Did the Seaside Home ID happen?

[Jeff Leahy]

As I have written before Anderson was compressing events between 1885 and 1895

Accept as has clearly been pointed out to you Anderson starts his theory in 1892… long before MacNaughten writes his memo..

All you comments about Anderson are clearly addressed and dismissed in the A to Z..

Yours Jeff

[Jonathan H]

OK, Jeff, I'll play ping pong with you.

I want to see if you'll admit your errors of FACT, not interpretation, or if you will imitate Anderson and never do so.

In 1892 Anderson does not say anything about the maniac being a safely caged Polish Hebrew. Not at all. He is speaking theoretically and generally, not about a specific suspect. That is just as valid an interpretation of an ambiguous source.

On Macnaghten burning the Townesend letter--which is a new and mean-spirited error for you, again in the style of your idol--this is what Anderson actually wrote in 1910:

'The public never realised what a marvellous escape Mr. Gladstone had in April, 1893, when the lunatic Townsend, with a loaded revolver in his pocket, lay in wait for him in Downing Street. A lunatic is often diverted from his purpose as easily as a child; and the man's own explanation of his failing to fire was that the Premier smiled at him when passing into No. io-a providential circumstance that, for Mr. Gladstone was not addicted to smiling. That case cost me much distress of mind. " Never keep a document," should be the first rule with a criminal. "Never destroy a document," should be an inexorable rule in Police work. But in this case I had destroyed a letter that would have proved an important piece of evidence. I always ignored threatening letters myself, and I have had my share of them ; and when one of my principal subordinates brought me a letter threatening his life, I felt so indignant and irritated at the importance he attached to it, and the fuss he made over it, that I threw it into the fire. That letter was from Townsend, and though no harm came of my act, I could not forgive myself for it.'

Are you so sloppy with the facts and the material that you think Anderson, or Macnaghten, or somebody, is referring to the Ripper documentation he allegedly burned?

You refer to the A to Z as if is gospel, an attitude of reverence the three authors would despise you for.

In the same book they make the same point about the 1908 interview: that Anderson shows himself to be quite muddled--not tired, as that refers to a different source--and this might bring his reliability into question.

I notice you glided right past my point --and Philip Sudgen's--about Anderson's typically unfair and inaccurate criticism of the un-named Dr. Phillips.

You should give it a wide berth, mate, because it is a devastating comparison with what Anderson, likewise, does to the un-named Lawende.

He blames both for sabotaging the Ripper investigation and is mean-spirited, unfair and totally inaccurate about both the physician and the Hebrew witness.

Actually it is Macnaghten who was the popular police administrator, and not the reclusive Anderson who, what's more, had to be purged following Edward VII's accession as a relic of stuffy Victorianism.

From the "Police Review" of 1901:

‘... [Anderson’s] temperament, so admirably adapted to his social and religious proclivities, was not such as best fits one for the work of the C.I.D. A Biblical scholar of repute, and a literary recluse, such as he is, would hardly be the man to take an active part in fighting the criminal classes of London. Discreet, silent, and reserved though he was, according to Major Griffiths’ estimate, he lacked one inestimable quality to success as the director of the detective staff of the most important Police Force in the world, and that was just the requisite kind of knowledge of the world and men. An acknowledged authority on our penal system, it was, perhaps, hardly a looked-for choice on the part of Mr. Home Secretary Matthews when Dr. Anderson was transferred from the Prisons Department to handle the reins at Scotland Yard.’

Whereas Macnaghten was affability personified and enjoyed the world of men and was beloved by his men:

From ‘The West Gippsland Gazette’ of September 2nd 1913 repeating a London article on Mac's official and emotional farewell dinner:

‘The Chief Constable [Dingham], in handing the cup to Sir Melville, expressed the regret which was felt by all ranks at his retirement ... Mr. Dingham also referred to the marvelous memory of their retiring chief, and pointed out that in dealing with the men under him Sir Melville had always been reluctant to rebuke or reprove any officer unless it was absolutely necessary in the interests of the Force.’

‘The Sunday Post’ of May 15th 1921 published a posthumous and equally gushing tribute:

‘Known to the youngest recruits as “Mac”—the best compliment that could be paid to the chief—Sir Melville Macnaghten, who has just passed away in London, was one of the few examples of a departmental chief in the right place. He was no square peg in a round hole. A cultivated man of quiet tastes, the Assistant Commissioner of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Yard made it his motto never to ask a detective to do what he was not prepared to do himself … The most famous officers in London speak of him in terms of admiration, “There was a man!”, they would say whenever his name was mentioned … His house in the West End was never closed to the men who worked with him. Any hour of the night, after dinner, you would see a light burning in his study, which meant that perhaps a couple of Inspectors, or even a detective-sergeant, had dropped in to have a pipe with the Commissioner, and tell him how they were faring in their hunt for a famous criminal.’

[Jeff Leahy]

OK, Jeff, I'll play ping pong with you.
In 1892 Anderson does not say anything about the maniac being a safely caged Polish Hebrew. Not at all. He is speaking theoretically and generally, not about a specific suspect. That is just as valid an interpretation of an ambiguous source.

1892: Anderson produced photos of the victims and said ‘There, there is my answer to people who come with fads and and theories (Was he already referenceing MacNaughten?) about these murders. It is impossible to believe they were the acts of a sane man (inother words an insane suspect) they were those of a maniac reveling in blood’

On Macnaghten burning the Townesend letter--which is a new and mean-spirited error for you, again in the style of your idol--this is what Anderson actually wrote in 1910:

I'm afraid you have what I'm saying completely wrong. I do not idolise Anderson and neither do I have anything against MacNAughten.

What I've said is both men should be taken seriously and we should actually look at what they said. If you do that and believe both men are telling the truth to the best of their abilities then the only conclusion is they are describing different events.

Its your theory that requires this totally unsupported distruction of Andersons character. Paul Begg has for years pointed out to people who resort to this last measure of desperation, as it not holding any water. I have no reason to believe he is wrong about Anderson and would consider him and Fido the leading experts in the world about Anderson.

My theory simply requires MacNaughten not knowing about the ID Anderson talks about, and you seem to accept that the two men weren't on best terms particularly when MacNaughten first joined the force.

But MacNaughten simply said what he said… that he destroyed the evidence.

Are you so sloppy with the facts and the material that you think Anderson, or Macnaghten, or somebody, is referring to the Ripper documentation he allegedly burned?:

THe A to Z states MacNaughten : 'I have destroyed all my documents and there is now no record of the secret information which came into my possession at one time or another”

In the same book they make the same point about the 1908 interview: that Anderson shows himself to be quite muddled--not tired, as that refers to a different source--and this might bring his reliability into question.

The A to Z qualifies this by pointing out Anderson starts by saying its late and he is tired.

You should give it a wide berth, mate, because it is a devastating comparison with what Anderson, likewise, does to the un-named Lawende.

I have been saying consistently for years that Lawende was NOT the witness

Actually it is Macnaghten who was the popular police administrator, and not the reclusive Anderson who, what's more, had to be purged following Edward VII's accession as a relic of stuffy Victorianism.
’

My theory doesn't require the character assignation of either Anderson or MAcNaughten.. Clearly as we both seem to agree they had there differences

I dont beleive Anderson fully trusted MacNaughten he may even have been been thinking of him when he spoke of people with fads and theories.

However the A to Z places Anderson and MacNaughten separately as competent police officers with good records. I see know reason to rubbish either men..

However I'm not criytisizing MacNaughten I'm simply saying he DID NOT KNOW ABOUT THE ID…. Thus he concluded Druit

He did not know what happened to Kozminski..note you have ignored the FACT that MacNaughten mentions Ostrog directly as being Alive..

And to bring the thread back to subject: Anderson clearly states that the ID took place in an Asylum.

“I will only add that when the individual whom we suspected was caged in an asylum, the only person who ever had a good view of the murderer at once indentified him.” In other words Kozminski was in an asylum (A convalescent asylum in surrey) when the ID took place, Swanson refers to it as a Seaside Home but there is no mystery, it clearly wasn’t the seaside police home in Brighton as previously suggested."

Those are the FACTS

Yours Jeff

[Jonathan H]

This is a waste of time because you are not reading what I write, or, incredibly, what you write either.

You just copy and paste, and stick the same nonsense underneath.

You have confused and/or misunderstood a number of sources, as usual.

The 1892 source does not have Anderson mentioning any of the things you claim it does. You keep repeating the same quote as if it does. How do you deal with this gap?

You don't.

The 1908 interview is a different source. How do you deal with it's confusions and conflations?

You don't.

You wrote that Anderson had not burned the Townsend letter, Macnaghten had. You're wrong. He, that is Anderson, wrote--regretfully but blaming Mac--that he had burned this document.

How do you deal with it? You don't.

Macnaghten not Anderson was the popular and discreet police chief. How do you deal with that?

You don't.

Paul Begg does not think Aron Kosminski was Anderson's suspect.

How do you deal with that, Jeff?

[pinkmoon]

[QUOTE=Jonathan H;341293]To Pinkmoon

I agree, and subscribe to the theory that the incident never happened as recorded in a source that was unaccountable to anyone. It is inspired by a real event: Lawende, a Jewish witness, was brought in and affirmed to Grant, in a confrontation in 1895, and yet the case did not proceed against him as the Ripper because of countervailing evidence.

Grant's sometime lawyer, George Kebbel, claimed in 1910 that the police, nevertheless, regarded his client as the fiend and also asserted, wrongly, that he was long deceased.

Is that just a coincidence, when matched against the Anderson/Swanson error about Kosminski?

Poor Joseph Lawende, who gave the police exactly that they wanted, ends up being slandered--though not by name as that has been thankfully forgotten--in Anderson's memoirs and Swanson's Marginalia, albeit the latter was not a public document until 1987.

In my opinion the Marginalia is Sir Robert Anderson's voice we can hear; blaming somebody else for their cowardice under the guise of trying to be a bit sympathetic to their dilemma.

But I think it is made up, that a chastened Anderson is excusing himself over Mentor's furious and pointed criticism that the Adolf Beck case shows the extreme unreliability of eyewitness identification when there is no other corroborating evidence (though Anderson, a sexually repressed Victorian to the nth degree, regards self-abuse as just such 'evidence' of low moral character).

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.'

I go further than Sudgen. Anderson is remaking what happened to better suit his prejudices. He despises the Liberals and so they become the hack trying to put him under undue pressure. He blames others for not catching the killer, in this case an un-named physician.

Just pause for a moment to absorb how appalling that really is. He blames a perfectly competent doctor, un-named, for destroying the evidence that might[/QUO
TE]
What people seem to forget is that the police needed this solved to restore the general publics faith in them they would even risk some civil unrest if it meant putting a Jew on trial that's why I just can't see all this stuff about poor Kosminski being true it would be common knowledge across all police forces that the killer was locked up .The whole case against Kosminski is greatly increased by those notes written in that margin but from what I have read I do not think they are genuine.I have absolutely no doubt that sir melvilles memo is the real deal but as for the content his was really struggling for information to put in it when he was asked to compile that memo he couldn't really say no we don't have a clue who the ripper is so he had to put something down the inclusion of ostrog tells us that he was struggling obviously put in to make the numbers up. give your cat a stroke for me and thanks for the reply and I will be buying your book if you have included any d.n.a evidence regarding clothing at the scene I will be raising a savage mob and we will march on your house .

[Jeff Leahy]

You have confused and/or misunderstood a number of sources, as usual.

Know I have not. Its your obsession with a MacNaughten conspiracy theory that leaves you blind to the truth.

The 1892 source does not have Anderson mentioning any of the things you claim it does. You keep repeating the same quote as if it does. How do you deal with this gap?

It says what it says… It is proof that Anderson went from not having a clue in Sept 1889 to having a fully formed theory in 1892. Here Anderson clearly references an insane maniac revelling in blood.. It is the basics of the same theory that he simply expands upon as years go bye. He is guarded because the theory is a Hot Potato… He speaks out out of a moral obligation to try and change the system.

How clear does it have to be?

The 1908 interview is a different source. How do you deal with it's confusions and conflations?

Which 1908 interview are you referring to?

You wrote that Anderson had not burned the Townsend letter, Macnaghten had. You're wrong. He, that is Anderson, wrote--regretfully but blaming Mac--that he had burned this document.

Its not relevant, other than to demonstrate that Anderson and MacNuaghten had differences. THus it supports my theory that Anderson did not inform MacAnughten about the ID

Macnaghten not Anderson was the popular and discreet police chief. How do you deal with that?

As a reporter noted, Andersons "Controlling hand and inspiring brain govern the conduct of every investigation requiring delicacy and originality of handling"

Paul Begg does not think Aron Kosminski was Anderson's suspect.
How do you deal with that, Jeff?

I very much doubt Paul Begg has worded it quite like that. I suggest you take this up with Paul directly. However he clearly doesn't entertain your theory or support your bias observations about Anderson.

I can however speak for myself in saying Aaron Kozmionski was Andersons suspect. Both Swanson and Anderson reference a man who went to a workhouse and then to Colney hatch…Aaron Kozminski is the only match.

Now will you please deal with the question i asked you…Do you not concead that MAcNAughten clearly says Ostrog is Alive, when he does not know what happened to Kozminski as did Sims in 1907….neither man knows what happens to Kozminski after going into an asylum in 1889.

also Anderson clearly states Kozminski was in an Asylum when the ID took place..

This totally supports the two separator events MArch 1889 and the ID 1890 that took place…Thats what the sources tell us..

Yours Jeff

[Jeff Leahy]

[QUOTE=pinkmoon;341325]

To Pinkmoon

I agree, and subscribe to the theory that the incident never happened as recorded in a source that was unaccountable to anyone. It is inspired by a real event: Lawende, a Jewish witness, was brought in and affirmed to Grant, in a confrontation in 1895, and yet the case did not proceed against him as the Ripper because of countervailing evidence.

But as I've pointed out and demonstrated Anderson had already formed his theory by 1892.

Lawende could not have been the witness.. and the clay pipe and removal of the graffiti might have been significant to Andersons suspect, we just don't know.

What we do know is Anderson said a very clear story which was supported by Swanson..

What everyone else says is not relevant if they did not know about the ID which took place according to Anderson in an Asylum, called by Swanson a Seaside Home..

Yours Jeff

[Jonathan H]

You see, you don't read what I write.

I posted this source before:

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.'

You did not deal with any of what I wrote, e.g. the Townsend mistake as you have no grace to admit an error.

But you can the battle of attrition if it so important to you.

Macnaghten knew in 1907 that Kosminski was still alive in the asylum. At the same time Anderson and Swanson thought he was deceased.

No matter how you twist and mangle all that it cannot change this basic FACT.

To Pinkmoon

And I will be right next to you leading the angry mob against any rubbish like that!

[Jeff Leahy]

You see, you don't read what I write.

Jonathon I clearly did the courtesy of replying to your points in detail. Yet you have again evaded three new observations, which you have clearly no answer too..

1) If MacNaughten knows that Kozminski is alive why does he nor say so, as he does about Ostrog clearly stating he is alive…?

2) Anderson clearly states that the ID took place in an asylum did he not?

3) MacNAughten clearly states that he has destroyed the evidence, which might explain why the files he referenced are missing

Will you please stop avoiding questions by writing pages of irrelevant material with no bearing on the ID. Answer the questions please.

Yours Jeff

[pinkmoon]

You see, you don't read what I write.

I posted this source before:

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.'

You did not deal with any of what I wrote, e.g. the Townsend mistake as you have no grace to admit an error.

But you can the battle of attrition if it so important to you.

Macnaghten knew in 1907 that Kosminski was still alive in the asylum. At the same time Anderson and Swanson thought he was deceased.

No matter how you twist and mangle all that it cannot change this basic FACT.

To Pinkmoon

And I will be right next to you leading the angry mob against any rubbish like that!

We march at dawn!!!!!!

[Jonathan H]

You're such a shameless pest,Jeff, but that that's your schtick hey?

I answered these questions, many times, before they were even asked.

It is you who has never and will never deal wit the 1908 source.

You know what you call pages of irrelevant material is from Anderson's memoir?!

I suppose not, since you don't read it.

1) Macnaghten was not sure in 1898 if Kosminski was still alive. He checked later and discovered he was--and told Sims so in 1907.

2) Anderson realized he'd stuffed up and changed the tale for the book version and the Marginalia. He's not saying two incarcerations. Nobody is in the primary sources.

3) The destroyed documents refer to Anderson and the Townsend letter, not Macnaghten and any Druitt documents.

You just won't read what I've written will you?

I can't make you do it, but you are doing Anderson, of all people, a terrible disservice.

[Jeff Leahy]

Sims 1907

Thank You

Now lets actually take a good look at what you are claiming

1) Macnaghten was not sure in 1898 if Kosminski was still alive. He checked later and discovered he was--and told Sims so in 1907.

OK you seem to accept my interpretation of the 1894 Memo.

The first problem you have is that if MAcNaughten did not know what happened to Kozminski in 1894. How could he have possibly known where kozminski was to actually check?

I mean if Anderson and Swanson kept the ID secret to themselves, surely actually discovering where Kozminski was would be like looking for a needle in a haystack (There were many asylums in Surrey)…and why bother. He'd already read the kozminski file which ended in March 1889.

Sims actually says 1907: "The first man was a polish Jew of curious habits and strange disposition, who was the sole occupant of a certain premises in Whitechapel after night fall. this man was in the district during the whole period covered by the whitechapel murders (Remember MacNaughten only counted unto MJK) and soon after they ceased certain facts came to light which showed it was quite possible that he might have been the Ripper. He had at one time been employed in a hospital in Poland. He was known to be a lunatic at the time of the murders, and some-time afterwards he betrayed such undoubted signs of homocidal mania that he was sent to a lunatic Asylum."

You see this is simply an expanded story of MacNaughtens original memo. He again simply says 'sent to a lunatic Asylum'.. that could have been anywhere, he does not mention Colney Hatch which had MacNaughten known Kozminski was alive he surely would have known?

Sims Cont:"The policeman who got a gimpse of Jack in Mitre Court said, when some time afterwards he saw the Pole, that he was the height and build of the man he had seen on the night of the murder"

Now this is very interesting as it supports MacNaughtens memo that there had been a police witness and that this was the reason they followed the suspect….but its still the same info in a file unto March 1889.. Absolutely no mention or any similarity to anything said about the ID by Anderson and Swanson.

Sims further: They (The polish Jew and the second suspect Ostrog) were both alive long after the horrors had ceased, and though both were in an asylum, there had been a considerable time after the cessation of the Ripper crimes during which they were at liberty and passing about among their fellow men.

My emphasis on They So Sims is speaking generally about Kozminski and Ostrog (who was in prison)..And as one of MacNAughtens arguments for the murders stopping MJK, was that Druit drown shortly after that murder, then Kozminski was clearly at large for several months unto March 1889 and nomore murders happened. He was never caught red handed and placed in an asylum.

Sims is simply saying here that Kozminski was at large for a considerable time as opposed to Druit who died shortly afterwards.

There is no update here on Kozminski being alive once he is placed in an asylum, simply more detail than is given in the brief memo which again might indicate MAcNAughten hung onto the files like he did the photos.

Its interesting that Kozminski may have work in a hospital and that there may have been a police witness something many people have suspected.

What it clearly demonstrates however is that MacNAughten did NOT know what happened to Kozminski once he was placed in an asylum and almost certainly didn't know any more than Cox or Sagar about which asylum he was placed in…While both Swanson and Anderson know Aaron Kozminski went to a workhouse and then to Colney Hatch, very specific.

I deal with the second two points later as I really have duties and shopping to get done. I'll let you stew on these points and what Sims actually said first.

Yours Jeff

[Harry D]

Jeff has made some really cogent points about the identification. I think his scenario is the most plausible that I've read so far. It's apparent that the ID of a Jewish suspect would've highly confidential and possibly off the record, owing to the fact that the police were wont to tippy toe around the antisemitism issue (lying about Leather Apron, removing the GSG).

[Jonathan H]

Let me ... stew. How will I sleep?

Nothing about the 1908 interview? No, of course not.

Nothing about you getting the wrong document destroyed by the wrong chief.

No, of course not.

The Aberconway Papers (the original is lost) were not written in 1894 but more likely 1898. I agree with Rumbelow (of 1975) and Fido (of 1987) that they were composed later than the official version.

It had to be written no later than 1898 because that is when Griffiths published his version of the suspects' section.

Therefore if they were written as late as 1898 then Macnaghten correctly believed that Kosminski was still alive, which he was, but later checked and found he was still alive--as Sims recorded in 1907.

What you miss si that Sims is writing hyper-bolically and fictitiously. For the awful glut phony test to work the Drowned English Doctor has to be dead instantly and the Russian Doctor and the Polish madman have to be still alive.

What an unimaginative mark like yourself does not get is that Sims created a further fictional variant of the Polish suspect: the medical training in Poland replaces masturbation, the state sections him not his family because he is a deranged loner and the cop witness saw nothing useful. But being dead was not included.

Mac's beat cop is not a literal figure but a stand-in for Lawende, the Jewish witness. This is the Jewish witness confrontation (though with Gentile suspects).

Whereas Anderson (and by extension Swanson) have Kosminski banged up and dead soon after the Kelly murder. Again I think that Cullen, Farson, Fido and Rumbelow, who theorized that Anderson was writing about Pizer and Violenia, are still, to some extent correct.

When you come back from your shopping sojourn I suggest you actually read Paul Begg's book because he wonders--with his usual laser-beam accuracy in my opinion--whether Macnaghten may not a source who should not be taken "literally". Begg is a highly regarded writer-theorist who also does not think that Aaron Kosminski was Anderson's suspect--therefore it does not matter if Aaron was sectioned a dozen times. He is not Anderson's suspect according to a secondary source who judges this chief as essentially reliable.

If you do not deal with these points I have made, over and over, then, fine, you can have the last word, which is all you really care about. The last bloody word.

But you kid yourself if you think you fool anybody by your ignoring the 1908 source or your error about what Anderson saying he destroyed the Townsend letter.

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi Jonathon

I will pick these points up and address as much as possible. However its bank holiday weekend and I have family obligations…please bear with me

Yours Jeff