Plausibility of Kosminski

[Phil H]

Paul

I think it an outside possibility that the Kosminski Swanson mentions was not Aaron. But I thought Scott's post thought-provoking at the very least. It'll give me something to ponder as I wait to catch my bus later today.

It does seem to me that one explanation (not by any measn the only one, of course) for the oft discussed problems in Swanson's brief account, could be that he was referring to "facts" that were available to him - on file or in memory - but are lost to use. Thus I see the slimmest of possibilities that while we are aware of only two or three witnesses who might have seen "Jack" (I'm thinking of Lawende, Schwartz and possibly Mrs Long) Swanson might hve been aware of at least one more who avoided, or was deliberately kept from, mention on the surviving files.

Its rather like astronomy, where sometimes you cannot see an object but have to infer its presence by the movements of other objects - Swanson MIGHT make better sense if we look for something outside the known or usually assumed characters.

Phil

[PaulB]

Paul

I think it an outside possibility that the Kosminski Swanson mentions was not Aaron. But I thought Scott's post thought-provoking at the very least. It'll give me something to ponder as I wait to catch my bus later today.

It does seem to me that one explanation (not by any measn the only one, of course) for the oft discussed problems in Swanson's brief account, could be that he was referring to "facts" that were available to him - on file or in memory - but are lost to use. Thus I see the slimmest of possibilities that while we are aware of only two or three witnesses who might have seen "Jack" (I'm thinking of Lawende, Schwartz and possibly Mrs Long) Swanson might hve been aware of at least one more who avoided, or was deliberately kept from, mention on the surviving files.

Its rather like astronomy, where sometimes you cannot see an object but have to infer its presence by the movements of other objects - Swanson MIGHT make better sense if we look for something outside the known or usually assumed characters.

Phil

I agree. I was just expanding a little on the research already done in an effort to identify the correct "Kosminski".

[John Bennett]

It has always been possible that Aaron Kosminski was not "Kosminski", although he fits the very limited criteria provided by Anderson: he was male, Polish, he lived in the heart of the district and with his people, he was committed to an asylum, and, perhaps most tellingly of all, he indulged in utterly unmentionable vices. He is also the only Kosminski found in the asylum records. And fairly comprehensive searches through the BDM records failed to identify anyone else "Kosminski" could be. Another candidate would be most welcome.

Knowing that Kosminski once gave his name as Abrahams ("as Kosminski is difficult to spell"), I had a look in the Colney Hatch asylum records last week and cannot find an Abrahams there for the right time period. I expect it had already been done?

It was just a little naive research jaunt really.

[mariab]

Knowing that Kosminski once gave his name as Abrahams ("as Kosminski is difficult to spell"), I had a look in the Colney Hatch asylum records last week and cannot find an Abrahams there for the right time period. I expect it had already been done?

Apparently Rob House has conducted research on this. I'm afraid I don't have time to check this out in his book right now.

[Garry Wroe]

And no, I haven't turned a deaf ear to how you think the suspects came to be named, I simply think it's rubbish. because the evidence, such as it is, is that Macnaghten, Anderson and Swanson, had a bit more than a name in a ledger.

But this, I believe, Paul, is where Trevor has a point. By and large, investigators received suspect-based intelligence from members of the public. Once someone had been named, he would be assessed, and if appropriate, thoroughly investigated.

But what of this assessment?

It is clear that senior officers (probably assisted by medical men) had profiled the killer and concluded that he was a low-class local. This accounts for the raids on casual wards and common lodging houses as well as the parochial distribution of leaflets. Anderson went even further with the assertion that ‘the conclusion we came to was that he and his people were low-class Jews …’ He also assumed the wanted man to have been ‘a sexual maniac of the virulent type …’

So police had developed a clear picture of the man for whom they were searching, a template that was used to assess those persons of interest who came under their scrutiny. To my mind, however, it is fairly obvious that they had misjudged their quarry and were searching for the wrong type of suspect. Whereas they were looking for a ‘maniac’ possessed of ‘utterly unmentionable vices’, the cases of Bundy, Samples Sutcliffe and Kemper, as well as those of many other modern sadosexual serialists, inform us that such men are all too often unremarkable and provide few obvious clues as to the psychopathology that fuels their criminal behaviour.

This is not to disparage those who hunted the Whitechapel Murderer. I’m merely suggesting that their lack of experience of such offenders led them to formulate preconceptions which ultimately led the investigation astray.

Later, once the Ripper scare had receded, a number of senior investigators appear to have conducted a form of cold-case review, examining the files in order to identify any ‘suspect’ whose personal circumstances might explain the cessation of the murders. Macnaghten proposed the names of three such individuals, two of whom were mad and bad and locked away, the third a suicide who was thought to have been going mad. On top of this we have the alleged Abberline remarks concerning Chapman, and of course the inculpation of Kosminski by Anderson and Swanson.

Tellingly, not a shred of evidence was adduced against any of these men. But then it wouldn’t have been, because the real killer is unlikely to have been either insane or obviously homicidal. He was more likely to have been an Arthur Shawcross type of character who could have walked into any police station without attracting the least suspicion.

Thus I’m in agreement with Trevor’s contention that too much has been made of the contemporaneous suspects. To my mind, the reliance on the opinions of those who were there at the time has created a form of investigative alchemy that can never hope to produce gold. And since those who were there at the time failed to reach anything even approaching agreement regarding the killer’s identity, there is every reason to treat their conclusions with caution.

[PaulB]

Knowing that Kosminski once gave his name as Abrahams ("as Kosminski is difficult to spell"), I had a look in the Colney Hatch asylum records last week and cannot find an Abrahams there for the right time period. I expect it had already been done?

It was just a little naive research jaunt really.

A profitable jaunt nonetheless. It would be great if there was another plausible "Kosminski", but efforts to find one always hit a brick wall. The trouble is that the Jews had a rather casual attitude to surnames and he could be in the records under another name, as Martin Fido surmised.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Garry. By and large, I agree with what you say, though I'd caution against throwing the baby out with the bath water. What I sometimes have to remind myself is that the men in question - Anderson, Swanson, Macnaghten - were not true 'investigators', but were gentlemen appointed to a post. It seems a good part of their duties was firing off letters, engaging in ego-rangling, and seemingly remaining ignorant of the investigation. When you take a look at Swanson's Oct. 19th report to Home Office, and the small flurry of communication it sparked, it becomes remarkably clear that nobody was even bothering to follow the case in the papers.

But the fact is, that they would have come in to information that perhaps we don't have, or only have snippets of, so learning all we can about their chief named suspects MUST be of primary importance. Also of importance, as you stated, is looking outside of this short list for other men who may not be so well talked about, but who are perhaps more suspicious. That's probably how you and I got onto the track of Hutch and Le Grand - two men who BY THEIR OWN ACTIONS appeared suspicious. But I'd be lying if I said I don't still maintain a strong interest in the development of new information regarding Druitt and Koz, though it seems very slow in coming.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Hunter]

Your first part is not correct, Tom.

Swanson was a true investigator. He was a career policemen who had come up from the ranks and was involved in the investigation of many cases. He had the experience on every level but one... and no one had experience in that (and that is what Garry is referring to)...and that was what may have been a most unique type of murderer, never seen before by those involved in the case.

[Phil H]

...the men in question - Anderson, Swanson, Macnaghten - were not true 'investigators', but were gentlemen appointed to a post. It seems a good part of their duties was firing off letters, engaging in ego-rangling, and seemingly remaining ignorant of the investigation.

With respect, I think you mistake the men and the period.

Whatever view we may now take, in the late-Victorian period and even up to 1945 in Britain, birth, background (education, military service, etc) and connections were important elemts in a man rising to the top. many politicians were related to others - Churchill, Chamberlain for instance.

Wellington (much earlier Marlborough) and other senior military commander, were men of family or aristocrats, yet were successful soldiers.

Warren was a soldier appointed to be Chief Commissioner, as was much later Lord Trenchard (founder of the RAF).

Yet Anderson had a life-times service as an administrator (he was no Johnny come lately or amateur). Macnagten, as I recall, was widely praised for his attributes and hands-on approach. Swanson was given the work as case-co-ordinator by Warren specifically because of his skills as a synthesist.

It may serve some (I'm not saying you Tom) to disparage such public servants, but an historian needs to look at them from the perspective of their times (not by anachronistic standards).

Men like them one and administered (on the whole well and begninly) a vast empire. They were neither diletantes nor fools. If the pressures and the pace of affairs was less frenetic than today, then sobeit, but Parliament sat for only a few weeks each year.

If there was a problem in 1888, it may have been that the Met was facing a situation (an apparent serial killer) such as it had never faced before. There was huge public and political interest. There was also a sense of conflict within the organisation - it seems between the Yard and the Home Office, but also in the loss of two Commissioners in quick succession - Warren and Munro. That may have been distracting. there may also have been distinct "cliques" - that around Warren, another around Munro - and this may account for some of the adverse remarks and attitudes that seem to have emerged.

I would also reflect on the differences between policemen and administrators at the Yard - my perception is that Macnaghten and Anderson were very much administrators (as was Warren) whatever their seeming rank, while Swanson was a career cop.

Sorry to go off theme, but I couldn't let that remark go past without at least putting in a defence for the "gentlemen" (in every sense) concerned.

Phil

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Hunter, you're quite right and I was mistaken for including Swanson in that bunch. Instead, I should have included Warren, with his remarkable theory that the only solution to the mystery must be a secret society.

Hi Phil. I'm not one of those writers who holds a negative opinion about the police force. But even Macnaghten's own daughter felt he lied about having burned his papers so his club buddies would leave him alone. If nothing else, these men felt the pressure to tell their peers that THEY knew who the Ripper was, and it's a lot of this kind of stuff that's leaked out. I was only illustrating Garry's point that the investigation doesn't begin and end with the highly paid pencil pushers at the top of the heap.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Phil H]

But even Macnaghten's own daughter felt he lied about having burned his papers so his club buddies would leave him alone.

Much can depend on the tone of voice, or the sense of irony surrounding a remark like that. Anyway, if he didn't destroy his papers - where are they?

... the investigation doesn't begin and end with the highly paid pencil pushers at the top of the heap.

Yet surely THEY were the men in a position to know - or to speculate with some authority, if anyone was?

I have encountered many senior mandarins in my time in Whitehall who were not unlike Anderson and macnaghten - highly educated, thoughtful, often experts in subjects far removed from their day jobs - one was recognised as the top lute maker in the country! They tend to be self-satisfied, arrogant, intellectually over confident - men who know the minutiae of their areas of responsibility, but are often not all that practical. their interests were influence and authority and they had a deep loyalty to their departments of state.

These days, their successors are pushy, arrogant, young and bullying, organisers and managers, with hardly any intellectual ability at all. They want large salaries and to move on before their mistakes catch up with them.

Give me the Andersons, Macnagtens etc any day.

Phil

[Garry Wroe]

By and large, I agree with what you say, though I'd caution against throwing the baby out with the bath water. What I sometimes have to remind myself is that the men in question - Anderson, Swanson, Macnaghten - were not true 'investigators', but were gentlemen appointed to a post.

Personally, Tom, I think that the manhunt was remarkably sophisticated given that those leading it had no experience of the Ripper-type killer. But this inexperience also means that mistakes were made – the preconception that the killer must have been deranged being a case in point.

But the fact is, that they would have come in to information that perhaps we don't have, or only have snippets of, so learning all we can about their chief named suspects MUST be of primary importance.

Agreed up to a point, Tom. But then if, as I postulated in a previous post, the investigation focused upon the wrong type of suspect, it was all for nothing. To draw a simple parallel, the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper was rendered all but impotent when senior investigators fell hook, line and sinker for a hoax tape recording. Thereafter, suspects were considered viable only when they spoke with a Geordie accent. Peter Sutcliffe was questioned on several occasion during this period, but was dismissed on account of his Yorkshire dialect. Thus he was allowed to continue killing because the investigation had been misdirected.

Do you take my point?

Let’s imagine that Sutcliffe had been fatally injured in a lorry smash in 1980. The killings would have ceased and a century hence researchers would examine the case files hoping to identify the killer. They would find dozens of suspects, some extremely viable. But Sutcliffe wouldn’t be amongst them. He spoke with a Yorkshire accent and the police were convinced that the killer was a Geordie.

In context of the Whitechapel Murders, we can pore over the police suspects until Hell freezes over, but it won’t get us any nearer to identifying the killer if investigators had concentrated on the wrong type of suspect in the first place.

And in my opinion, that’s exactly what they did do.

But I'd be lying if I said I don't still maintain a strong interest in the development of new information regarding Druitt and Koz, though it seems very slow in coming.

From an historical perspective, Tom, I find it fascinating. But neither of them was the Whitechapel Murderer. They were simply men who spoke with a Geordie accent.

[Phil H]

QUOTE: But I'd be lying if I said I don't still maintain a strong interest in the development of new information regarding Druitt and Koz, though it seems very slow in coming.

From an historical perspective, Tom, I find it fascinating. But neither of them was the Whitechapel Murderer. They were simply men who spoke with a Geordie accent.

Yet Druitt and Kosminski - as types - could not be more different. In class, speech, attire, background, a local and an interloper (if MJD EVER visited the East End, of course) etc etc.

Surely this shows that the "men at the top" were considering (at various stages) a variety of types of suspect, and thinking outside the box?

Phil

[Phil Carter]

But neither of them (Druitt, Kosminski) was the Whitechapel Murderer. They were simply men who spoke with a Geordie accent.[/SIZE][/FONT]

Hello Garry,

I will remember that for a long, long time. Thanks! hahaha!

kindly

Phil

[mariab]

Yet Druitt and Kosminski - as types - could not be more different. In class, speech, attire, background, a local and an interloper (if MJD EVER visited the East End, of course) etc etc. Surely this shows that the "men at the top" were considering (at various stages) a variety of types of suspect, and thinking outside the box?

This is a pertinent thought. Might I ask if Macnaghten would have had any idea at all about Druitt's homosexuality – particularly if the police were approached by Druitt's family at some point? The homosexuality factor would have placed him, in Victorian eyes, close to criminal minorities such as Kozminsky and Ostrog – not to mention Kozminsky's “solitary vices“.