Plausibility of Kosminski

[fido]

Phil - re the Asquith Committee on Identification about which you enquired.
This is more usually known as the Troup Committee, for its chairman, Home Office civil servant Sir Edward Troup. (Asquith was the Home Secretary who set it up). The other two members were Macnaghten and Arthur Griffiths - at that time Inspector of Prisons.
Their remit was to decide whether Bertillonage - also known as anthropometry - or fingerprinting was to be preferred in keeping identification records of criminals. Bertillonage consisted of making a record of minute and exact measurements of the arrestees' physical features and the distances between them. It originated in France, and the French Police set themselves back at the beginning of the twentieth century by insisting on sticking to it in preference to fingerprinting.
The Troup Committee enthusiastically recommended both methods, with fingerprints being added to the mugshots and anthropometric data on a convict's record. In the event the fingerprints were of little use until a workable system of classification was devised.
The Macnaghten memoranda don't seem to me to have the faintest connection with the Troup Committee work - but I'm wary of being too definite about anything on these boards given the ingenuity and often extremely impressive thinking displayed by contributors.
Martin Fido

[Stewart P Evans]

The problem...

Not being in any way an experienced as a Police Officer, I have no idea how useful it would be to work backwards from an identified killer to trace back through their history to key turning points, presumably like the threatening of the sister. I know some writers havd done something like this for Fred West for example, suggesting (to a greater or lesser extent depending on the writer) that falling off a motorbike or being b-slapped by a girl insisting no most definately means no may have been "turning points".
However, Kozminski is NOT the identified killer, and it would appear far too selective to simply look at the mans past and choose moments we think seem like the Ripper. With that method we could no doubt build a case for anybody. It should be considered carefully how many people screamed "I could kill you!" Or waved a knife around in a spurt of anger who were not the Ripper.
That was all a very long way of agreeing that no, we can't put too much weight on it with out evidence of context or significance. If that makes a jot of sense.

The problem with the Whitechapel murders and the known suspects is that we have finite information which is over a hundred years old. Profiling is pretty dodgy today, let alone trying to apply it to an unsolved series of murders (exact number by a single killer not certain) upon which we have very little hard information and about which information 'experts' appear to disagree anyway.

Writers, by and large, have no real experience of police work and all that goes with it. They may read all they like, but reading is no substitute for practical experience. So they are hardly the best people to decide what makes someone a likely killer. And, as you say, context and significance does play a part. When we have only the barest of information on an incident which occurred in Victorian it is impossible to properly assess it now, we may make only educated (or informed) guesses about it.

[TomTomKent]

Ah! Okay. Basically, "Kosminski-ite" is an insult, although that may a little too strong, but along with the sibling "Anderson-ite", it implies a closed-minded acceptance of what Anderson wrote and of "Kosminski" as the Ripper. In my case, as Anderson was head of the C.I.D. then I assume he must have known the evidence against all the serious suspects, that from the evidence available that he was as informed and reliable a historical source as many that we have, and that we should therefore take seriously what he says and that "Kosminski" in the prime suspect for research. What I have italicised is often overlooked. Others, however, have concluded that Anderson was anything from and out-and-out liar through anti-Semite to geriatrically confused. Obviously those who think Anderson was a liar or confused or mistaken attach little or no credence to what he says, whilst those who don't accepted the those arguments but feel, as I do, that Anderson voiced genuine suspicions, do give him credence, albeit not necessarily believing that Anderson was right. The conflict therefore makes it look as if one is anti-Anderson whilst the other is pro-Anderson, one vehemently biased against and the other equally vehemently biased for. I am in the difficult position of not having made up my mind - as I once observed in another context, I'm on the fence and have been there so long I'm developing piles - and am still studying the evidence or, rather, waiting for evidence to emerge.

Ta. Much obliged.

[Phil Carter]

Phil - re the Asquith Committee on Identification about which you enquired.
This is more usually known as the Troup Committee, for its chairman, Home Office civil servant Sir Edward Troup. (Asquith was the Home Secretary who set it up). The other two members were Macnaghten and Arthur Griffiths - at that time Inspector of Prisons.
Their remit was to decide whether Bertillonage - also known as anthropometry - or fingerprinting was to be preferred in keeping identification records of criminals. Bertillonage consisted of making a record of minute and exact measurements of the arrestees' physical features and the distances between them. It originated in France, and the French Police set themselves back at the beginning of the twentieth century by insisting on sticking to it in preference to fingerprinting.
The Troup Committee enthusiastically recommended both methods, with fingerprints being added to the mugshots and anthropometric data on a convict's record. In the event the fingerprints were of little use until a workable system of classification was devised.
The Macnaghten memoranda don't seem to me to have the faintest connection with the Troup Committee work - but I'm wary of being too definite about anything on these boards given the ingenuity and often extremely impressive thinking displayed by contributors.
Martin Fido

Hello Martin,

Thank you for this information. It is most appreciated.
I also see that in the essence of the description of the above, both have nothing do to with each other. It was a ponderance, and given the timing, an outside possibility, in my own mind. That is why I used only the word "link". I believe I am correct in saying the decision of the Troup Committee was made about 10 days before the date of the MM.

kindly

Phil

[Stewart P Evans]

Assessment

Given the quality and duration of the respective Schwartz and Lawende sightings, Martin, I never fail to be amazed at the ease with which Schwartz is dismissed as Anderson's mystery witness. If Anderson really did believe Lawende to have been the only person who ever got a good view of the killer, his judgement and thus his credibility must be called into question.
But there again, Anderson stated no such thing. It is the majority of modern observers that has arrived at such a conclusion.
Nice to see you back, anyway.

But, of course, you have to bear in mind Phil Sugden's influential assessment of this very point and his conclusion, as a historian, that Lawende was, indeed, the witness.

There are myriad arguments to be trailed out about this (and most have been already) and the caveats involved with all these arguments have been debated to death. Anderson's judgement and credibility, however, are not called into question on this point alone. Although it is valid to state that no witness actually saw a murder taking place so how can anyone state 'the only person who had ever had a good view of the murderer.'

The most telling assessment of Anderson's judgement and credibility may be judged to a greater degree by an examination of what he wrote about events he was involved with and, particulary, how his contemporaries interpreted what he said.

[Stewart P Evans]

Enough?

Hello Tom,
Indeed, one again is reminded of the Michael Caine line "Do you want the killer or will anybody do".
In my honest opinion, there just isn't enough evidence against Kosminski as a murderer.
kindly
Phil

Enough??? There isn't any evidence against Kosminski as a murderer.

[Phil Carter]

Enough??? There isn't any evidence against Kosminski as a murderer.

Hello Stewart,

I know that, you know that, many know that... but some others don't know that. I was just using a toned-down version. I could easily say the same of Druitt (and have). No evidence against him being a murderer either.

kindly

Phil

[TomTomKent]

Enough??? There isn't any evidence against Kosminski as a murderer.

No, but to be fair he is normally included (as discussed a while ago) because of evidence he was considered a suspect. The two should be considered seperate puzzles.

There is no real evidence any suspect was the Ripper, at best there is evidence they may have been a plausible Ripper.

[Garry Wroe]

But, of course, you have to bear in mind Phil Sugden's influential assessment of this very point and his conclusion, as a historian, that Lawende was, indeed, the witness.

I do bear it in mind, Stewart, but I prefer to do my own thinking rather than relying on blind faith. The fact is that Anderson stated that 'his' witness was the only person who ever got a good view of the killer. Bear this statement in mind whilst assessing the quality and duration of the respective Schwartz and Lawende sightings, and the confidence ordinarily placed in Lawende's candidature looks to be sorely misplaced.

This is meant as a criticism of neither Philip Sugden nor anyone else who believes Lawende to have been Anderson's witness. It is merely an objective interpretation of the known facts.

[fido]

There is no known evidence against any known suspect, but there must have been some form of information that led Macnaghten to suspect Druitt.

Phil Sugden pointed out that the identification described by Anderson and Swanson is the only instance in which we are aware of any real evidence the police relied on - and obviously, given the incompleteness of the information Anderson gives us and the errors and mysteries in Swanson's, we cannot conclude anything decisive from this.

It is, however, worth pointing out that, to the best of my knowledge, all reputable historians agree that however much memory and vanity may have distorted their accounts, the senior police officers all described things they really believed they remembered and certainly SOMETHING had happened in every case that lay behind the memories. Fanciful characterizations like calling Macnaghten "deceitful" are unhelpful: this runs counter to every contemporary mention of him, even those made by the hostile Anderson or the Police Gazette with its consistent and understandable resentment of the "gentleman class" civilians appointed over the heads of regular officers.

I should have loved to say this of ALL police recollections of the events, but am restrained by Ben Leeson's attempt to give himself a relatively prominent role in the Frances Coles case which simply doesn't seem to have any identifiable justification.

To echo an earlier point of Stewart's: nobody is likely to get a "Hunt the Ripper" book published unless they firmly declare that they have found him. I would have liked to conclude my original work with the words I had proposed in a specimen chapter - "a more plausible suspect than any other ever suggested", which is still what I feel about David Cohen. But the pound of flesh demanded by Weidenfeld was "Jack the Ripper has been found!" And, in the delighted flush of having found out some new and undeniable things, I was happy to go along with it. What seems to me really unnecessary is denigrating other people's work to enhance one's own. I fear the lamentable example of a now deceased Ripperologist has made this a common way of going about things since 1989.

Martin Fido

[Phil Carter]

Hello Martin,

If one uses the line "...but there must have been some form of information that led Macnaghten to suspect Druitt"... then one can also ask what evidence led the same man to place Ostrog in the frame as a suspect?

That is why I have grave doubts about the MM. No known evidence against Kosminsky, no known evidence against Druitt and no evidence at all against Ostrog as he wasn't even in the country at the time.

My doubts do not use the word decietful, but based on the comments of the other police officers at the time (at least).. there wasn't a known suspect with any known evidence against them at all.

As regards Druitt, that from the private information the family or friends or aquaintances of Druitt believed him to be the murderer is, I propose, a red herring. There were very many other people who "believed" "x, y or z" to have been the murderer. Being a family or person of position in society doesn't mean that they should be warranted any more weight of opinion on labelling someone a murderer than a poor family's opinions. How many times did a wife or aquaintance suspect her husband or a.n.other of being Jack? It was reported often, both in the newspapers and the courts.


kindly

Phil

[Stewart P Evans]

Pleased to hear it...

I do bear it in mind, Stewart, but I prefer to do my own thinking rather than relying on blind faith. The fact is that Anderson stated that 'his' witness was the only person who ever got a good view of the killer. Bear this statement in mind whilst assessing the quality and duration of the respective Schwartz and Lawende sightings, and the confidence ordinarily placed in Lawende's candidature looks to be sorely misplaced.
This is meant as a criticism of neither Philip Sugden nor anyone else who believes Lawende to have been Anderson's witness. It is merely an objective interpretation of the known facts.

Pleased to hear it Garry, and I should just like to say that I do not rely on 'blind faith' either. Philip is a good and valued friend of mine, but I do not follow blindly everything he says.

But, of course, in the vexed question of the unnamed Anderson witness Philip did discover and publish, for the first time, the attempted identification of Sadler as the Ripper reported in the Daily Telegraph of February 18, 1891. And that report makes it pretty clear that the witness used was Lawende. I am aware of all the arguments put forward about witnesses being used twice etc., but I do not agree with that reasoning, as, obviously, Sugden does not.

We have to rely, as you indicate, on available source material and personal interpretation of that material. I would argue that such interpretation is rarely objective, or, even, correctly informed.

You obviously feel that what we have on Schwartz's witness sighting is more persuasive than what we have on Lawende's, despite Lawende's apparent use as a witness at a later date(s). The very serious caveats with regard to Schwartz have been gone into at great length elsewhere and I certainly don't accord him the importance that you obviously do.

But all that aside, we are asked to believe that an identification carried out around two years after the event, based on a brief sighting, at night, in less than ideal circumstances, be the witness Lawende or Schwartz, was good enough for a positive identification of a suspect as the murderer, bearing in mind neither Schwartz nor Lawende witnessed a murder taking place. Sorry, I simply cannot subscribe to that idea.

The fact that Anderson did make such a claim, in my opinion, does reflect upon his credibility.

[Stephen Thomas]

The problem with the Whitechapel murders and the known suspects is that we have finite information which is over a hundred years old. Profiling is pretty dodgy today, let alone trying to apply it to an unsolved series of murders (exact number by a single killer not certain) upon which we have very little hard information and about which information 'experts' appear to disagree anyway.

Writers, by and large, have no real experience of police work and all that goes with it. They may read all they like, but reading is no substitute for practical experience. So they are hardly the best people to decide what makes someone a likely killer. And, as you say, context and significance does play a part. When we have only the barest information on an incident which occurred in Victorian times it is impossible to properly assess it now, we may make only educated (or informed) guesses about it.

A very wise post there, Stewart. As regards this discussion, the only important question to my mind is if the part of the marginalia which names Kosminski is a post 1970 forgery or not. And even if it was written by Swanson it begs the question of whether or not he was putting out disinformation.

[Stewart P Evans]

Suspect

No, but to be fair he is normally included (as discussed a while ago) because of evidence he was considered a suspect. The two should be considered seperate puzzles.
There is no real evidence any suspect was the Ripper, at best there is evidence they may have been a plausible Ripper.

There is no doubt that 'Kosminski' was considered a suspect. I have always said that, but being a suspect is a very different thing to being the actual killer. There was no solid evidence connecting any suspect with the murders in 1888. We are not going to find any at this remove in time. I think that most people recognise the difference between suspicion and proof.

[Stewart P Evans]

Thanks

A very wise post there, Stewart. As regards this discussion, the only important question to my mind is if the part of the marginalia which names Kosminski is a post 1970 forgery or not. And even if it was written by Swanson it begs the question of whether or not he was putting out disinformation.

Thanks Stephen. There is no doubt, in my mind, that the part of the marginalia (or more correctly the endpaper annotations) naming Kosminski was there as early as 1981 when Jim Swanson sold the story to the News of the World. As for earlier than that, I'm afraid that we have no information.