Plausibility of Kosminski

[Debra A]

Hi Debra,

Why not? The timing is compelling. But Deeming's candidature does bring along its own problems.

Meanwhile, as there is no reason for us to disbelieve James McKenzie Maclean, the Honourable Member for Oldham, I think we can safely say on the unimpeachable "authority of a Scotland Yard detective"—

Montague John Druitt, Aaron Kosminski and Michael Ostrog "requiescat in pace".

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon. Deeming?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Debra,

Sorry. I should have kept on reading the thread you linked.

Regards,

Simon

[Stephen Thomas]

In Dorset, the terrible truth about their late Montie leaked from the family, or a family member, along the Tory grapevine in early 1891. Henry Farquharson was so overcome by the tale that he began telling his ten closet friends, and the story inevitably made its somewhat elliptical appearance in the press.

Macnaghten went to hose down the MP, a fellow gentleman, Tory and Old Etonian, and Indian plantation owner, and came away a believer. He then met with William Druitt, who told him the whole story whilst Mac assured him it would never surface in the media. At least not in such a way as to identity and thus ruin a respectable family. Mace 'cut the knot his own way' (the Drowned Doctor semi-fictional suspect) to keep his promise.

Dramatic and entertaining stuff, Jonathan.

Please continue making things up as you go along.

[Jonathan H]

To Stephen Thomas

You see, that is what a theory is; trying to figure out what lies behind the sources -- to connect the dots to create a through-line.

To make these people live again rather than leave them embalmed. They created the sources, but they were not the sources.

That Macnaghten probably conferred with the Druitts is in the extant record, but only once you realize that you are reading a veiled version of a true story.

George Sims, a Macnaghten-source by-proxy, April 5th 1903:

'... A little more than a month later the body of the man suspected by the chiefs at the Yard, and by his own friends, who were in communication with the Yard, was found in the Thames. The body had been in the water about a month.'

To Lynn Cates

For sure, Farquy may have made the whole thing up from constituency gossip. He seems the vile, upper class-type to go flying off the handle.

On the other hand, Macnaghten was by character and temperament the sort of cop to have investigated such a tale himself, and not rely on other's claims. His memoirs are full of him rushing to the scene of notorious goings on; to be at the center of the action. Plus, he would have wanted to get a fellow gent off the hook -- yet he didn't.

[lynn cates]

agreement

Hello Jonathan. I agree. Farqy could go off on a tangent.

I also agree that Mac is the kind of copper who would usually investigate very thoroughly. But I wonder whether a fellow gent's "solemn word" might not count for a lot?

As you've pointed out, Mac is a bit tentative in 1894--something like, "The more I think of it . . ." Perhaps he had wrestled with the story and scanty evidence for some time?

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Very interesting post Simon. I do not recall ever seeing this before. Is this a new discovery you have made?

The newspaper snippet quoted by Simon Wood in his post #1195 (from The Western Mail of February 26, 1892) was discovered a year ago or so by Mike Covell and identified by Howard Brown as referring to you know whom. It's been quoted in an article in Examiner 2. I'm afraid The Good Michael will have to tolerate this tiny “highjacking“ without sending me over to Pub Talk.
Debs, is the unattributed newspaper article attached by SPE in his post #1197 known to you?
I know I'm going to read that old thread you've quoted when I go to bed in a little while. Have never noticed that thread before.

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=3533

[Jonathan H]

To Lynn Cates

My interpretation is that the 'West of England' MP source can be matched right along side 'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper' of 1914.

To me there's nothing tentative there, but others interpret it differently.

Regarding historical sources you have to consider why they were written and to whom they were written for, eg. the context and pressures.

The official version of his Report was, potentially, to a Liberal government who were not responsible for the failure to find 'Jack'.

The unofficial version, which first enters history in 1898, was a 'scoop' for a fellow officer of the state and a Radical writer of much renown and wide readership.

Mac was not candid in either version, as he was in 1913/14, that this was an entirely posthumous suspect who came to his attention.

With Griffiths and Sims, Mac had to pull back, slightly, from his future 1913/14 more definite opinion, because he did not want the pair to write that the Ripper had cheated those chumps the police by killing himself (and thus sail close to the Tumblety fumble).

By 1903, by which time Mac was Commissioner, the figleaf has been discarded and Sims is writing that the doctor was not just the best suspect, this was the Ripper.

In 1913 Mac will confirm the status of the suspect, whilst a perplexed Littlechild will be pondering an element which Macnaghten dropped in 1913/14; that the police were efficiently hunting this man before he killed himself. Littlechild agrees about the 1888 hunt and the possible suicide, but not that it was efficient when they had a 'very ... likely suspect' in a cell and he jumped his bail.

[lynn cates]

thanks

Hello Jonathan. Thanks.

Cheers.
LC

[Abby Normal]

The simple answer to both points is why would the police do either? Druitt was dead, Kosminski was safe in an asylum and very probably couldn't have stood trial, and the police had other crimes to pursue with their vigor and resources.

Hi Paul
With all do repect-Bullshitt on both counts. Dead or in an asylum if the police are trying to solve a case they should try to do so. They did not. It was nothing more than wishful thinking on a couple of doodering old police admins.

They had nothing. I will take smiths honest admittance "he beat us all" than yours or any ones elses suspect book.

[PaulB]

Hi Paul
With all do repect-Bullshitt on both counts. Dead or in an asylum if the police are trying to solve a case they should try to do so. They did not. It was nothing more than wishful thinking on a couple of doodering old police admins.

They had nothing. I will take smiths honest admittance "he beat us all" than yours or any ones elses suspect book.

Well, thanks for that.

[mariab]

Hi Paul
With all do repect-Bullshitt on both counts. Dead or in an asylum if the police are trying to solve a case they should try to do so.

Abby, although I do not really subscribe to Kozminsky as a plausible candidate for the Ripper, the police would have TOTALLY let things be if they thought that the perp in question was safely locked up in an asylum, but didn't have a case against him to go to trial.
Incidentally, it might have been a fact that they convicted another suspect disproportionally heavily in relation to his crimes for precisely these reasons. But then again, they later deported him, which bothers me. (But I promised to avoid further discussion of that other suspect here, and I'll abide by this.)

[Jonathan H]

To Abby Normal

Paul Begg does not deal in B.S., and has not written a 'suspect' book.

He has written one of the best books on the Jack the Ripper case, one which includes incisive and judicious analysis of police suspects -- and the fragmentary, ambiguous sources regarding those suspects.

It is a measure of the depth of 'Jack the Ripper--The Facts' (2006) that in reading Paul's brilliant analysis of the puzzling bits and pieces left behind by Sir Melville Macnaghten I came to a different [provisional] conclusion, because I was inspired to try and think for myself. That is what the best history books do, rather than lock you into a cramped and suffocating pathway.

And please don't claim that I must be defending a pal, or somebody who agrees with me, as Paul Begg regards my core analysis as interesting but hopelessly novelistic in approach -- and that is the opinion of a much more experienced and accomplished author, to say the least, in this subject area.

The only reason that the police of the late Victorian Era, officially, would be investigating a man who was dead, or a man permanently locked-up in a madhouse, is because they had a living, sane man under arrest and needed to test his potential culpability for the same crimes against other theories of the same case -- theories involving suspects who could never receive due process.

Otherwise, investigating a person you cannot arrest is a waste of tax-payer's money especially, as Paul argues, since there are plenty of other pressing cases piling up every day.

Just consider that with Druitt dead the MP titbit alludes not only to the ferocious libel laws, but also that the police will soon make an announcement about this 'son of a surgeon', as if there had been or was about to be some kind of official probe?

There was no such announcement.

Instead, a single police chief resurrected this tale in the media, in semi-fictional form, in 1898 -- hardly an official announcement.

The same police chief, from the saftey of retirement, did, belatedly confirm, that the 'West of England' M.P. suspect was 'Jack the Ripper' after all, though he is circumspect about details and most certainly does not connect the two tales.

That is left to us.

Of course, Mac implies that this opinion was based on an official investigation, but there is no evidence that such a thing was ever undertaken.

Washington Post (Washington, D.C.)
4 June 1913
FATE OF JACK THE RIPPER
Retiring British Official Says Once Famous Criminal Committed Suicide
London Cable to the New York Tribune
The fact that "Jack the Ripper", the man who terrorized the East End of London by the murder of seven women during 1888, committed suicide, is now confirmed by Sir Melville Macnaughten, head of the criminal investigation department of Scotland Yard, who retired on Saturday after 24 years' service.

Sir Melville says:

"It is one of the greatest regrets of my life that "Jack the Ripper" committed suicide six months before I joined the force.

That remarkable man was one of the most fascinating of criminals. Of course, he was a maniac, but I have a very clear idea as to who he was and how he committed suicide, but that, with other secrets, will never be revealed by me."


Notice how Mac's words reflect Farquharson's doctrine and the family's 'belief', and the 'good many people' who also 'believed' the MP. He's not saying: well, we had some minor suspects -- and he's the best of a bad bunch.

He is simply saying this was Jack the Ripper (rightly or wrongly), and this is certainly how his pal Sims had understood Mac's opinion over several years (Plus, people about whom you supposedly know next to nothing are not 'fascinating').

When Mac says he was too late by six months -- which is correct virtually to the day -- what Macnaghten means he was too late to hunt Montague Druitt for this police chief was there for the cases which might have been the Ripper, most importantly Frances Coles' murder in Feb 1891. For Mac, it's the timing of Druitt's self-murder which established the so-called canoicial five, not the other way round.

What Mac seems to admit to an American paper in 1913 is that the entire Druitt saga was Mac's private bit of business, not an official investigation. That is why Major Smith knows nothing about it, and Mac made sure it stayed that way!

Hence in his memoir Mac pointedly disparages the Major (though not by name) as a pompous know-nothing about the case.

[Abby Normal]

Abby, although I do not really subscribe to Kozminsky as a plausible candidate for the Ripper, the police would have TOTALLY let things be if they thought that the perp in question was safely locked up in an asylum, but didn't have a case against him to go to trial.
Incidentally, it might have been a fact that they convicted another suspect disproportionally heavily in relation to his crimes for precisely these reasons. But then again, they later deported him, which bothers me. (But I promised to avoid further discussion of that other suspect here, and I'll abide by this.)

Hi Maria
Police(Druitt) Oh yes we have the ripper but he killed himself, and only I know but Im not saying.

Police (Kominsky):Oh yes we have the ripper but he is crazy.And a Jew so we will just drop the whole thing quietly (but say it with "certainty" much later).

Did they have there man? Of course not.

To this day people with passing knowledge of this case think that the mystery was solved in the mid 80s and that the ripper is a "polish Jew".
BS!

"the Jews will not be blamed for nothing"
indeed.

[Abby Normal]

Well, thanks for that.

Actually- thank you. I just reread my response and I owe you an apology.I was too harsh. though I beleive in my basic idea(mac and Anderson had nada).
your a true scholar and gentleman.

[PaulB]

Actually-no thank you. I just reread my response and I owe you an apology.I was too harsh. though I beleive in my basic idea(mac and Anderson had nada).
your a true scholar and gentleman.

Thank you. And you may be right about Anderson and Macnaghten, but it would be nice to know one way or the other, which is why we research them.