information he cited with regard to Ostrog was so wide of the mark that his Kosminski claims must be treated with extreme caution. His phraseology is curious too: ‘There were many circs connected with this man which made him a strong ‘suspect’.’ Since it doesn’t appear that Macnaghten was referring to hard evidence, what exactly were these ‘circs’? Kosminski’s mental instability? His masturbatory habits? His alleged hatred of prostitutes? If so, Macnaghten’s argument for Kosminski’s suspect status is yet more of the nonsense he peddled with regard to Ostrog and Druitt.

Yes, as you say, he doesn't present any evidence. Does that mean he didn't have any? I mean, why did anyone suspect Druitt of having murdered anybody, let alone connected his name with the Ripper murders? Was it simply the fact that he committed suicide when he did? If that was it, if Macnaghten settled on Druitt without any other evidence at all, then he was a tosspot.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Macnaghten was a tosspot, Paul. To my mind he was a man so fascinated by the Ripper case that he felt the need to involve himself. Forbes Winslow did it. So did Sickert. And so did Maria Coroner. One has only to look at the plethora of suspects advanced down the years to discern many theorists who also succumbed to the lure of the Ripper case. As to why Macnaghten proposed Druitt, your guess is as good as mine. Of one thing, though, I’m absolutely certain: there wasn’t an atom of evidence to connect Druitt to Jack the Ripper. I’m not suggesting that Macnaghten was in any way dishonest or insincere with respect to his Druitt proposal. Much like Anderson, he arrived at a conclusion that he believed to be true and thereafter treated it as factual. But it was an assumption, and an errant one at that.

In some respects that's the nob of what I am trying to say: we can theorise this and that, and maybe the theory is right, but we don't know the facts and therefore it is premature to draw conclusions based on how we choose to perceive things.

And all I’m trying to say, Paul, is that we ought to be looking at the bigger picture when attempting to ascertain the level of hard evidence the police had against Kosminski. If Anderson alone was convinced by it, it could hardly have been compelling. And the fact that Major Smith wasn’t convinced by it ought to be sufficient to deter us from taking Anderson at his word. It’s about the weight of evidence, and the weight of evidence is overwhelmingly indicative that the authorities had little or no tangible evidence against Kosminski.

[Bridewell]

It's not a reasonably safe bet at all. There is no evidence whatsoever that Anderson was even aware of the memorandum's existence, let alone took his information from it.

Hi Paul,

Quite so. The MacNaghten Memoranda can't be simultaneously an unofficial document which never saw the light of day and the universally read document which was the source of all subsequent opinion. It can, arguably, be one or the other. It can't be both.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Phil Carter]

Hi Paul,

Quite so. The MacNaghten Memoranda can't be simultaneously an unofficial document which never saw the light of day and the universally read document which was the source of all subsequent opinion. It can, arguably, be one or the other. It can't be both.

Regards, Bridewell.

Hello Colin,

Herewith a fairly plausible scenario.

Sir MM wrote his piece, and kept it in his drawer at work. He showed and shared it's contents with various people. It was never officially received into the files, therefore never stamped. It was not adressed to anybody either. Technically, it is an unofficial document, written by an official. That official may simply have shared it's contents with certain others. At some time or another, he himself slipped the paper into the files, before his retirement.

Therefore it can be unofficial and read by many, never to see the light of day until 1965, when discovered by Robin Odell.

best wishes

Phil

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

it is supposition..but seeing that comment about his mother was known to the family, the thought of madness must have been considered by the family themselves.

That's not my point. You're saying the family 'merely' thought he was insane; I'm saying MM reports the family as leveling a far more serious charge.