Plausibility of Kosminski

[mklhawley]

Jonathan, you have an excellent way of putting it. Also, Littlechild's 'Dr __' had quite the hatred of women and the suspect we discuss most about with a hatred of women is Tumblety.

Sincerely,

Mike

[Jonathan H]

Cold Fusion?

Thanks Mike

I subscribe to the theory that because Sims was the Ripper writer who claimed that the 'Drowned Doctor' was not just a strong suspect, he was [allegedly] the fiend. That for him to be contacted by a highly regarded police chief of 1888, you have to measure what the author had been writing in public over many years, against what Littlechild is writing to him, in 1913.

That Littlechild is, as politely as he can, debunking 'Dr D' as some kind of veiled version of the embarrassing truth by Anderson, to make the retired police chief look better, when the truth was this was something of a CID -- not Irish Branch -- debacle.

And Littlechild knows that he is writing to a very famous writer who may use this information -- may tell the public.

Jack Littlechild's letter is, I think, also structured to refute Anderson's memoirs; he does what the other retired police chief will not -- he names the chief suspect (who was hardly some poor, foreign wretch!) and he names the reporter who made up the hoax letter.

Here is why Littlechild thought that Sims was being fed a whole lot of self-serving guff about almost catching 'Jack the Doctor':

Sims' Drowned Doctor (1899 to 1917)

-Physician (unemployed for years, eg. no surgery, no patients)
-affluent
-English
-no family
-pursued by detectives in 1888; about to be arrested
-middle-aged
-sexually 'deviant', eg. 'peculiar [violent] mania' towards harlots
-definitely committed suicide (by drowning, just as the police net closed)
-'Jack' murders stopped with his demise

Frances Tumblety:

-Physician (well, of sorts, eg. no surgery, no patients)
-affluent
-American
-no family
-pursued by detectives in 1888; was arrested, jumped bail
-middle-aged
-sexually 'deviant'/pathological hatred of all women
-believed to have committed suicide (method unknown, might be drowning?)
-'Jack' murders stopped when he absconded

Consider what Littlechild does not write to Sims. He does not say that, hey, there was a deviant medico, but he was a minor suspect, or, conversely, he was a big deal in 1888 -- but later he was cleared.

In saying that he had never heard of 'Dr. D' he is implying, practically asserting, that either this 'other' doctor suspect is made-up, or so minor that he is certainly not worthy of the lofty status which Sims has inaccurately attributed to him -- or been misled to.

What is often missed about this letter is that it is Littlechild having a go at Anderson; that the latter is an unreliable source who 'only thought he knew'.

Of course, Littlechild was quite mistaken in thinking that Anderson was Sims'original source for 'Dr D', which is a self-servingly better version of the failed hunt for 'Dr T'. But Littrlchild is by no means mistaken in seeing the tale as a vast improvement on the messy reality -- of facts being turned into much better fiction.

Hence my theory of deliberate suspect fusion, as the concept is derived from a late primary source; Littlechild is alluding to Anderson doing this. In fact, he has the wrong chief of CID, and cannot know that elements of 'Dr D' are lifted from a posthumous English Super-suspect, one who really did kill himself in the Thames.

Behind all of this is, I think, Macnaghten, whom Inspector Tom Divall claimed in his 1929 memoirs had told him that the fiend was an American who fled abroad after the final murder, and died there in an asylum.

[Jonathan H]

When did Swanson learn about 'Kosminski'?

Here is a quote from the recent edition of the excellent 'A to Z', p. 499:

'Reports in Feburary 1891 (Bristol Times and Daily Mirror) refer to a prominent and experienced police officer as believing the Ripper had worn womnen's clothes to perpetuate his murders, and thinking the two hats found with Frances Coles appeared to corroborate this. The San Franciso Chronicle (14 February 1891) ascribes this belief to Swanson.

Just as Wickerman showed that Anderson, in the immediate aftermath of the house-to-house search, seems in 1888 quite oblivious that a prime suspect had been unearthed -- as he will later imply in his 1910 memoirs.

For as late as mid-Feb 1891, Swanson, and surely by extension Anderson, seem ignorant, as yet, of 'Kosminski' as a prime suspect when Aaron Kosminski, the only known Kosminski who broadly fits, had been permanently sectioned just days before the 'final' Ripper murder.

When Martin Fido, a distinguished, journeyman-historian who searched the relevant asylum records and found Aaron Kosminski in 1987, almost by accident, he thought this figure was both too harmless and 'safely caged' way too late to be the fiend.

Here is Fido's own words in an interview about David Cohen (Part I) in Dissertations:

'I was consequently astonished when I casually looked up a further Colney Hatch record book which ran to 1894 and discovered that there really was a Kosminsky. ... I thought his incarceration was too late for him to be the Ripper, and even rather too late for him to be Anderson's suspect. When I found his medical records I was quite sure he wasn't Jack: he was harmless and suffered from aural hallucinations and a touch of persecution mania. No sadism. No violence. And apart from the typical silly Victorian belief that his illness was caused by masturbation, no sexual disorder.' (Emphases added)

I agree, though I have reached a different conclusion to Fido as what this means in terms of what Anderson and Swanson knew, and when they knew it, and how they knew it -- and from whom.

Fido, limited by time and resources, did not realize --as no modern secondary source did as they followed Macnaghten's misdirection -- that Coles was thought to be by elements of Scotland Yard, for some time to be the final victim of 'Jack', not Kelly.

For the police to be so agitated over Coles' death means that if Aaron Kosminski, or his semi-fictional counterpart, 'Kosminski', was a Ripper suspect it must post-date that murder, or else CID would hardly have covered themselves in Humty-Dumpty sized egg dragging in Lawende to 'confront' Sadler, a Gentile seaman, who predictably said no to the burly bruiser compared to his lithe, trim Gentile-featured 'Sailor'.

The hunt in the asylum records should therefore start from the other direction, from say Swanson's statement of 1895 about a deceased chief suspect, moving back towards the Coles murder -- and there we find is a Kosminski where we would expect to find him sectioned.

It was also not appreciated until relatively recently how much George Sims is a Macnaghten source-by-proxy:

Here is Mac, via Sims, making exactly the same point in 1907 (Lloyds Weekly) which would so strike Fido when he saw Kosminski's 'late' admission date seventy years later:

'Both these men [the un-named 'Kosminski' and Michael Ostrog] were capable of the Ripper crimes, but there is one thing that makes the case against each of them weak.

They 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.' (Emphases added)

Evans and Rumbelow speculate (2006) that Aaron Kosminski's name had appeared on that search list but it was just one among many.

My theory is that Macnaghten, in 1899, went through that list and kept tabs on some of the dodgier characters on it. Once Aaron was sectioned for attacking is sister in 1891, Macnaghten leanred of it and kept tabs on him in the asylum, which is how he found out about the chronic masturbation.

Believing, rightly or wrongly, by early 1891 that the dead Druitt was the murderer Mac exonerated, rightly or wrongly, Aaron Kosminski. But he introduced this suspect to Anderson and Swanson only as late as 1895, in the wake of Lawende's mistaken affirmation of Grant, and backdated his incarceration to early 1889 -- or else it was implausible.

As Fido believed and as Mac, via Sims, had already tried to assert in the Edwardian Era.

Macnaghten is more reliable on the Polish Jew suspect because he alone, of these top cop sources -- both himself ('Aberconway') and via Sims -- is cognizant that he was sectioned much, much later than the Kelly murder; that the 'suspect' did not die soon after he was incarcerated.

In his 1914 memoirs, Macnaghten, by implication, judged both 'Kosminski' and Ostrog as nothing, as just not worth mentioning -- even to dismiss. Suggesting that they were red herrings all along?

Secondary sources have now caught up with Macnaghten about the latter, Ostrog, confirming his memoir omission, while other secondary sources still cling -- precariously I think -- to the former, Aaron Kosminski, as a suspect, if not the suspect.

[Trevor Marriott]

Viabllilty of Kosminski

Fo those who champion Kosminski as the "prime suspect" perhaps they might want to re consider their position after viewing the attached video recently prepared by Martin Fido himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WFTLEq3BZb8

I am going to be the perfect gentleman and I am not going to pass any snide or sarcastic comments unlike others on both here and JTR forums.

As I previously stated in previous posts I had uncovered new official records which rule out Kosminski in any event.

I dont even need to make them public now. You have it straight from the man who discovered Kosminski.

Oh and by the way those records also rule out Cohen.

[Lechmere]

I found these two newspaper cuttings (the second is from the Newham Recorder) from 1990 that I thought some people might find interesting.
Having this 1990 cutting instantly makes me a Jack Ripper researcher with over 20 years experience in the field.

I was actually unsuccessfully looking for a poem called ‘The Git’ that I transcribed from an East London newspaper (I forget which) years ago. It was reprinted from another paper called ‘The Globe’ during the First World War, and was about ‘shirkers’ who didn’t ‘do their bit’ and ‘swanked around’ while everyone else was fighting for King and Country.
The poem was exceptionally anti-Jewish and there were a lot of anti-Jewish riots in the East End during the First World War. This was partly because some had German sounding names on their businesses, but more because of the ‘shirker’ issue. Some claimed they couldn’t fight as they were refugees from Russia and Russia was part of the Entente. Eventually a Judean Battalion was formed as part of the Royal Fusiliers – but this was early in 1918, after the Russian Revolution, and after the poem was published. From memory the poem was published in 1917, at the height of agitation and mob violence over the shirker issue.

I mention this because some claim that the press in the East End were hyper sensitive about mentioning Jews (Hutchinson’s story, Goulston Street graffiti, general Jewish suspects) in case it provoked disorder. This most certainly was not the case. If I find the poem I will re-produce it in a more relevant section.

[Lechmere]

Newham Recorder

[fido]

One problem sometimes confronting relatively recent entrants to Ripperology is thinking they have found something new and important when finding what has been familiar to old hands for a decade or more. The video represents my consistent and unchanged position from the time when I completed the research for The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper in 1987 as, to name but two scholars mentioned in this thread, Stewart Evans and Don Rumbelow have known all the time, and which they will have taken into account in restating Don's equally longstanding opinion that the three suspects named by Macnaghten may well have been random samples taken from a much longer list, and proposing that Swanson's "Seaside Home" may have been a reference to the Coles murder and a Seamen's refuge, not the police convalescent home in Brighton.

The vital need is to keep well in mind the gap between facts and deductions. The definite facts in this issue are that Anderson said the Ripper was positively identified as a poor Polish Jew from Whitechapel who went into an asylum. In the first version in which he said this, he also said that the identification took place after the incarceration: in the second version he silently removed this statement. Macnaghten said that a poor Polish Jew called Kosminski who went into the asylum around spring 1889 was, for many reasons, a strong suspect. By one (disputed) account he said the poor Jewish suspect was Leather Apron. Nonetheless, for reasons he did not disclose, he thought "Dr" Druitt was the more likely suspect. Swanson said Anderson's suspect was Kosminski; that the identification took place in "the Seaside Home", but since (as Anderson had said) the witness refused to swear to his identification, Kosminski was returned to his brother's house in Whitechapel, from which he was subsequently taken under restraint to the infirmary, from which he was sent to the asylum where he died shortly afterwards. Littlechild had never heard of a Dr Druitt, and didn't think Anderson's "knowledge" amounted to more than a personal belief. He thought Tumblety a promising suspect. Kosminsky did have a brother in Whitechapel, but was never recorded as being taken anywhere under restraint, and, far from dying shortly after his incarceration lived for a further 20 years, 10 of them after Swanson had written his notes. David Cohen, the only London Jewish asylum inmate whose incarceration would explain the murders' cessation if Mary Jane Kelly was the last victim, was also the only Jewish asylum inmate in the period to die prematurely shortly after incarceration, and was also taken from the infirmary to the asylum under restraint.

Reconciling these conflicting accounts is the historian's difficult task. All attempts to do so, including my own, rest on deduction and hypothesis sometimes supported by additional evidence. (E.g., acceptance or rejection of the one time existence of Macnaghten's "Leather Apron" version of his memoranda is entirely a matter of personal preference: there is no evidence to prove the reliability of the account either way. All attempts to approve or denigrate Anderson's reliability are deductions depending on personal interpretation of further knowledge of his character, both as revealed in his own writings and in what others said of him, and what is known of the characters and personalities of those others. All attempts to explain the Seaside Home as the place of an identification rest are deductions or speculations resting on knowledge of the police identification practices in the 1880s, and the way the fund for a police convalescent home worked and the time of the home's opening in Brighton.

If Mr Marriott really has discovered records which conclusively prove that Kosminski and Cohen were definitely innocent, all old hands will be delighted to have an area of dispute cleared up. Until we have seen the records, however, no one will know whether they really do prove what Mr Marriott thinks, or whether they simply show that other officers had other ideas or even had no more heard of them than Littlechild had heard of "Dr D" (which might, of course, mean that he had a more accurate knowledge of Druitt than Macnaghten and didn't recognize him with a doctorate tacked on- we just don't know).

At present we have only Mr Marriott's assertion for anything, and the only way we can judge it is by personal assessment of his track record for making important new discoveries and constructing cogent deductive arguments from them.

Martin Fido

[Trevor Marriott]

One problem sometimes confronting relatively recent entrants to Ripperology is thinking they have found something new and important when finding what has been familiar to old hands for a decade or more. The video represents my consistent and unchanged position from the time when I completed the research for The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper in 1987 as, to name but two scholars mentioned in this thread, Stewart Evans and Don Rumbelow have known all the time, and which they will have taken into account in restating Don's equally longstanding opinion that the three suspects named by Macnaghten may well have been random samples taken from a much longer list, and proposing that Swanson's "Seaside Home" may have been a reference to the Coles murder and a Seamen's refuge, not the police convalescent home in Brighton.

The vital need is to keep well in mind the gap between facts and deductions. The definite facts in this issue are that Anderson said the Ripper was positively identified as a poor Polish Jew from Whitechapel who went into an asylum. In the first version in which he said this, he also said that the identification took place after the incarceration: in the second version he silently removed this statement. Macnaghten said that a poor Polish Jew called Kosminski who went into the asylum around spring 1889 was, for many reasons, a strong suspect. By one (disputed) account he said the poor Jewish suspect was Leather Apron. Nonetheless, for reasons he did not disclose, he thought "Dr" Druitt was the more likely suspect. Swanson said Anderson's suspect was Kosminski; that the identification took place in "the Seaside Home", but since (as Anderson had said) the witness refused to swear to his identification, Kosminski was returned to his brother's house in Whitechapel, from which he was subsequently taken under restraint to the infirmary, from which he was sent to the asylum where he died shortly afterwards. Littlechild had never heard of a Dr Druitt, and didn't think Anderson's "knowledge" amounted to more than a personal belief. He thought Tumblety a promising suspect. Kosminsky did have a brother in Whitechapel, but was never recorded as being taken anywhere under restraint, and, far from dying shortly after his incarceration lived for a further 20 years, 10 of them after Swanson had written his notes. David Cohen, the only London Jewish asylum inmate whose incarceration would explain the murders' cessation if Mary Jane Kelly was the last victim, was also the only Jewish asylum inmate in the period to die prematurely shortly after incarceration, and was also taken from the infirmary to the asylum under restraint.

Reconciling these conflicting accounts is the historian's difficult task. All attempts to do so, including my own, rest on deduction and hypothesis sometimes supported by additional evidence. (E.g., acceptance or rejection of the one time existence of Macnaghten's "Leather Apron" version of his memoranda is entirely a matter of personal preference: there is no evidence to prove the reliability of the account either way. All attempts to approve or denigrate Anderson's reliability are deductions depending on personal interpretation of further knowledge of his character, both as revealed in his own writings and in what others said of him, and what is known of the characters and personalities of those others. All attempts to explain the Seaside Home as the place of an identification rest are deductions or speculations resting on knowledge of the police identification practices in the 1880s, and the way the fund for a police convalescent home worked and the time of the home's opening in Brighton.

If Mr Marriott really has discovered records which conclusively prove that Kosminski and Cohen were definitely innocent, all old hands will be delighted to have an area of dispute cleared up. Until we have seen the records, however, no one will know whether they really do prove what Mr Marriott thinks, or whether they simply show that other officers had other ideas or even had no more heard of them than Littlechild had heard of "Dr D" (which might, of course, mean that he had a more accurate knowledge of Druitt than Macnaghten and didn't recognize him with a doctorate tacked on- we just don't know).

At present we have only Mr Marriott's assertion for anything, and the only way we can judge it is by personal assessment of his track record for making important new discoveries and constructing cogent deductive arguments from them.

Martin Fido

But do you now accept that Aaron Kosminski could not have been the ripper a simple answer will suffice. Yes or no ?

because those who have championed him for many years cant keep changing the goalposts everytime his viabilty is brought into question.

To that end i refer to your statement on the video that the police were mistaken and the got Cohen confused with Kosminski. Come on Martin please dont insult our intelligence. i know the police werent very bright in 1888 but they were bright enough to know the difference between Aaron Kosminski and David Cohen after all they werent exactly pulling Ripper suspects in by the cart load on a daily basis were they.

Part of my ongoing investigation is not only to try to identify the killer but to prove who was "not" the killer.

The Ripper mystery has become a cottage industry to some and in particular to Kosminki`ites and if something comes out that is likley to damage that industry then what would happen hmmmmmmmmm would see a gathering of the ripper cartel members and others at 6am on the village green to witness the ceremonial burning of all book articles and references to Kosminski. I doubt it but what a wonderful picture to conjure up.

[Phil H]

...because those who have championed him for many years cant keep changing the goalposts everytime his viabilty is brought into question.

Why on earth not, if the issues change? What a very simplistic approach!!

Phil

[Trevor Marriott]

...because those who have championed him for many years cant keep changing the goalposts everytime his viabilty is brought into question.

Why on earth not, if the issues change? What a very simplistic approach!!

Phil

So you are in favour of dropping Kosminski now and going for Cohen based on the changing issues. Again simple answer will suffice yes or no ?

[Phil H]

A mark of a charlatan is asking for simple answers, when it is clear there are none. I am sure you are not a charlatan, Trevor.

So my "simple answer" is to say that I see a myriad of possibilities.

I note that swanson, for instance, does not give us a first name for his "Kosminski". So was that a short hand for a "sort/type" of suspect? Perhaps a Polish jew? Is it an indication that the authorities were unsure of his precise identity? Was there, as I see to recall Mr Fido's book discussing some mix-up between the Met and City forces?

I recall reading Martin's book in 1987 and while at first puzzled by his working hypothesis, could see the sense of it -there had clearly been confusion within the police forces involved.

Was this deliberately created - a subterfuge or a ploy to conceal something, perhaps? We no longer have the relevant files to consult to understand any of this - but I do not believe that Swanson (or Macnaghten) was talking nonsense. However, what they meant depended on a now lost context.

I think if we had the files, the story would unfold and the ambiguities come clear. There might be misunderstandings - someone told Swanson maybe that Kosminski had died in a certain year and he had neither time nor inclination to question the information? There might be mistakes - anyone could think "Seamen's Refuge" and write "Seaside Home" (I have done such things myself) - but I suspect we would see the logic made plain through the detail.

The bottom line for me is this - three senior officials stated or implied that someone called "Kosminski" was a suspect. They did that for a reason, and I won't rule out that name from my list until I see specific and definite evidence why I should have to.

Good enough for you?

Phil

[Trevor Marriott]

A mark of a charlatan is asking for simple answers, when it is clear there are none. I am sure you are not a charlatan, Trevor.

So my "simple answer" is to say that I see a myriad of possibilities.

I note that swanson, for instance, does not give us a first name for his "Kosminski". So was that a short hand for a "sort/type" of suspect? Perhaps a Polish jew? Is it an indication that the authorities were unsure of his precise identity? Was there, as I see to recall Mr Fido's book discussing some mix-up between the Met and City forces?

I recall reading Martin's book in 1987 and while at first puzzled by his working hypothesis, could see the sense of it -there had clearly been confusion within the police forces involved.

Was this deliberately created - a subterfuge or a ploy to conceal something, perhaps? We no longer have the relevant files to consult to understand any of this - but I do not believe that Swanson (or Macnaghten) was talking nonsense. However, what they meant depended on a now lost context.

I think if we had the files, the story would unfold and the ambiguities come clear. There might be misunderstandings - someone told Swanson maybe that Kosminski had died in a certain year and he had neither time nor inclination to question the information? There might be mistakes - anyone could think "Seamen's Refuge" and write "Seaside Home" (I have done such things myself) - but I suspect we would see the logic made plain through the detail.

The bottom line for me is this - three senior officials stated or implied that someone called "Kosminski" was a suspect. They did that for a reason, and I won't rule out that name from my list until I see specific and definite evidence why I should have to.

Good enough for you?

Phil

I have been called many things in my past but charlatan is a new one one on me I wil add it to the list with the others.

I didnt ask you to rule out the name Kosminski merly the name Aaaron Kosminski who according to some was scotland Yards prime suspect.

As far as the three officers are concerned who you refer to you are correct but closer scrutiny of their comments shows that they and everything connected to their statements is unreliable.

[The Good Michael]

I didnt ask you to rule out the name Kosminski merly the name Aaaron Kosminski who according to some was scotland Yards prime suspect.

.

Trevor,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems to mean that your undisclosed evidence proves that Aaron Kosminski wasn't the murderer, but doesn't rule out the surname. Yes? No?

Mike

[Phil H]

I have been called many things in my past but charlatan is a new one one on me I wil add it to the list with the others.

But read my post again - I specifically did NOT call you by any name! It questioned the HOW not the WHO as you might expect I would.

As far as the three officers are concerned who you refer to you are correct but closer scrutiny of their comments shows that they and everything connected to their statements is unreliable.

You might say that, but I could not possibly comment!

The three were distinquished public servants of a generation with a high sense of duty. Scepticism and and wish for their statements to be wrong do not wash with me. Victorian gentlemen, indeed senior British civil servants might be (to quote a recent example of one) deliberately and knowingly "economical with the truth" - but that would be achieved by use of wording and "slight of hand(ommission etc) not by lying. Especially on an official file. Lies can be caught out and if proven have consequences to carrerrs - Ministers and top madarins, so they rarely do it, if ever. National security would be the one possible exception.

On that basis, I am prepared to consider three possibilities:

a) a genuine mistake or confusion (given age when some comments were written);

b) a desire to hide "dirty linen" (such as Cutbush's connection to the Met) - and the wording of the memorandum could be read that way;

c) a wider "political"/national security issue - such as a Fenian angle to the JtR case. But that would be by agreement with the wider organisation at top level.

So I reject your sweeping and far too general statement that "they and everything connected to their statements is unreliable".

Phil

[Trevor Marriott]

Trevor,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems to mean that your undisclosed evidence proves that Aaron Kosminski wasn't the murderer, but doesn't rule out the surname. Yes? No?

Mike

Oh it certainly does