Druitt.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Please see my replies below.

I think his use of "murderer" was due to a progression of his train of thought. If you read his note he suggests Kozminski was the "suspect", and the witness testimony would convict him, thereby making the "suspect" into a "murderer".


Swanson wrote:

... because the suspect was also a Jew and also because his evidence would convict the suspect, and witness would be the means of murderer being hanged ...


if you are right, then why did he not write:

... because the suspect was also a Jew and also because his evidence would convict the suspect, and witness would be the means of suspect being hanged ...



"..because his evidence would convict the suspect, and witness would be the means of murderer being hanged".

Which is no different to me being on a Kozminski thread and referring to him as a murderer (even though I don't think he was), because those I am conversing with think he was.


I don't think Kosminski was a murderer either, but never refer to him as a murderer even when conversing with someone who obviously thinks that he was!



Just like Swanson knows Anderson thinks he was, Kozminski is Anderson's "suspect", so is also Anderson's "murderer".


Swanson was under no obligation to refer to Kosminski as a murderer just because Anderson referred to him as a murderer.



You know as well as I do that Swanson had plenty of opportunity to make a definitive statement anywhere about who he thinks the killer was, no such statement exists. Which should suggest to everyone he preferred to keep his opinion to himself, which he apparently did to the end.


Maybe you have a point there.

Swanson finishes with the words:

Kosminski was the Suspect

but not with the words

Kosminski was the murderer

[Wickerman]

Please see my replies below.


I think his use of "murderer" was due to a progression of his train of thought. If you read his note he suggests Kozminski was the "suspect", and the witness testimony would convict him, thereby making the "suspect" into a "murderer".


Swanson wrote:

... because the suspect was also a Jew and also because his evidence would convict the suspect, and witness would be the means of murderer being hanged ...


if you are right, then why did he not write:

... because the suspect was also a Jew and also because his evidence would convict the suspect, and witness would be the means of suspect being hanged ...

Naturally, because once you are convicted you are then the murderer, you don't hang suspects, you hang murderers.

I don't think Kosminski was a murderer either, but never refer to him as a murderer even when conversing with someone who obviously thinks that he was!

You don't have to agree with me for the reason I do it, you only need to know it is not an issue for Swanson to refer to him as a murderer, if he is convicted as such.
It was a hypothetical sentence by Swanson. He was only saying, if Kozminski was convicted, as a murderer he would hang - which is true.

Swanson was under no obligation to refer to Kosminski as a murderer just because Anderson referred to him as a murderer.

I didn't say anything about an obligation.

You know as well as I do that Swanson had plenty of opportunity to make a definitive statement anywhere about who he thinks the killer was, no such statement exists. Which should suggest to everyone he preferred to keep his opinion to himself, which he apparently did to the end.

Maybe you have a point there.
Swanson finishes with the words:
Kosminski was the Suspect
but not with the words
Kosminski was the murderer

Which to my way of thinking is just the same as saying "Kozminski was Anderson's suspect".
("the suspect" is just short for "the suspect I have written about above", which in turn means Andersons Suspect)

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Just to be clear, Wickerman, are you arguing that Swanson was merely reporting what Anderson had told him?

[Wickerman]

Just to be clear, Wickerman, are you arguing that Swanson was merely reporting what Anderson had told him?

Yes, clarifying his best friends intimate belief.
Not, offering his own opinion.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Yes, clarifying his best friends intimate belief.
Not, offering his own opinion.

In that case, do you agree with me that Swanson was not relating events from personal experience or personal recollection?

[Lewis C]

A question for anyone that wants to tackle it: since Swanson worked under Anderson and I believe Swanson knew more about the murders than Anderson (or maybe anyone else for that matter), how likely is it that Anderson would be convinced that Kosminski was the killer if Swanson didn't also think so?

[Wickerman]

In that case, do you agree with me that Swanson was not relating events from personal experience or personal recollection?

When I get piecemeal questions I sometimes wonder if I'm being led into a trap.

I'd be more comfortable if you laid out your belief, or point of view, as opposed to look for mine, largely because I have no real opinion on the Kozminski theory, he was little more than a youth (23) in my view so nothing like the typical suspect identified by witnesses, also no-one knows Kozminski's state of mind in 1888, he could have been perfectly normal.

Anderson certainly had no idea who the killer was in Oct. 1888. So his theory about Kozminski was formed long after the murders.
That being the case, he had no evidence against him of any kind.
I 'think' the incarcerated Jew was a product of his active imagination, with a touch of anti-semitic racial prejudice thrown in.

I long time ago dismissed Anderson & his Fairy Tales as the musings of a senior citizen who's image of himself was larger than it really was.
Memoirs are not a good source for accurate information.

As for Swanson, he was still Chief Inspector in 1895, so should have had accurate information at his finger tips when he gave that interview to the press.
His notes known as the Marginalia, in Anderson's memoir, had to be written after 1910, so he had been retired a good number of years by then, and memory suffers with age in most people. So I don't place any faith in those margin notes either.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

A question for anyone that wants to tackle it: since Swanson worked under Anderson and I believe Swanson knew more about the murders than Anderson (or maybe anyone else for that matter), how likely is it that Anderson would be convinced that Kosminski was the killer if Swanson didn't also think so?

Very likely.

We know that by 1895, Swanson believed he knew the identity of the murderer and that he was dead.

We also know that he had access to Macnaghten's memoranda, recorded the year before, in which it was stated that Kosminski, who was then 28, was believed still to be alive.

It follows that Kosminski could hardly have been Swanson's suspect at that time.

We know that Anderson's suspect was a Polish Jew and that the only Polish Jewish suspect in Macnaghten 's memoranda was Kosminski.

If Swanson's dead suspect was not Kosminski, and Anderson's suspect was a Polish Jew, and Swanson, when annotating Anderson's memoirs, named Anderson's suspect as Kosminski, then there really is no ground to suppose that Anderson and Swanson originally believed the same man to be the murderer.

There is nothing in Swanson's marginalia to suggest that he had personal knowledge of any of the events he related in them.

Instead, there are indications that he is rather credulously and uncritically repeating a story someone else had told him.

He had known from Macnaghten that Kosminski was still alive in 1894 and yet in the marginalia he has him already dead (and please, Elamarna, don't ask people to believe that when he used the words shortly afterwards, he meant more than three years later).

He quite clearly associates the identification of Kosminski with the timing of the cessation of the murders - Elamarna's objection that he did not make any such association failing to explain why he would have mentioned the identification and cessation of the murders together - which both Anderson and Macnaghten considered to have ended on 9 November 1888, a view which Swanson is not known ever to have contradicted.

That means that Swanson implied that the identification at the Seaside Home took place before it even opened.

Elamarna argues that we cannot know that Swanson meant the police convalescent home in Hove, and that I am being rather arrogant in making out that I know that he did.

Well, we know that he did.

By all means, let Elamarna accuse Donald Rumbelow of being arrogant too, for making the same definite identification as the one that I have made!

A senior policeman writing about the seaside home, not a seaside home, using capital letters for the word seaside and home, and using the very name that was commonly used by policemen for the police convalescent home in Hove.

Why would Swanson have made such elementary errors about when Kosminski died and when the seaside home was open, unless his own personal knowledge was overridden by his gullibility when told a tall story by the superior he so respected - a man well known for his confusion in his old age?

[Wickerman]

A question for anyone that wants to tackle it: since Swanson worked under Anderson and I believe Swanson knew more about the murders than Anderson (or maybe anyone else for that matter), how likely is it that Anderson would be convinced that Kosminski was the killer if Swanson didn't also think so?

That's like asking why some people let their active imagination rule their lives, while others can stay well grounded.

[Wickerman]

Very likely.

We know that by 1895, Swanson believed he knew the identity of the murderer and that he was dead.

We also know that he had access to Macnaghten's memoranda, recorded the year before, in which it was stated that Kosminski, who was then 28, was believed still to be alive.

It follows that Kosminski could hardly have been Swanson's suspect at that time.

Agreed.

If Swanson's dead suspect was not Kosminski, and Anderson's suspect was a Polish Jew, and Swanson, when annotating Anderson's memoirs, named Anderson's suspect as Kosminski, then there really is no ground to suppose that Anderson and Swanson originally believed the same man to be the murderer.

Agreed.

There is nothing in Swanson's marginalia to suggest that he had personal knowledge of any of the events he related in them.

Instead, there are indications that he is rather credulously and uncritically repeating a story someone else had told him.

That someone being Anderson himself.

That means that Swanson implied that the identification at the Seaside Home took place before it even opened.

That suggested to me the ID, if it took place at all, must have happened after Swanson was promoted from the position Warren placed him in. And that was 1896, when he became Superintendent.

A senior policeman writing about the seaside home, not a seaside home, using capital letters for the word seaside and home, and using the very name that was commonly used by policemen for the police convalescent home in Hove.

Why would Swanson have made such elementary errors about when Kosminski died and when the seaside home was open, unless his own personal knowledge was overridden by his gullibility when told a tall story by the superior he so respected - a man well known for his confusion in his old age?

My own belief is Swanson made those notes after 1918 when Anderson died. Recording his friends personal belief about the Ripper.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

When I get piecemeal questions I sometimes wonder if I'm being led into a trap.

I'd be more comfortable if you laid out your belief, or point of view, as opposed to look for mine, largely because I have no real opinion on the Kozminski theory, he was little more than a youth (23) in my view so nothing like the typical suspect identified by witnesses, also no-one knows Kozminski's state of mind in 1888, he could have been perfectly normal.

Anderson certainly had no idea who the killer was in Oct. 1888. So his theory about Kozminski was formed long after the murders.
That being the case, he had no evidence against him of any kind.
I 'think' the incarcerated Jew was a product of his active imagination, with a touch of anti-semitic racial prejudice thrown in.

I long time ago dismissed Anderson & his Fairy Tales as the musings of a senior citizen who's image of himself was larger than it really was.
Memoirs are not a good source for accurate information.

As for Swanson, he was still Chief Inspector in 1895, so should have had accurate information at his finger tips when he gave that interview to the press.
His notes known as the Marginalia, in Anderson's memoir, had to be written after 1910, so he had been retired a good number of years by then, and memory suffers with age in most people. So I don't place any faith in those margin notes either.

There was no trap, Wickerman.

And may I say that I agree with everything you have just written above.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Agreed.




Agreed.




That someone being Anderson himself.



That suggested to me the ID, if it took place at all, must have happened after Swanson was promoted from the position Warren placed him in. And that was 1896, when he became Superintendent.



My own belief is Swanson made those notes after 1918 when Anderson died. Recording his friends personal belief about the Ripper.

Thanks for your responses.

I did not notice them until after replying to your #427 in my # 431.

[GBinOz]

My own belief is Swanson made those notes after 1918 when Anderson died. Recording his friends personal belief about the Ripper.

Hi Jon,

Are you suggesting they were not necessarily also Swanson's belief?

Cheers, George

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon,

Are you suggesting they were not necessarily also Swanson's belief?

Cheers, George

Yes George.

[Lewis C]

That suggested to me the ID, if it took place at all, must have happened after Swanson was promoted from the position Warren placed him in. And that was 1896, when he became Superintendent.


My own belief is Swanson made those notes after 1918 when Anderson died. Recording his friends personal belief about the Ripper.

Thank you Wickerman and PI for your responses. I had a thought though: If the ID took place no earlier than 1896, it seems odd that Swanson said that after the ID, "no other murder of this kind took place in London". It's unclear which murders would qualify as being "of this kind", but even if we include the Coles murder, that was in 1891. The murders would have already stopped long before the ID.