Plausibility of Kosminski

[Hunter]

.So please excuse my lack of knowledge,and mistrust of historicsl evidence.Or should it be mistrust of Anderson and Swanson in their telling of history.

Harry.

What evidence do you have that Donald Sutherland Swanson should be mistrusted?

[Hunter]

Swanson described it as 'the Seaside Home'. Donald Rumbelow, when he first saw the marginalia back in 1987, stated that policemen writing c.1910, as policemen today, called one place and one place only 'the Seaside Home', namely the Convalescent Police Seaside Home in Hove. It is generally accepted that this was the place meant, and I particularly point out the word "the" and the capitalisation of "S" and "H" in Seaside Home as strongly indicators that a specific, recognisable place was intended. Others have argued that the words could have meant any of the other convalescent homes used by the police, none of which were used exclusively by the police, but I think Swanson would have specified it if it was something like Mrs Figgis's boarding house at Clacton or whatever, or if it was a seaside home for postmen, jews, or whatever.

I would add that the nomenclature 'Home' was common in police jargon of that era. A section house was called a 'home' as well.

[Phil Carter]

Harry.

What evidence do you have that Donald Sutherland Swanson should be mistrusted?

Hello Hunter,

See my posting above for a proposed answer. If Swanson can't get the facts right because of a "faulty memory".. are we to be selective and believe he got THIS detail right ......"Seaside Home"?

Answer... untrustworthy source material..imho.


kindly

Phil

[Phil H]

See my posting above for a proposed answer. If Swanson can't get the facts right because of a "faulty memory".. are we to be selective and believe he got THIS detail right ......"Seaside Home"?

Answer... untrustworthy source material..imho.

As some of us have been trying to say for some time, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS UNTRUSTWORTHY SOURCE MATERIAL (at least where writings like this are concerned) unless you can show specifically it to be forged, or a joke...

Swanson was a senior detective involved in the case at the time, he wrote (not that long after the events he recorded) about an incident odd enough to be memorable.

WE may not be able to interpret what he meant by "Seaside Home" or understand what he means when talking of procedures that are unusual, but he meant something. There is no reason to believe that he was writing other than of events which stood out in his memory and he confirms that MM and Anderson refer to the same suspect (called Kosminski).

These are issues for us to resolve - we may NEVER be able to - but the issue is ours, NOT Swansons.

If Caesar writes of attaching a fortress in Gaul, or of a particular personage at the Ptolemaic court, and other records that survive, or the archaeological evidence says that could not be right - we have no justification in writing Caesar off as unreliable. It may well be our interpretation of the evidence that is at fault, our dating methodology that needs revision.

Swanson was appointed to his co-ordinator role for specific reasons, all of which suggest that he was neither casual nor careless with evidence and that synthesis was a key skill for him. So I believe it is glib and unsupportable simply to dismiss him as unreliable, simply because it is inconvenient to you and your theories to seek to dig deeper and question your own assumptions first.

The Home referred to, the witness and the procedure might all become crystal clear if another file or another document like the marginalia emerges. Don't forget, until the late 80s no one had made the link between Anderson's unnamed jew and MM's Kosminski. It may yet emerge that swanson was correct and we are the fools - indeed, the evidence (like Kosminski and the unnamed Pole) could be staring us in the face, unrecognised.

Phil

[Phil Carter]

As some of us have been trying to say for some time, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS UNTRUSTWORTHY SOURCE MATERIAL (at least where writings like this are concerned) unless you can show specifically it to be forged, or a joke...

Swanson was a senior detective involved in the case at the time, he wrote (not that long after the events he recorded) about an incident odd enough to be memorable.

Hello PhilH,

As some of us have been saying for some time now as well..

Swanson NAMED a person whom his colleague referred to as the perpetrator of the Whitechapel Murders. By DEFAULT, and in naming the supposed culprit, this man's reputation and his family name is highlighted and damaged forever.

When the "evidence" of Swanson's written word has FACTUAL faults in it, is not backed up by proof of any kind, it becomes, by default, an faulty accusation.
The book it is written in refers to a Polish Jew, which is what Swanson is referring to when writing that the man's name was "Kosminski.
The fact he only says "Kosminski" just happens to be linked with another document, also with factual faults, by Macnaghten, who named a Kosminski, a Polish Jew, as well... then the "reasons and "explanations" start to appear for "faulty memory" with "age" etc etc etc.. it becomes very apparent that on the basis of the overall view of the documentation's source material, i.e. the written word, , which is QUESTIONABLE because of the faults.. nothing in either document can be trusted to be totally 100% factually correct. One cannot be selective here. "Oh yes, he got this a little wrong.. and that is wrong, and there is no proof for... but he does mention x and get that bit right...".. it becomes an insult to the intelligence.

Kosminski is being paraded as a multi-slashing, evil, mad, mutilating whore murderer "of the lowest kind" and the most famous killer in British unsolved criminal history.. and we are supposed to accept this because Swanson was at the centre of all this as mostly a desk jockey collating the "facts" that he incidentally can't get right only (quote you) a relatively "short time" after the murders.. (15 years ish)... and I for one see this in a terrible light. No proof, faulty facts from the two sources themselves, faulty factual material, in written form..and this poor man and his family name is dragged through the gutter and he is accused by default of being this nasty murderer?

Like it or not. The so-called evidence presented by Swanson has holes in it left right and centre. Reid's, at the centre of the investigation.. hasn't. He said that nobody had the slightest clue. Are we supposed to believe that Reid, Abberline, Uncle Tom Cobbly and all weren't in the know? Ever?

And people wonder why I keep saying this is a Merry Go Round!

It's got more holes in it than than a wire mesh. Untrustworthy, questionable, faulty.. use whatever word you want... but come up with something more than a man's faulty memory and produce some proof.

Until then let Kosminski, especially Aaron, rest in peace. The decendants must be sick and tired of it by now.


kindly


Phil

[PaulB]

See my posting above for a proposed answer. If Swanson can't get the facts right because of a "faulty memory".. are we to be selective and believe he got THIS detail right ......"Seaside Home"?

Answer... untrustworthy source material..imho.

As some of us have been trying to say for some time, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS UNTRUSTWORTHY SOURCE MATERIAL (at least where writings like this are concerned) unless you can show specifically it to be forged, or a joke...

Swanson was a senior detective involved in the case at the time, he wrote (not that long after the events he recorded) about an incident odd enough to be memorable.

WE may not be able to interpret what he meant by "Seaside Home" or understand what he means when talking of procedures that are unusual, but he meant something. There is no reason to believe that he was writing other than of events which stood out in his memory and he confirms that MM and Anderson refer to the same suspect (called Kosminski).

These are issues for us to resolve - we may NEVER be able to - but the issue is ours, NOT Swansons.

If Caesar writes of attaching a fortress in Gaul, or of a particular personage at the Ptolemaic court, and other records that survive, or the archaeological evidence says that could not be right - we have no justification in writing Caesar off as unreliable. It may well be our interpretation of the evidence that is at fault, our dating methodology that needs revision.

Swanson was appointed to his co-ordinator role for specific reasons, all of which suggest that he was neither casual nor careless with evidence and that synthesis was a key skill for him. So I believe it is glib and unsupportable simply to dismiss him as unreliable, simply because it is inconvenient to you and your theories to seek to dig deeper and question your own assumptions first.

The Home referred to, the witness and the procedure might all become crystal clear if another file or another document like the marginalia emerges. Don't forget, until the late 80s no one had made the link between Anderson's unnamed jew and MM's Kosminski. It may yet emerge that swanson was correct and we are the fools - indeed, the evidence (like Kosminski and the unnamed Pole) could be staring us in the face, unrecognised.

Phil

Hi Phil,
I'd just add that Don Rumbelow stated that when policemen referred to 'the Seaside Home' they meant the Convalescent Police Seaside Home. Don may be wrong, but I am unaware of anyone who says he isn't. Of course, alternative homes have been suggested, some used by the police, some not, but the words 'the Seaside Home', as opposed to 'a seaside home' suggest a place that would have been known to Swanson by that name. Swanson also shows some degree of detail: he tells us that the suspect was taken with his hands tied behind his back for example, or that the suspect was sent and with difficulty, or was returned to his brother's house where surveillance was kept by the City C.I.D., so I think he would have resolved any ambiguity and specified the intended place if it wasn't the obvious.

We could be wrong, of course, and maybe he meant some other seaside home. But wherever he meant, the suspect was sent there, at least as far as Swanson was concerned.

[Phil H]

I could not disagree with you more completely or more strongly, Mr Carter.

Swanson NAMED a person whom his colleague referred to as the perpetrator of the Whitechapel Murders. By DEFAULT, and in naming the supposed culprit, this man's reputation and his family name is highlighted and damaged forever.

Irrelevant. The information was not released until long after the period the data protection Act would protect it for. And under English law you cannot libel the dead.

The mention was in private papers, not released by him.

When the "evidence" of Swanson's written word has FACTUAL faults in it, is not backed up by proof of any kind, it becomes, by default, an faulty accusation.

If you read my last post you would see that I had addressed that fully. the absence of proof is not HIS problem. When he wrote it may well be the files existed backing up his statements - I'm sure they did. It is NOT thus a "faulty accusation" (just because you cannot understand it!) it is a statement we cannot at present find evidence to fill out (not note substantiate or verify) to a more complete understanding.

The book it is written in refers to a Polish Jew, which is what Swanson is referring to when writing that the man's name was "Kosminski.
The fact he only says "Kosminski" just happens to be linked with another document, also with factual faults, by Macnaghten, who named a Kosminski, a Polish Jew, as well... then the "reasons and "explanations" start to appear for "faulty memory" with "age" etc etc etc.. it becomes very apparent that on the basis of the overall view of the documentation's source material, i.e. the written word, , which is QUESTIONABLE because of the faults.. nothing in either document can be trusted to be totally 100% factually correct. One cannot be selective here. "Oh yes, he got this a little wrong.. and that is wrong, and there is no proof for... but he does mention x and get that bit right...".. it becomes an insult to the intelligence.

Nonsense. There is no evidence that MM was aware of Anderson's belief when he penned his memorandum, but he may well have been aware of the general view, or swanson's information on Kosminski (both had access to the official files. we know MM used them.

So please stop trying to denigrate men who served the state loyally and well. I've worked within the same system for nearly 40 years, have met and worked with people like them, and they do NOT make things up or creat gobbledegook, no matter how much you wish it were so. Look at the evidence objectively, and use the accepted approaches - don't just rubbish what is outside your comprehension.

Kosminski is being paraded as a multi-slashing, evil, mad, mutilating whore murderer "of the lowest kind" and the most famous killer in British unsolved criminal history.. and we are supposed to accept this

No and again no. You do not have to accept anything. But you cannot rationalise away or rubbish the evidence just because it is inconvenient to you.

I don't think anyone, Martin Fido, Paul Begg or anyone says they think Kosminski was the killer. But he WAS and REMAINS a contemporary suspect GOT THAT? (named as such NOT as JtR) by two, and implied by a third senior, SY officers.

because Swanson was at the centre of all this as mostly a desk jockey collating the "facts" that he incidentally can't get right only (quote you) a relatively "short time" after the murders.. (15 years ish)... and I for one see this in a terrible light.

You appear to be wallowing in darkness. Swanson was NO "desk jockey - hey look your denigrating the deceased just as you accuse swanson of doing!!

Swanson was appointed to his task specifically for his skills (precisely spelled out) and did the task well.

No proof, faulty facts from the two sources themselves, faulty factual material, in written form..and this poor man and his family name is dragged through the gutter and he is accused by default of being this nasty murderer?

Codswallop with red-herring sauce. we know files have disappeared or been destroyed (for good administrative reasons) over the years and thus we have less information than did Swanson et al. We have no right to question (certainly not rubbish) their views given when they were set down. we can ask questions about their sources - some of which we cannot answer at this stage. We can evaluate the likelihood of their views being correct. We can debate the atmosphere inside SY from 1888-1919, but we have no right to throw baby and bathwater out just because we do not understand what it fully means.

The so-called evidence presented by Swanson has holes in it left right and centre.

No, it has NO "holes". It simply states facts we cannot at this point fully appreciate or understand. the background information is not there.

Reid's, at the centre of the investigation.. hasn't.

Ah! now you give the game away. You have a prejudice for one view over another. OK, but that doesn't allow you simply to denigtrate those, of the same period who disagree.

He said that nobody had the slightest clue.

Reid, given his position may not have been in a position to know what his superiors did. He may have been more dense? I have no idea whether he was right, but Swanson confirms his old chief's view that Kosminski was the suspect taken to the Seaside Home - he does not name him as jtR.

And people wonder why I keep saying this is a Merry Go Round!

Because posters like you won't use the generally accepted methodology on historical evidence.

Until then let Kosminski, especially Aaron, rest in peace. The decendants must be sick and tired of it by now.

We cannot, he is a named suspect in a famous murder trial. He is part of the historical record. He cannot be expunged any more than ostrog, Druitt, Issenscmidt or Puckeridge's involvement in the case can be written out. Kosminski is a SUSPECT nothing more.

And I waste time responding to posts like that!! (And I always respected you, hitherto, Phil )

Phil

[Phil Carter]

Hello Phil H,

That is why humans are made differently. You have your choices, I have mine. I can live with yours -without having to use excuse after excuse to cover Swanson's, and Macnaghten's sudden lapses of factual memory for mine, even though I disagree with you, totally and floccinaucinihilipilificate them.

Carry on watching the wheels go round. The carriage is going nowhere. Yawn.



Hello Paul,


A fair answer. Thank you. No we can't say Don Rumbelow is wrong. We cannot say he is right, with certainty either.

As you say, it is indeed all according to Swanson. And nobody else. Ever.

kindly

Phil

[Scott Nelson]

...so I am not sure what you mean when you say that we need to establish David Cohen's foreign surname. As far as I am aware it was "Cohen".

Martin Fido's attempt to connect him with Anderson's Polish Jew suspect would lead the careless reader (like me) to conclude the asylum records had established that Cohen was a Polish immigrant, whereas the A-Z simply says he was a foreign Jew. Some time back, Martin was kind enough to post on this site the asylum and infirmary admissions and discharge registers he had reviewed. On reviewing them again, I note that Cohen is described as a "Tailor", "single", "Any relatives unknown." So do we know Cohen's European nationality? Was he, for example, German -- which may seem to be the case if his last name was actually "Cohen"? As a aside, I have spent quite a bit of time going through Polish birth and death records. Rarely have I seen a last name resembling "Cohen". "Koch" comes the closest.

[Trevor Marriott]

Here we go again

See my posting above for a proposed answer. If Swanson can't get the facts right because of a "faulty memory".. are we to be selective and believe he got THIS detail right ......"Seaside Home"?

Answer... untrustworthy source material..imho.

As some of us have been trying to say for some time, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS UNTRUSTWORTHY SOURCE MATERIAL (at least where writings like this are concerned) unless you can show specifically it to be forged, or a joke...

Of course there is when these sources you all seek to rely on are proven to be unrelible what is that then

Swanson was a senior detective involved in the case at the time, he wrote (not that long after the events he recorded) about an incident odd enough to be memorable.

Dont forget he was only actively involved until Dec 1888. I would call several year after as being considerably long after
WE may not be able to interpret what he meant by "Seaside Home" or understand what he means when talking of procedures that are unusual, but he meant something. There is no reason to believe that he was writing other than of events which stood out in his memory and he confirms that MM and Anderson refer to the same suspect (called Kosminski).

These are issues for us to resolve - we may NEVER be able to - but the issue is ours, NOT Swansons.

If Caesar writes of attaching a fortress in Gaul, or of a particular personage at the Ptolemaic court, and other records that survive, or the archaeological evidence says that could not be right - we have no justification in writing Caesar off as unreliable. It may well be our interpretation of the evidence that is at fault, our dating methodology that needs revision.

Swanson was appointed to his co-ordinator role for specific reasons, all of which suggest that he was neither casual nor careless with evidence and that synthesis was a key skill for him. So I believe it is glib and unsupportable simply to dismiss him as unreliable, simply because it is inconvenient to you and your theories to seek to dig deeper and question your own assumptions first.

Well as i said above if you say swanson and Anderson go hand in glove then its been proved that they what they wrote is unreliable you are playing with words "again" to suit you own ends.

The Home referred to, the witness and the procedure might all become crystal clear if another file or another document like the marginalia emerges. Don't forget, until the late 80s no one had made the link between Anderson's unnamed jew and MM's Kosminski. It may yet emerge that swanson was correct and we are the fools - indeed, the evidence (like Kosminski and the unnamed Pole) could be staring us in the face, unrecognised.

And still no one has because Aaron Kosminski is out of the loop when are you going to accept that

Phil

[Hunter]

Dont forget he was only actively involved until Dec 1888.

Trevor,

I thought we had established that Donald Swanson was involved in this case for several years after 1888.

I think if some are going to disparage the man, a basic biographical knowledge of him would carry more weight.

Do you know when he joined the Metropolitan Police?

Are you familiar with some of the other cases he was involved in?

Do you know when he retired and at what rank?

Do you know what his commendations were... or his demerits?

His hobbies ? What kind of books he liked to read?

Do you know enough about the man to pass judgement on him?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Hunter,

And do you know enough about the man to pass judgement on him?

Where was Chief Inspector Swanson on 28th February 1895?

Regards,

Simon

[PaulB]

A fair answer. Thank you. No we can't say Don Rumbelow is wrong. We cannot say he is right, with certainty either.

Can you speak with certainty of anything you have not personally seen, heard or touched? Is your own personal experience the criteria by which you judge truth and gauge reality?

You have a serious distrust of every source: Swanson was there, he wrote of something he clearly believed happened, which he may even have witnessed, but it lacks independent corroboration so we destroy it. Don Rumbelow, a retired City of London policeman and police historian (he's written books on the subject), a former curator of the City of London archives and museum, says that in his experience when policemen spoke of the Seaside Home they meant the Convalescent Police Seaside Home, but, hey, maybe Don's wrong because we can't say with certainty that he's right.

And I waste time responding to posts like that!! (And I always respected you, hitherto, Phil ) Phil

That is why humans are made differently. You have your choices, I have mine. I can live with yours -without having to use excuse after excuse to cover Swanson's, and Macnaghten's sudden lapses of factual memory for mine, even though I disagree with you, totally and floccinaucinihilipilificate them.

Carry on watching the wheels go round. The carriage is going nowhere. Yawn.

We do have our different choices. Some people believe man never landed on the moon, some people believe the world is flat, some people believe the laws of aerodynamics prove that the bumble bee can't fly... And maybe they are right, maybe one day they will be vindicated.

But right now they are wasting everyone's time; those who want to learn from the lunar landings can't be bothered with those who tug at their jacket sleeves and says “it never happened”. You, Phil C, are one of the “it never happened” people.

To those who believe that man did land on the moon, for whom the evidence of lunar landings is conclusive, and who want to progress knowledge and understanding by studying and interpreting the information provided by the landings, there is no time for the jacket tugger. The evidence for lunar landings can be pointed out to the jacket tugger a billion times, but they will still argue it never happened and will not consider what is and can be learned from them.

You are a Ripperological jacket tugger. The Ripperological equivalent of a piece of lunar rock can be shown to you, and you will reject it, probably throw it away because there is no independent corroboration that it didn't come from Fred Blogg's rock garden in Basingstoke. And maybe you'll be proven right. You walk your road, and that's a brave thing to do, and vindication may be ahead of you.

But whilst you walk that road, the rest of us – or most of the rest of us – will stick to the tried and trusted methods of historical study, and we will follow the accepted basic and simple rules of source analysis/criticism, historical method, historiography - look them up on Wikipedia.

And I for one, Phil H, won't be wasting any further time on “posts like that”. As Trevor said a few posts back, albeit he got it wrong and informed the world that none is as blind as a blind man, “There's none so blind as those who will not see.” We cannot make Phil C see.

Or he us.

End or argument.

[PaulB]

Martin Fido's attempt to connect him with Anderson's Polish Jew suspect would lead the careless reader (like me) to conclude the asylum records had established that Cohen was a Polish immigrant, whereas the A-Z simply says he was a foreign Jew. Some time back, Martin was kind enough to post on this site the asylum and infirmary admissions and discharge registers he had reviewed. On reviewing them again, I note that Cohen is described as a "Tailor", "single", "Any relatives unknown." So do we know Cohen's European nationality? Was he, for example, German -- which may seem to be the case if his last name was actually "Cohen"? As a aside, I have spent quite a bit of time going through Polish birth and death records. Rarely have I seen a last name resembling "Cohen". "Koch" comes the closest.

Ah, right. An interesting point. I'll ask Martin.
Paul

[Phil Carter]

Can you speak with certainty of anything you have not personally seen, heard or touched? Is your own personal experience the criteria by which you judge truth and gauge reality?

You have a serious distrust of every source: Swanson was there, he wrote of something he clearly believed happened, which he may even have witnessed, but it lacks independent corroboration so we destroy it. Don Rumbelow, a retired City of London policeman and police historian (he's written books on the subject), a former curator of the City of London archives and museum, says that in his experience when policemen spoke of the Seaside Home they meant the Convalescent Police Seaside Home, but, hey, maybe Don's wrong because we can't say with certainty that he's right.


We do have our different choices. Some people believe man never landed on the moon, some people believe the world is flat, some people believe the laws of aerodynamics prove that the bumble bee can't fly... And maybe they are right, maybe one day they will be vindicated.

But right now they are wasting everyone's time; those who want to learn from the lunar landings can't be bothered with those who tug at their jacket sleeves and says “it never happened”. You, Phil C, are one of the “it never happened” people.

To those who believe that man did land on the moon, for whom the evidence of lunar landings is conclusive, and who want to progress knowledge and understanding by studying and interpreting the information provided by the landings, there is no time for the jacket tugger. The evidence for lunar landings can be pointed out to the jacket tugger a billion times, but they will still argue it never happened and will not consider what is and can be learned from them.

You are a Ripperological jacket tugger. The Ripperological equivalent of a piece of lunar rock can be shown to you, and you will reject it, probably throw it away because there is no independent corroboration that it didn't come from Fred Blogg's rock garden in Basingstoke. And maybe you'll be proven right. You walk your road, and that's a brave thing to do, and vindication may be ahead of you.

But whilst you walk that road, the rest of us – or most of the rest of us – will stick to the tried and trusted methods of historical study, and we will follow the accepted basic and simple rules of source analysis/criticism, historical method, historiography - look them up on Wikipedia.

And I for one, Phil H, won't be wasting any further time on “posts like that”. As Trevor said a few posts back, albeit he got it wrong and informed the world that none is as blind as a blind man, “There's none so blind as those who will not see.” We cannot make Phil C see.

Or he us.

End or argument.

You must be pretty proud of this contribution. Because I say that a persons opinion isn't fact.. masses of barbed attack.

And you call yourself a historian wanting facts?.

Shame on you Paul.

You seem to just want to believe because it keeps the wheels going.


I will not respond further. I have no reputation to be kept. But you have.

This last pack of personalised diatribe is beneath you Paul. You really should know better.

Guess what?. Your opinion of me isn't worth anything in the genre, and contributes nothing.

And it doesn't worry me in the slightest..sticks and stones Paul. Sticks and stones.


kindly


Phil