Kosminski case notes;Allegations of threatening behaviour

[Scorpio]

What can we make of Aarons alleged threatening of his sister on one occasion with a knife?.
The apocryphal nature of it would challenge its reliability but the witness was probably a family member or close family friend and i dont believe they would make such statements which would be considered a family matter, lightly or invent them. Two explanations come to mind; the incident was serious enough to warrant an outside agency being informed, or a minor incident which became convenient when Aarons general non violent anti-social behaviour became to much for his relatives and they desired the state to take responsibility for him.
On the second front, was the allegation reported to the police and the original motive for his identification?. I gather Anderson had already convinced himself that the killer was a local Jewish man. A case of confirmation bias?.

[Errata]

I threatened my sister with a knife in high school after she told my parents I would spending the weekend at a friends working on a project when in fact she had abandoned me in the middle of nowhere after making me get out of the car to see if the tire was flat.

Having the experience of having my own sister, I can't entirely rule out that Kosminski's sister didn't have it coming.

[Scorpio]

I threatened my sister with a knife in high school after she told my parents I would spending the weekend at a friends working on a project when in fact she had abandoned me in the middle of nowhere after making me get out of the car to see if the tire was flat.

Having the experience of having my own sister, I can't entirely rule out that Kosminski's sister didn't have it coming.

I hope he did not feel that way about women in general. Anderson was under the impression that he did, it seems.

[Errata]

I hope he did not feel that way about women in general. Anderson was under the impression that he did, it seems.

Well, did he threaten her with a knife, or pull a knife? Or did he threaten, and had a knife because he was eating or something but not threaten WITH a knife as much as NEAR a knife? And why? Did she leave him in the middle of nowhere cackling all the way home?

Was she his sister? His sister-in-law? Was this unusual for them? Did they maybe have a idiosyncratic routine like Ralph and Alice Kramden that neighbors didn't understand? Who reported the threat? To whom did they report the threat? What were the consequences of this encounter? Is there any proof of this encounter?

How many Victorian men in general liked women? How culturally common was violence or threat against women? Rare enough to cause outrage? Common enough to dismiss it until someone specifically asks? Were women generally accorded respect and mastery at least in their own homes that they were safe?

If a guy threatens his sister with a knife (who cares why) AND you think he is Jack the Ripper, does it not make sense then that this man would have to have a violent hatred of women? Wouldn't most people come to that conclusion without any threats against a sister?

If you think you are looking for a barking madman, and you find one who could possibly (although not actually) have some tenuous link to one of the crime scenes... and he is of a type of people that are really none too popular in the area, making him something of an easy mark... and he is absolutely barking mad, which the killer would have to be to do this... well it's an easy sell that this guy is in fact the killer. So this guy in your mind is now the killer, and a couple years down the line you find out someone told someone else he threatened his sister with a knife, and suddenly you are vindicated. See? didn't I tell you? His hatred of women was so severe it extended to his own family! (as is the norm)

And none of this line of thought is unreasonable. Unreasoned, but not unreasonable. We build cases for and against people every day in our heads. It why we trust one bank, but not this convenience store. It's just not based of any facts. He may have threatened his sister with a knife. But I don't think that left the confines of the family until his intake into the asylum (I may be totally wrong on this). It's a standard question, and having been in a mental hospital before you would amazed at how "helpful" family members suddenly are. Guy with a clipboard wants to know if i'm violent (like do I beat people up or threaten with guns ie: is his staff in danger from me) and my mom is suddenly explaining how I severely bit my sister on the leg (because she was kneeling on my neck) when I was five. Thanks ma.

[Chris]

Well, did he threaten her with a knife, or pull a knife? Or did he threaten, and had a knife because he was eating or something but not threaten WITH a knife as much as NEAR a knife?

What Dr Houchin recorded was:
"He took up a knife and threatened the life of his sister."

[The Good Michael]

I think if the family had ideas that he was the Ripper, it was a much better story to tell the authorities that, not only is he delusional and hears voices, but he threatened to kill his own sister, rather than saying that he said, "He says that I should kill you to like I did the others." I would suggest that committing him for the former would leave quite a bit smaller stain upon the family name, which they seem to have changed anyway. There are some real possibilities in Dr. Houchin's little statement.

Mike

[Jonathan H]

So far as I can make out, Philip Sudgen, whilst an academic, is a qualified expert in Fine Arts and Tibetan Culture.

His assertion that the police memoirs are completely unreliable, and 'old hat', should be greeted by those who use historical methodology with great caution.

Memoirs are, it is true, inherently self-serving and unreliable sources. According to Napoleon he never started a single war; they were all forced upon him, the martyred man of peace.

Yet every memoir and long-distant recount should be analysed on its own individual merits and limitations, and not condemned by cliche.

Both Littlechild (albeit in a letter to a famous writer) and Macnaghten's 'Days of My Years' are arguably reliable because they go against the expected bias by providing data/opinions which embarasses their own organization, potentially publicly in Littlechild's case and definitely so in Macnaghten's (though not personally embarrassing for either, as Mac was not on the Force whilst his soon-to-be-peers were chasing a deceased fiend, and Littlechild was describing a Met, not Irish Branch, debacle regarding a 'very likely' 1888 Ripper suspect).

Anderson's memoirs seem very unreliable as they are almost a caricature of self-aggrandizing bluster, and did not lay a glove on the paradigm of the 'Drowned Doctor' -- a chief suspect who turned out never to have literally existed.

On the other hand, it can be argued that behind Anderson's pompous, mean-spirited, self-justifications is a stronger tale as it is backed by the very different, self-effacing Donald Swanson, at least to himself.

The argument -- I often use it -- that Swanson was never prepared to test his theory in public can be countered by arguing that Anderson's tale was his tale, with some modifications.

That Anderson is a Swanson source, in public, by proxy.

To have the former head of CID, and the operational head of the case, in seeming agreement on the basics of the suspect they considered the best bet is arguably strong.

To show that the alleged slam dunk witness identification is perhaps a sincere mistake by one fading memory or two -- I do not believe it happened at all - does not mean that Aaron Kosminski is automatically 'cleared', to use the vernacular.

Aaron Kosminski lived in the kill zone, he was insane, he threatened a woman with violence (this time not a stranger or a harlot), and he was sectioned by his own family, whose cognition about his culpability ('suspecting the worst' ---- Macnaghten, 1894 or 1898) could easily, so easily lie behind Anderson's egocentric bitterness towards the fiend's 'people' for refusing to 'testify' until after their member was 'safely caged'.

Furthermore, if the mad hairdresser only came to police attention, and senior police attention at that, after he was incarcerated it would explain the lack of a file, and the lack of knowledge about him by other police sources such as Smith and Abberline and Reid.

To use historical methodology is to assess whether, often quite sincerely, stories have been redacted into a timeline which other sources show to be impossible, or very unlikely. They have to be untangled from the better version, to be exposed in their original messy state.

Anderson did this with the un-named Kosminski, projecting him into 1888 (thanks, I think, to Mac's 'error') whilst Swanson disagrees as he has the 'Seaside Home' making an appearance, which shows some memory of Kosminski being out and about, at least up until July 1890. Anderson having the identification take place after the suspect's incarceration in the magazine version, the first version, is another bit of straining to recall that this madman was not known to be a Ripper suspect until as late as Feb 1891 -- if not even further than that, inching towards the first version of the Mac Report three years later?

That Kosminski was not a suspect contemporaneous to 1888 would explain why memories, and bruised reputations, come into play over a generation later. That behind the mythical tale is the real Kosminski family, or brother -- whom Swanson remembered as a fragment -- who knew and allegedly did nothing, evolving into all Polish Jews in the East End, and merging with the German Jewish witness, Lawende who said 'no' (Sadler) and 'yes' (Grant).

In 1895, Lawende said 'yes', yet nothing came of this positive identification, and within the same year Swanson believes that the likeliest suspect, presumbely Kosminski, is deceased.

Historians strip back data to its elements to try and make sense of contradictory material: for example, that 1895 article about Grant, the un-named Lawende and Swanson = Jewish witness + 'Yes' + No arrest/No charges + 'Kosminski' + deceased = the essential elements of the Swanson Marginalia.

Arguably.

[Chris]

So far as I can make out, Philip Sudgen, whilst an academic, is a qualified expert in Fine Arts and Tibetan Culture.

I think you'll find that's a different Philip Sugden.

[Scorpio]

I am certain that the individual who made the original statement is on record and it is possibly a male family member or friend from the neighbourhood. I just cannot recall which publication it was, because i have owned so many.

[Chris]

I am certain that the individual who made the original statement is on record and it is possibly a male family member or friend from the neighbourhood. I just cannot recall which publication it was, because i have owned so many.

The statement was made by Jacob Cohen to Dr Houchin when Aaron was admitted to Mile End Old Town workhouse in February 1891. We know he was a business partner of Aaron's brother Woolf, but not whether there was an additional family relationship.

[Scorpio]

It is strange that Cohen should mention this and not his brother Wolf.

[Chris]

It is strange that Cohen should mention this and not his brother Wolf.

Yes. Jacob Cohen supplied details of all the symptoms. Evidently for some reason it was Cohen the doctor spoke to, and not a member of the family. Aaron had been admitted from the address of his sister Matilda (though he had been living with Woolf the previous year). I presume Jacob Cohen had taken (or helped to take) Aaron to the workhouse, but we can only speculate on why Houchin didn't speak to a member of the family.

[Errata]

I am certain that the individual who made the original statement is on record and it is possibly a male family member or friend from the neighbourhood. I just cannot recall which publication it was, because i have owned so many.

I am totally willing to buy that it happened. But we know NOTHING else except that it happened.

If he picked up a knife and said "I'm going to kill you and then make a stew of you" or whatever, that's one thing.

If he is panicking and trying to get out of the house, and she stands in front of the door trying to stop him, and he picks up a knife and says "Move or I will make you move" thats a different thing.

If she threw a pot of soup at his head screaming at him, and he picked up a knife to keep her from continuing to throw things at him, that's a third thing.

If he did this, and he wasn't kicked out of the house, or disowned by the family, then clearly nobody thought much of the incident, meaning it wasn't considered serious.

If they moved him to another family member's house after this, then either she threw him out, or his family felt he wasn't dangerous to any other family member.

If they put him in an asylum immediately afterward, then clearly they felt he was ill, but didn't see him as a criminal.

If they called the cops on him, then clearly they felt he was violent and dangerous.

Well, they didn't call the cops, they didn't immediately put him in an asylum, I don't think he even moved out. And I don't care how much you care about staining the family name (which is a bit overplayed at this point in time) If someone is violent and dangerous, you don't go to sleep with him in the house. So I am thinking that whatever happened was not considered serious at the time. Maybe a fight where things got overheated. Maybe he was already symptomatic and she did something she knew she shouldn't have that threatened him in some way. Maybe it happened when he was 10.

And I'm not saying that pulling a knife on someone is okay. But I would have to know a LOT more to equate it to "a violent hatred of women"

[Errata]

Yes. Jacob Cohen supplied details of all the symptoms. Evidently for some reason it was Cohen the doctor spoke to, and not a member of the family. Aaron had been admitted from the address of his sister Matilda (though he had been living with Woolf the previous year). I presume Jacob Cohen had taken (or helped to take) Aaron to the workhouse, but we can only speculate on why Houchin didn't speak to a member of the family.

He didn't speak to a member of the family because he didn't need to. They weren't interested in family history and full medical details at this point. They wanted to know basically if he could be kept safely in general population, if he needed to be moved to a more secure facility, and if he was going to try and kill them all. If Jacob Cohen could provide that information there was no need to involve the family.

[Scorpio]

The workhouse suggests that Aaron had become a economic strain on the Kosminski household. Perhaps calling Aaron a lazy bastard or something similar provoked the knife incident.