Did the Seaside Home ID happen?

[S.Brett]

We don't know whose sister was threatened with a knife. Remember, Jacob Cohen was the one speaking to asylum authorities on behalf of the Abrahams family about the knife threat. He may have been referring to his sister, Betsy Kosminski, who was married to Aaron's brother, Woolf.

Of course Mr. Nelson... but in this context...

"Jacob Cohen, 51 Carter Lane, St Paul´s EC says that he goes about the streets and picks up bits of bread out of the gutter and eats them, he drinks water from the tap & he refuses food at the hands of others. He took up a knife and threatened the life of his sister. He says that he is ill and his cure consists in refusing food. He is melancholic, practises self abuse. He is very dirty and will not be washed. He has not attempted any kind of work for years."

for me it does not sound like Jacob Cohen´s sister Betsy. It is just my impression. But one never knows...

You know, there were two others sisters, Helen Singer and Bertha Held. Do we know where they were living in the years 1888-91? Remember Ripperologist 128, New light on Aaron Kozminski, Pat Marshall/Chris Phillips.

[Jeff Leahy]

We don't know whose sister was threatened with a knife. Remember, Jacob Cohen was the one speaking to asylum authorities on behalf of the Abrahams family about the knife threat. He may have been referring to his sister, Betsy Kosminski, who was married to Aaron's brother, Woolf.

While this is true… Its an interesting idea that the knife incident relates to a specific happening.

Having been through a large number of admittance registers recently I'm always surprised how little information is often given. So the fact that threatening his sister with a knife at all, suggests possibly some significance to it being mentioned.

The Crawford letter uses the phase 'Nearly related' so from my interoperation of that phrase I'd say Matilda was the better bet than Betsy…But your point is accepted

Yours Jeff

[Scott Nelson]

Why not a witness who saw Aaron Kozminski "took up a knife and threatened the life of his sister"?


We all think that the witness in Seaside Home saw a man in the company with Stride, Eddowes or Kelly, Chapman, Nichols. Perhaps, he saw Aaron Kozminski with Matilda Lubnowski near Brick Lane in the morning of 22 November 1888. You know: Once, Aaron Kozminski "threatened his sister with a knife". ...

Maybe, Matilda refused to cooperate with the police in November 1888. Maybe, Matilda was looking for help in December 1888 (Crawford/ Anderson) and maybe, she gave up in the second half of the year 1890 or at the beginning of the year 1891 and the Seaside Home took place.

We don't know whose sister was threatened with a knife. Remember, Jacob Cohen was the one speaking to asylum authorities on behalf of the Abrahams family about the knife threat. He may have been referring to his sister, Betsy Kosminski, who was married to Aaron's brother, Woolf.

[Jeff Leahy]

Hey Jeff, have you seen this?.'

How could I not you have posted it enough times. And on each occasion I have stated it is irrelevant for a number of reasons. This ground has been covered at length in other threads at other times. In particular Paul Begg and Stewart Evens had some rather fascinating debates on Anderson.

But its been done to death and nothing has ever been said or produced that convinces me that Anderson was not telling the truth.

What I have now done is take that a stage further and assume that bye and large every commentator on the Ripper murders was doing exactly that. Telling the truth, from their own perspectives. Parhaps the odd error of memory which happens to everyone but bye and large what they say happened.

Once you do this you suddenly realise how close Martin Fido and Paul Begg were to the truth back in the 1980's..

Martin looking for Andersons suspect in MArch 1889 where MacNaughten said he would be and Begg arguing that Aaron Kozminski must have been Andersons suspect and events were simply later than had been previously thought because we know Aaron Kozminski entered Colney Hatch in Feb 1892.

The obvious solution to both mens problems was of course stearing them in the face all along…They were both correct.

Kozminski indeed entered a Private Asylum in March 1889 as Martin theorised, and also entered the Asylum at a later date as realised by Begg.

Two separate events. Two different asylums.

What has been starring everyone in the face for so long is that MacNAughten is telling the truth. After all he had access to the files and made his report from them…But the info he gives is unto March 1889. So naturally he favours his own suspect Druit.

Swanson and Anderson are simply discussing a different event. One that happened when Kozminski had recovered in a Private Asylum and was back on the street walking his dog…The second event involved Matilda as Karsten has hinted at…An ID identification that took place Between June 1890 and Feb 1891….as has been proposed by Paul Begg as the most obvious date.

Conclusion: Anderson and MacNaughten are both correct they are simply talking about two different events…

Its so simple you can put a tale on it and call it a weasel.

Thats it. Noone is lying or making stuff up, its not necessary to presume they did.

Yours Jeff

[Jonathan H]

Hey Jeff, have you seen this?

The 1908 interview in "The Daily Chronicle", with Anderson proves that the aging, retired chief--who had been sacked in 1901--was capable of the most grotesque, partisan and self-serving conflations and confusions. Perhaps some people have not seen the pertinent quotation as it is not on this site:

''In two cases of that terrible series [the Ripper crmes] there were disticnt clues destroyed - wiped out absolutely - clues that might very easily have secured for us proof of the identity of the assassin. In one case it was a clay pipe. Before we could get to the scene of the murder the doctor had taken it up, thrown it into the fireplace, and smashed it beyond recognition. In another case there was writing in chalk on the wall - a most valuable clue; handwriting that might have been at once recognized as belonging to a certain individual. But before we could secure a copy, or get it protected, it had been entirely obliterated ... I told Sir William Harcourt, who was then Home Secretary, that I could not accept responsibility for non-detection of the author of the Ripper crimes, for the reasons, among others, that I have given you.'

As the late Philip Sudgen cogently wrote about this primary source:

'Even in the brief allusion to the Ripper case there are two glaring errors. Sir William Harcourt ceased to be Home Secretary in 1885, three years before the murders began. The man with whom Anderson dealt with in 1888 was Henry Matthews. The reference to the pipe is also incorrect. Anderson's mention of a fireplace clearly indicates that he had the murder of Mary Kelly in mind for this was the only one in the series committed indoors. Dr. Phillips, the divisional police surgeon, was called out to the scene of the crime. And a pipe belonging to Joe Barnett, Kelly's lover, was found in Mary's room. But this was not the pipe that was smashed. Anderson was confusing the Kelly murder with that of Alice McKenzie in Castle Alley about nine months later. A clay pipe found with Alice's body was thrown to the floor and broken. However, this incident occurred at the mortuary, during the post-mortem examination, not at the crime scene, and the culprit was one of the attendants, not Dr. Phillips. So here, two years before his memoirs appeared, and speaking of investigations for which he bore overall responsibility, Anderson was confounding officials and running quite separate incidents together in his head.'

[Jeff Leahy]

To Jeff

In post #479, this is what you wrote, wrongly, in response to my comment about the Townsend Letter in Anderson's memoir--the one he says he destroyed because of the un-named Mac's alleged cowardice:

MacNaughten says he destroyed the evidence. Anderson didn't.

Actually Anderson did say he destroyed evidence, re: the nut who almost shot Gladstone.

That's how you resist admitting an error, because you're a fanatic, one now peddling a ludicrous conspiracy theory:

How the hell is that incorrect? I'll say it again MacNAughten says he destroyed evidence… I then show you where he said that P322 A to Z Daily Mail 1913… Thats what he says destroid evidence relating to the ripper investigation..

To my knowledge Anderson never said he destroyed evidence relating to the Ripper Murders….The townsend Letter is completely irrelevant as it has nothing to do with the ripper investigation any more than your shameless attempts to rubbish Sir Robert Anderson.

You will note that I'm not supporting or rubbishing either Anderson or MAcNaughten, simply taking what they say as what they say…Elephants don't have to become balloons, ducks don't bark…. If MacNaughten says there was a City PC witness then I simply presume there was a City PC witness

I see know reason to turn him into something else because its bad ripperology

Yours Jeff

[Jonathan H]

To PaulB

I agree, if I wrote that -- for that is clumsy and not a fact.

I think Mac was transposing too, but deliberately not accidentally.

[Jonathan H]

To Jeff

The 1908 source is not about Anderson lying and Sudgen is not suggesting he was lying. You defame both men and shame yourself because, like all fanatics, you refuse to read anything that challenges your doctrinaire views.

In post #479, this is what you wrote, wrongly, in response to my comment about the Townsend Letter in Anderson's memoir--the one he says he destroyed because of the un-named Mac's alleged cowardice:

MacNaughten says he destroyed the evidence. Anderson didn't.

Actually Anderson did say he destroyed evidence, re: the nut who almost shot Gladstone.

That's how you resist admitting an error, because you're a fanatic, one now peddling a ludicrous conspiracy theory:

Shhhhh Swanson! Here comes my No. 2, that bloody coward Mac. now not a word to your superior about the Seaside Home identification, just let him rabbit on about the drowned surgeon.

In 1895 Swanson said the best suspect was deceased. In 1898 Macnaghten communicated to Griffiths about the Polish suspect who be believed was still alive--and he was. Griffiths did not mention the man being dead as did not Sims--and he wasn't. Meanwhil Anderson told his son the man was dead and Swasnon made the same annotation.

It is perfectly reasonable to theorise that Mac and noth the other two was aware of the man not being deceased, except in your flat-earth world.

Oh and have you seen this:

The 1908 interview in "The Daily Chronicle", with Anderson proves that the aging, retired chief--who had been sacked in 1901--was capable of the most grotesque, partisan and self-serving conflations and confusions. Perhaps some people have not seen the pertinent quotation as it is not on this site:

''In two cases of that terrible series [the Ripper crmes] there were disticnt clues destroyed - wiped out absolutely - clues that might very easily have secured for us proof of the identity of the assassin. In one case it was a clay pipe. Before we could get to the scene of the murder the doctor had taken it up, thrown it into the fireplace, and smashed it beyond recognition. In another case there was writing in chalk on the wall - a most valuable clue; handwriting that might have been at once recognized as belonging to a certain individual. But before we could secure a copy, or get it protected, it had been entirely obliterated ... I told Sir William Harcourt, who was then Home Secretary, that I could not accept responsibility for non-detection of the author of the Ripper crimes, for the reasons, among others, that I have given you.'

As the late Philip Sudgen cogently wrote about this primary source:

'Even in the brief allusion to the Ripper case there are two glaring errors. Sir William Harcourt ceased to be Home Secretary in 1885, three years before the murders began. The man with whom Anderson dealt with in 1888 was Henry Matthews. The reference to the pipe is also incorrect. Anderson's mention of a fireplace clearly indicates that he had the murder of Mary Kelly in mind for this was the only one in the series committed indoors. Dr. Phillips, the divisional police surgeon, was called out to the scene of the crime. And a pipe belonging to Joe Barnett, Kelly's lover, was found in Mary's room. But this was not the pipe that was smashed. Anderson was confusing the Kelly murder with that of Alice McKenzie in Castle Alley about nine months later. A clay pipe found with Alice's body was thrown to the floor and broken. However, this incident occurred at the mortuary, during the post-mortem examination, not at the crime scene, and the culprit was one of the attendants, not Dr. Phillips. So here, two years before his memoirs appeared, and speaking of investigations for which he bore overall responsibility, Anderson was confounding officials and running quite separate incidents together in his head.'

[PaulB]

Hi Jonathan
Well, there you are. Macnaghten writes of a plurality of Jews disturbing the murderer in Berner Street, and a Met Police witness in Berner Street becomes an otherwise unknown City PC witness near Mitre Square. That MAcnagten transposed these two events is not just possible, it's probable. Some might go so far as to say the evidence, such as it is, makes it likely to be what happened.

But not to you. You'de rather have it that Macnaghten wrote a City PC when he meant a Jewish commercial traveller in the tobacco business. And if that's how you want to interpret the source material, fair enough. But it is not okay for you to state it as a matter of fact, which is what you did.

[Jonathan H]

To PaulB

The accidental transposition theory is possible, of course, but not very probable.

By all accounts, except ironically his own, Macnaghten had an excellent memory. Even a miraculous one.

It seems odd he would make this transposition mistake. Again, not impossible but highly unlikely--unless he was doing so deliberately.

After all, other sources show data being altered by him or his proxies, depending on the audience, e.g. the Druitt family are discreetly hidden as friends, and so on. Why not the Beat Cop witness too, because the man who saw the suspect and victim before they were killed was Lawende in that location?

In his 1914 memoir it suited Macnaghten, I argue, to transpose the Hebrew men and the Bobbie because he could quash Anderson's 1910 claims--right or wrong--that the Ripper had been Jewish, or could have been Jewish.

This is what has been missed, for decades, in my opinion.

By deliberately transposing the various players that night Mac was able to lock in his Gentile 'Simon Pure' killer, one who was, supposedly, so angry at the trio of Jewish men who interrupted him with Stride that he scrawled abuse in chalk against those same three men on a wall--for 'forcing' him to kill another prostitute.

The graffiti does not appear in either version of the memo, nor in George Sims' various accounts, but now it suddenly, in 1914, becomes 'the only clue left behind by the murderer'. A clever, polemical touch. He even makes sure that "Juwes" is corrected to "Jews" to make this work, e.g. an educated Gentile killer maniacally angry at hard-working Jews who at least saved the remains of a Gentile woman from being desecrated. And such an educated Englishman would not mis-spell such a common word.

I believe that Guy Logan wrote most of his tediously dreadful yet historically indispensable 1905 serial after being briefed by Sims, who had been briefed by Macnaghten (there are bits in Logan that will reappear almost verbatim in Mac's memoir, including the correct spelling of Jews for the graffiti). Here in this tabloid trash we, nevertheless, see the correct ethnicity of witness and suspect: a Hebrew man sighting a fair (e.g. Gentile) with a victim.

Logan's 'Mortemer Slade' is really Montague Druitt. The drowned barrister disguised yet again by a source with a direct link to Sims and Macnaghten. Is that really a coincidence?

There is glimpse of the truth of this event in Mac's memoir. He writes quite correctly that the victim and suspect were sighted before the crime (unlike Sims who has it after the crime in his 1907 piece, a variation on PC Thompson of 1891). He wrote that the cop, really Lawende, had seen nothing satisfying because Mac again wanted--fairly or unfairly--to debunk Anderson's incendiary and ugly claim of a Jewish Jack sighted by a Jewish Judas who betrayed Gentile Justice.

What Mac in 1914 could have repeated, but pointedly chose not to, was what he had written and let cronies repeat about the cop seeing not just a Jewish suspect but maybe the specific Polish man, for public consumption the un-named Kosminski. Instead he dumped all that, in effect dumped a key element of his own Report, unofficial version (he has Sims mention in 1910 the "final" version, the one that does not mention an eyewitness to this suspect). He was at cold war with Anderson over the Ripper, and who exactly had solved this mystery. And finally because he wanted to leave nothing that could point towards Montague Druitt.

Macnaghten's efforts of over a hundred years ago certainly manage to still mislead people here.

[Jeff Leahy]

Perhaps Matilda had followed Aaron one night and saw him at Miller´s Court and/or Hanbury Street, entering the backyards. Anderson:

"...he was living in the immediate vicinity of the scenes of the murders; and that, if he was not living absolutely alone, his people knew of his guilt, and refused to give him up to justice. During my absence abroad the Police had made a house-to-house search for him, investigating the case of every man in the district whose circumstances were such that he could go and come and get rid of his blood-stains in secret. And the conclusion we came to was that he and his people were low-class Jews, for it is a remarkable fact that people of that class in the East End will not give up one of their number to Gentile justice."

Yours Karsten.

Hi Karsten

Yes I think undoubtedly Anderson is talking very specifically about the Kozminski family. What he says here is clear and concise. Very carefully worded to avoid upsetting the jewish community in general.

Yours Jeff

[Jeff Leahy]

Jeff it is you who claimed that it was Macnaghten who burned documents..

Jonathon I wasn't quoting anything to do with Townsend. The quote I clearly gave is on P322 of the A to Z…The Daily Mail2 June 1913

That is the only quote I gave and it supports the idea that files might have been destroyed by MAcNAughten who claimed he destroyed evidence.

It is an obsession because, unlike Paul Begg and many others,you do not concede other interpretations of limited and ambiguous data are possible. The value of said interpretation is in the eye of the beholder.

Yes I'm saying you don't need to interpret. You simply have to read what the sources tell us….and then look at them from the right direction. Then nobody is wrong and nobody makes errors they just give the story to the best of their knowledge.

MAcANughten and Swanson are discussing different events.

I think Macnaghten knew all there was to know about Aaron Kosminski and Anderson (and Swanson) did not.

I could say I believe Noddy and Big ears were Jack the Ripper but there would still be no contextual or Source evidence to support the idea.

The Seaside i.d as a literal event never happened.

Then you dismiss Swanson as a source without any good reason for doing so..Swanson clearly stated there was a Seaside home. Anderson says the ID took place in an asylum. So the contextual evidence is that the ID happened in an Asylum Seaside Home..

Oh, and here, again, is the bit you never cut-and-paste of my posts because it is too terrifying, or do you just not understand it:
'

Its simply not relevant. Trying to make out Anderson was senile, forgetful or basically lying, just doesn't hold any water. As Martin Fido stated Anderson 'would not have lied for personal Kudos'

It also seems possible that Anderson far from writing from memory used considerable notes and possibly a diary. So when tired he could have had something to reference back to..

Yours Jeff

[Harry D]

2. Possibly PC James Harvey or Joseph Levy

PC Harvey is probably the best bet for Macnaghten's City PC, as he was not far behind the killer, but he never reported seeing anyone.

Joseph Levy is a witness who's often overlooked in the whole Seaside Home ID discussion. His guarded behaviour doesn't lead one to think he would cooperate with the police in an identification, unless he had been put up to it by someone else?

[PaulB]

Dear PaulB

I am glad you have cleared that up because I know for a fact that others--mistakenly--thought as I did about your interpretation, in terms of Aaron Kosminski.

You are, likewise, a little off-track about what I think happened in terms of Macnaghten and the Anderson/Swanson i.d. story.

In his memoir Mac's cliche beat cop is Lawende disguised, who saw nothing satisfying. That's a direct stab at Anderson--who in "Days of My Years" is airbrushed from history, along with Kosminski (and Ostrog).

The Chief Constable later Assistant Commissioner knew the i.d. had happened. He knew that it involved a Jewish witness (Lawende) and he knew that it had come to nothing in regards to Tom Sadler and William Grant.

For that was the i.d. Anderson later muddled; a Ripper suspect(s) identified by a Jewish witness, or not. We know this because it appears in other sources--though only two--whereas Schwarz disappears from the extant record.

We know that Anderson was capable of all sorts of confident conflations and confusions due to the shambolic 1908 interview and so it is not a stretch, to me, that the 1910 memoir footnote about a witness is of the same order: sincere but muddled to the point of grotesque distortion, just as he did to Dr Philips.

Major Smith in 1910 denied Anderson's account, and by implication so did Sir Melville Macnaghten in 1914, as he did also through his proxy Sims (very rudely) in 1910.

Mac set in motion the myth of the i.d. of a Jewish suspect and a Jewish witness when in the Aberconway version he turned inside-out the witness, Lawende, and suspect, the Gentile-featured, light-moustachioed young man at the Eddowes murder whom Mac believed--rightly or wrongly--was a sighting of Montague Druitt, whom he believed from 1891--again, rightly or wrongly--was the Ripper.

I subscribe to the theory that due to internal bureaucratic pressures and, later, external public relations reasons Macnaghten, in a sense, created "Kosminski" the deceased suspect in 1895.

I think the reason that Anderson and Swanson believed he was deceased is due to Macnaghten telling them that.

This is what everything I see tells me.

Is the above fact or theory? It is a theory based on trying to make sense of a jumble. For me the above fits together quiet neatly.

Could I be wrong? Sure, I often am.

Here is something you may not have seen.

It is the only account of the Lawende sighting outside the 1888 sources (and Major Smith, who has the wrong hat) that places the Druitt figure in the frame, albeit disguised--literally so in this case. It is from Guy Logan's "The True History of Jack the Ripper"(1905) and it matches the 1888 primary sources: a Gentile murderer being seen by a Jewish man:

"... with a few deft touches effected an almost total change in his outward appearance. A fair wig and a light moustache completely transformed him ..." p. 144

"Shortly after 1:30 a man and woman were seen talking at the corner of Church Street, one of whom stated his opinion that the clothing he had seen at the station was like that warn by the woman he saw." p. 152

I can't tell you what it meant to me to see [part of] my theory confirmed.

Jonathan
I don't want to get into a lengthy point by point discussion, so let me just take a single statement of yours.

"In his memoir Mac's cliche beat cop is Lawende disguised, who saw nothing satisfying. That's a direct stab at Anderson--who in "Days of My Years" is airbrushed from history, along with Kosminski (and Ostrog)."


We don’t know of any City PC who saw anything in the vicinity of Mitre Square, so did Macnaghten really write City PC when he meant a Jewish commercial traveller? Other people who have considered this have concluded that Macnaghten actually meant a policeman and was referring to Met policeman, PC Smith.

It has also been observed that Macnaghten wrote that the murderer of Stride was disturbed by some Jews who drove up to the Club. In fact if the murderer was disturbed by anyone it was by a single Jew. Multiple Jews are Lawende and Co over by Mitre Square. So it is entirely possible that Macnaghten transposed the multiple Jews near Mitre Square to the murderer-disturbing single Jew in Berner Street and the possible police eye-witness PC Smith in Berner Street into a City PC near Mitre Square.

If one wanted to speculate a little further, one might argue that Macnaghten knew about an eye-witness and assumed it was policeman Smith in Berner Street (who Macnaghten turned into a City PC), whereas the witness was in reality Schwartz.

I’m not going to argue the pros and cons of any of this, the point being that it is by no means even a reasonable assumption that Macnaghten’s beat cop was Lawende in disguise, but you offer it as a statement of fact. The transposition theory is equally probable, some might argue that insofar as it keeps Macnaghten’s witness a cop, albeit in Berner Street and not near Mitre Square, it is far more probable.

[S.Brett]

Hi Brett

A most interesting theory.

I've only ever stated that it is unlikely that Lawende is Andersons and Swansons ID witness. I've always preferred Schwartz because if your correct about the Crawford letter it seems logical they would have know where Kozminski lived.

While I find your theory about Matilda most interesting, my concerns would be whether a non ripper victim would give Anderson the moral certainty he almost certainly entertained.

Great post Yours Jeff

Dear Jeff,

The attack on Matilda (near Brick Lane) might have looked like the attack on Liz Stride in Dutfield's Yard after Schwartz and Pipeman were gone. But this time a witness saw the struggle and the victim (Matilda) could escape. A good view is possible. Perhaps he saw the man again while this man was captured and at the police station Commercial Road.

Maybe, Aaron Kozminski had already been a prime suspect before this happened. Thinking of Batty Street Lodger Story and the bloody shirt (and an earlier observation in October 1888, no murder), thinking of the Constabler from Mitre Square "This man in appearance strongly resembled the individual seen by the City PC near Mitre Square"- Macnaughten or "This man was said to resemble the murderer by the one person who got a glimpse of him - the police-constable in Mitre Court”- Major Griffith, thinking of Macnaghten and the "many circs"...

And this time it would mean: REDHANDED!

Perhaps Matilda had followed Aaron one night and saw him at Miller´s Court and/or Hanbury Street, entering the backyards. Anderson:

"...he was living in the immediate vicinity of the scenes of the murders; and that, if he was not living absolutely alone, his people knew of his guilt, and refused to give him up to justice. During my absence abroad the Police had made a house-to-house search for him, investigating the case of every man in the district whose circumstances were such that he could go and come and get rid of his blood-stains in secret. And the conclusion we came to was that he and his people were low-class Jews, for it is a remarkable fact that people of that class in the East End will not give up one of their number to Gentile justice."

Yours Karsten.