Plausibility of Kosminski

[Phil Carter]

Opinion doesn't count for much, I'm afraid.

Hello Paul,

As one of the greatest historians of all time, A.J.P.Taylor found out.

kindly

Phil

[Phil Carter]

I think that you are over-inflating the significance of a single source, which is not a police source after all.

Hello Jonathan,

Sorry, but you sidestep the many police sources from the time telling you that the Whitechapel murderer was neither known nor detected.

kindly

Phil

[PaulB]

Hello Paul,

As one of the greatest historians of all time, A.J.P.Taylor found out.

kindly

Phil

Can you elucidate?

[Phil Carter]

Hello Paul,

Later.. I have to go to work now..

kindly

Phil

[PaulB]

Hello Jonathan,

Sorry, but you sidestep the many police sources from the time telling you that the Whitechapel murderer was neither known nor detected.

kindly

Phil

Phil,
It isn't side-stepped, nor has it ever been side-stepped. It's at the very heart of every assessment of the sources, it looms as high and apparently insurmountable as a prison wall, but the fact is that the sources say what they say and they say despite what other sources say, and the historian's job is to try and understand what the sources say and, in this case, why they say it. That's what Jonathan is trying to do, although I don't agree with his theory, and it's what other people have tried to do. The bottom line, though, is that the police continued to investigate, and rightly so. That doesn't mean earlier theories were wrong or the suspects invalid, and it doesn't mean that other policemen necessarily knew or understood or had access to all the evidence and reasoning and first-hand experience that the theorists may have possessed.

[PaulB]

Hello Paul,

Later.. I have to go to work now..

kindly

Phil

Work! That's a curse.

[Trevor Marriott]

How nice it would be if this optimism touched on reality, but alas we are dealing with suspects, a fact which is so frequently overlooked. Melville Macnaghten wrote about suspects. Swanson wrote about a suspect. Only Anderson, typically, wrote of a suspect with certainty. And they wrote in 1913, 1910, and at uncertain post-1910 date, and any suspect who emerged during their time in office would have been known to and been considered by them, and they would, presumably, have revised their opinions according to whatever new arguments and evidence presented themselves.

The sad reality is that as much as I would love my one-time employer to be providing the clue that ends the speculation, it doesn't. It just adds another suspect to the list, and once again we haven't the remotest idea what the evidence was on which the suspicion was based and can't even begin to assess it's worth and the probability of the conclusion being correct.

It shouldn't be necessary to point this out, but this is not and never has been about one of the Macnaghten Three being Jack the Ripper - even allowing that one of them was, two of them can't have been - nor has it been whether Chapman or Tumblety or Cutbush or anyone else was, it's about why they were suspected. That, for the most part, is what we don't know.

So, sorry, the Western Mail article doesn't turn these suspects into toast. It just means that the police weren't certain, weren't agreed, and continued to entertain suspicions and pursue suspects. But we knew that already, didn't we?

Paul
I think it was you who posted recently stating there was a difference between researchers and police investigators. One big difference is the ability of each to understand all that surrounds a suspects name being put forward in relation to not just these murders but any crime past or present. Those reasons and all that surrounds those have not changed since 1888.

As Phil Carter states this merry go round keeps going round simply because some researahers of which you with out a doubt are one are not prepared to look at and accept plausible explanations with regards to how person become police suspects.

You ask why were these person suspected. The answer is simple. At the time of the murders or soon after names were given to the police of persons by reason of their previous convictions, their actions (Cutbush and Kosminski) or just through idle gossip who might be or have been involved in the murders. These would have been entered in some form of police record (CID Register, SB Registers) and would with out a doubt have been investigated and most would have been eliminated almost at once.However just because they were eliminated their names would not be expunged from official records.

It was the case 123 years ago and is still the basic principal today that the police have to prove or disprove a persons involvment in a crime.

So 123 years later researchers find a number of names of likely suspects but instead of reseraching them and reviewing their results in an unbiased way they dig there heels in and against all odds openly infer that because they were named they must have been prime suspects. These resereachers have to understand there is a big difference between a likely suspect and a prime suspect. At the time I would suggest these names were nothing more than likely suspects. Yet now some researchers are viewing them as prime suspects. Where is the evidence to elevate them to that status ?

If you are going to stick rigidly to the facts and police protocol the only official police record relating to any likley suspects which is still in existence is the MM. Have we proved or disproved their involvment. Going on what has been written in the memo and what has come to light the answer is yes.

When MM formulated that memo he would have had available to him all and everyhting on the Ripper case by reason of his post at that time. The Ripper file would have still been in existence in its entirety. He could not have compliled that from memory as he was not in the force at the time of the murders.

If any such ID had taken place there would have been a record on that file and a file within the file on whoever the suspect was and such an important issue would have been recorded by him in the memo. After all he refers to Kosminski in the memo, and that memo was not compiled until 1894 long after all of these suspect and ID issues had long passed.

Furthermore as far as any ID is concerned if it did happen after 1889 as some suggest MM was in office at that time, and without a doubt would have known of it.

It is academic about the statement "what if anything went missing or was stolen years later etc" the fact is that there was never anything in that file which showed the real identity of the killer or killers. So the old chestnut which researchers keep throwing up about the missing or stolen files etc does not stand up to close scrutiny I am afraid.

So years later good old Hans Christian pops up with a "story" in his memoirs which seems to have sent some researchers into a frenzy. If we have to look at his memoirs in comparison with all the other senior officer memoirs. All stated they knew who the ripper was but all gave different names and none of them ever mentioned an ID parade except Anderson.

All stated these facts as being correct yet prior to their memoirs being published. Around 1895 and onwards many of these same persons including Hans Christian go on record and say no one knew the identity.

Now I am sure you will say well Swanson coroborates him. But again not in any official police record. So why not ? he had access to all the Ripper case records and files. All he does is write the name Kosminski not a full name a surname, now by doing that he in effect corroborates what MM wrote and of course he only refers to a surname also.

So in my opinion what Swanson wrote in the margialia should be viewed in the same light as all the other officers memoirs and that is it is not worth the paper written on from an evidential point of view it is not on an official police document.

To some now the ripper mystery has become and obsession and find it hard to let go of old beliefs but it is time to let go certainly of Kosminski, Ostrog,Druitt and I would add Tumblety to that list in the light of new evidence to hand. I for one will not be wasting any more time in chasing these ghosts from the past or becoming embroiled in pointless arguments or debates.

It is going to be a lonely pace for some as the merry go round keeps turning.

[Trevor Marriott]

Phil,
People can indeed make up their own minds, but they deserve to do so on the basis of accurate information and a proper understanding of the questions. What we know that in 1910 and 1913 respectively two informed and intelligent policemen expressed their opinion about the identity of Jack the Ripper. We have absolutely no idea which of them or if either of them was right because we have no idea of the evidence on which their opinions were based and therefore can't begin to assess it. You, however, are saying that these 20th-century expressed suspicions/beliefs are toast because of an 1892 newspaper article supported by the opinion of other policemen we've always known about and some unspecified newspaper reports. You are saying this makes the post-1910 notes of Swanson a mere curiosity.

Fine. Except it doesn't. Nobody was charged, nobody stood trial, nobody was convicted. The crime was unsolved. No matter what Anderson believed, no matter what Macnaghten believed, no matter what anybody believed, it was an unsolved crime and therefore the police would have continued to investigate. They investigated Sadler to the full-extent of their abilities. And Grainger. And the man in the 1892 newspaper report. And anyone else who came within their ken, because they knew beliefs could be wrong. But that wouldn't have altered the what they believed and continued to believe, apparently until they died.

But they wouldnt have pursued those lines of investigation in later years if they knew who the killer was and he was not in a position to kill further can you not grasp this.

[mariab]

To Phil Carter:
Phil, could you please direct me to the source as quoted below by you and to the post where you or anyone else first discusses the “informed member of Parliament“ in question? This thread is a bit meander-like and I cannot find it in haste (while I'm working).

The Member of Parliament for Oldham was being given to believe “on the authority of a Scotland Yard detective“ that “The suspected criminal, till within a month at any rate, has been shadowed night and day, awake and asleep, by Scotland Yard detectives.“ This from February 1892.

By the by Phil, the police were following lots of people, until they were cleared. Won't say names as not to misdirect this thread again, but these names have been recently discussed in the other forum. 1892 is a long time away from 1894. A shadowed suspect in 1892 might have been long cleared by 1894.
And another thing: You should know that Rob and I are trying to establish what exactly Macnaghten knew from the Superintendant of Banstead Hospital about Ostrog's allegedly “being violent and a dangerous criminal“ in May 1891, 3 years before the MM. It would be very significant to figure out if Macnaghten already knew the details about Ostrog in 1891, wouldn't it?

the bread's not even faintly browned.

Completely agree with this, and that the 3 MM suspects ought to be researched further, as they are.

Work! That's a curse.

Truest words were never spoken.
And I'm going back to work.

[Jonathan H]

To PaulB

I think that what Phil is referring to is the outrage which broke over A. J. P. Taylor's head, in 1961, with the publication of his classic 'The Origins of the Second World War'.

It was a best-seller by a popular author -- there are worse fates! -- but it was also condemned by the establishment of historians (the scathing criticism was led by fellow Oxford don Hugh Trevor-Roper) who thought that though it was characteristically entertaining, and ingeniously argued, it was still utter nonsense -- and even morally objectionable.

Taylor turned everything on its head, arguing that Hitler was just a 'traditional German statesman' who was a bit more evil, more ruthless, but still a gambler, and a bluffer, and an opportunist -- not a master planner. He admired Great Britain and loathed the Soviet Union, yet in 1939 ended up in alliance with the latter and at war with the former?

To give but one example of Taylor's revisionist thesis, though this thumbnail hardly does it justice.

Conventional wisdom had asserted that the Munich Agreement was a morally terrible, and terribly stupid deal in which Hitler dismembered the Czech state due to spineless Appeasement by Britain and France. Within a few months, as people like Churchill had warned, Hitler tore up the treaty and gobbled up the rest of the now defenseless state without a shot being fired. Hitler's claim to having been satisfied with just the German-populated Sedentland ('Peace for Our Time') was brutally exposed as just a ruse, one of many on the maniacal Fuhrer's path to attempted world conquest.

Taylor counter-argued that the Munich Agreement of Sept. '39 was both brilliant and moral. That it undid the damage the imperial powers had done at Versailles in arbitrarily dismembering the Austro-Hungarian empire. That Hitler, like most German statesmen of the era, looked East not West and wanted the Treaty overturned with the German bits and Austrian pieces 'restored'. When Chamblerlain offered him the Sedentland, Hitler accepted, but thought it was a silly treaty; that the Czech state would inevitably collapse within a short time, specifically due to infighting between the Czecks and the Slovaks. Collapse it did in March '39, for which Hitler felt that he was unfairly blamed as it was the western powers who had carved up the country -- when what they should have done was either fight for its total independence or just hand it over.

To Phil Carter

I honestly do not think I am ignoring the sources. I just think that Macnaghten kept what he had learned about Druitt to himself. If another suspect turned up after Feb 1891 he had to go along with it, or give the game away.

Or, the simpler and more likely explanation was the one provided by Paul.

[PaulB]

But they wouldnt have pursued those lines of investigation in later years if they knew who the killer was and he was not in a position to kill further can you not grasp this.

What you appear unable to grasp is that "they" did not know, which is why "they" continued to investigate.

[PaulB]

Paul
I think it was you who posted recently stating there was a difference between researchers and police investigators. One big difference is the ability of each to understand all that surrounds a suspects name being put forward in relation to not just these murders but any crime past or present. Those reasons and all that surrounds those have not changed since 1888.

As Phil Carter states this merry go round keeps going round simply because some researahers of which you with out a doubt are one are not prepared to look at and accept plausible explanations with regards to how person become police suspects.

You ask why were these person suspected. The answer is simple. At the time of the murders or soon after names were given to the police of persons by reason of their previous convictions, their actions (Cutbush and Kosminski) or just through idle gossip who might be or have been involved in the murders. These would have been entered in some form of police record (CID Register, SB Registers) and would with out a doubt have been investigated and most would have been eliminated almost at once.However just because they were eliminated their names would not be expunged from official records.

It was the case 123 years ago and is still the basic principal today that the police have to prove or disprove a persons involvment in a crime.

So 123 years later researchers find a number of names of likely suspects but instead of reseraching them and reviewing their results in an unbiased way they dig there heels in and against all odds openly infer that because they were named they must have been prime suspects. These resereachers have to understand there is a big difference between a likely suspect and a prime suspect. At the time I would suggest these names were nothing more than likely suspects. Yet now some researchers are viewing them as prime suspects. Where is the evidence to elevate them to that status ?

If you are going to stick rigidly to the facts and police protocol the only official police record relating to any likley suspects which is still in existence is the MM. Have we proved or disproved their involvment. Going on what has been written in the memo and what has come to light the answer is yes.

When MM formulated that memo he would have had available to him all and everyhting on the Ripper case by reason of his post at that time. The Ripper file would have still been in existence in its entirety. He could not have compliled that from memory as he was not in the force at the time of the murders.

If any such ID had taken place there would have been a record on that file and a file within the file on whoever the suspect was and such an important issue would have been recorded by him in the memo. After all he refers to Kosminski in the memo, and that memo was not compiled until 1894 long after all of these suspect and ID issues had long passed.

Furthermore as far as any ID is concerned if it did happen after 1889 as some suggest MM was in office at that time, and without a doubt would have known of it.

It is academic about the statement "what if anything went missing or was stolen years later etc" the fact is that there was never anything in that file which showed the real identity of the killer or killers. So the old chestnut which researchers keep throwing up about the missing or stolen files etc does not stand up to close scrutiny I am afraid.

So years later good old Hans Christian pops up with a "story" in his memoirs which seems to have sent some researchers into a frenzy. If we have to look at his memoirs in comparison with all the other senior officer memoirs. All stated they knew who the ripper was but all gave different names and none of them ever mentioned an ID parade except Anderson.

All stated these facts as being correct yet prior to their memoirs being published. Around 1895 and onwards many of these same persons including Hans Christian go on record and say no one knew the identity.

Now I am sure you will say well Swanson coroborates him. But again not in any official police record. So why not ? he had access to all the Ripper case records and files. All he does is write the name Kosminski not a full name a surname, now by doing that he in effect corroborates what MM wrote and of course he only refers to a surname also.

So in my opinion what Swanson wrote in the margialia should be viewed in the same light as all the other officers memoirs and that is it is not worth the paper written on from an evidential point of view it is not on an official police document.

To some now the ripper mystery has become and obsession and find it hard to let go of old beliefs but it is time to let go certainly of Kosminski, Ostrog,Druitt and I would add Tumblety to that list in the light of new evidence to hand. I for one will not be wasting any more time in chasing these ghosts from the past or becoming embroiled in pointless arguments or debates.

It is going to be a lonely pace for some as the merry go round keeps turning.

You know something, Trevor. There is so much utter nonsense in what you have written that I can't even be bothered to answer it.

[PaulB]

To PaulB

I think that what Phil is referring to is the outrage which broke over A. J. P. Taylor's head, in 1961, with the publication of his classic 'The Origins of the Second World War'.

It was a best-seller by a popular author -- there are worse fates! -- but it was also condemned by the establishment of historians (the scathing criticism was led by fellow Oxford don Hugh Trevor-Roper) who thought that though it was characteristically entertaining, and ingeniously argued, it was still utter nonsense -- and even morally objectionable.

Taylor turned everything on its head, arguing that Hitler was just a 'traditional German statesman' who was a bit more evil, more ruthless, but still a gambler, and a bluffer, and an opportunist -- not a master planner. He admired Great Britain and loathed the Soviet Union, yet in 1939 ended up in alliance with the latter and at war with the former?

To give but one example of Taylor's revisionist thesis, though this thumbnail hardly does it justice.

Conventional wisdom had asserted that the Munich Agreement was a morally terrible, and terribly stupid deal in which Hitler dismembered the Czech state due to spineless Appeasement by Britain and France. Within a few months, as people like Churchill had warned, Hitler tore up the treaty and gobbled up the rest of the now defenseless state without a shot being fired. Hitler's claim to having been satisfied with just the German-populated Sedentland ('Peace for Our Time') was brutally exposed as just a ruse, one of many on the maniacal Fuhrer's path to attempted world conquest.

Taylor counter-argued that the Munich Agreement of Sept. '39 was both brilliant and moral. That it undid the damage the imperial powers had done at Versailles in arbitrarily dismembering the Austro-Hungarian empire. That Hitler, like most German statesmen of the era, looked East not West and wanted the Treaty overturned with the German bits and Austrian pieces 'restored'. When Chamblerlain offered him the Sedentland, Hitler accepted, but thought it was a silly treaty; that the Czech state would inevitably collapse within a short time, specifically due to infighting between the Czecks and the Slovaks. Collapse it did in March '39, for which Hitler felt that he was unfairly blamed as it was the western powers who had carved up the country -- when what they should have done was either fight for its total independence or just hand it over.

To Phil Carter

I honestly do not think I am ignoring the sources. I just think that Macnaghten kept what he had learned about Druitt to himself. If another suspect turned up after Feb 1891 he had to go along with it, or give the game away.

Or, the simpler and more likely explanation was the one provided by Paul.

A goodly number of historians have similarly suffered, but sometimes a subject needs an iconoclast or would-be iconoclast to kick it out of the mud. The difference is that AJP knew his subject, as did Hugh Trevor-Roper, who some might say eventually received his comeuppance, and could venture informed opinion, albeit a radical opinion. It is, after all, only by looking at the subject in different ways that we can advance our knowledge and understanding.

[Trevor Marriott]

You know something, Trevor. There is so much utter nonsense in what you have written that I can't even be bothered to answer it.

You have the audactity to call my writings nonsene take a look at yourself in the mirror you have no capacity for sensible and logical reasoning or understanding of facts, evidence or police procedures or methodology.

Your posts are so one sided and has been said by others on here you are not prepared to accept or consider anything which does not confirm to your line of thinking. Wake up to reality your weak arguments have been proved to not stand up to close scrutiny.

[PaulB]

You have the audactity to call my writings nonsene take a look at yourself in the mirror you have no capacity for sensible and logical reasoning or understanding of facts, evidence or police procedures or methodology.

Your posts are so one sided and has been said by others on here you are not prepared to accept or consider anything which does not confirm to your line of thinking. Wake up to reality your weak arguments have been proved to not stand up to close scrutiny.

Yes, I have the audacity to call what you write nonsense. It is nonsense. It's nonsense to say, for example, that it's a fact “that there was never anything in that file which showed the real identity of the killer or killers”. That's not a fact, Trevor, it's simply what you think and your thinking is empty and hollow because you don't have any more knowledge of what was or was not in the files than I do. Do you understand that? You don't know. Neither do I. So, yes, Trevor, you write nonsense.

That you think I “have no capacity for sensible and logical reasoning or understanding of facts, evidence or police procedures or methodology” isn't going to keep me awake at nights, not coming from someone who has paraded their ignorance on these boards as often as you have done.