Koz - No First Name in Marginalia

[Monty]

Trevor,

Put up or shut up.

Monty

[Trevor Marriott]

You know something, Trevor; if you don't think Swanson would have initialed his own writings, why do you imagine that a forger would have thought he would? Why do you think a forger would take a book that has been in Swanson's family for decades, that was an inscribed presentation copy to Swanson, that was among a bunch of other documents unquestionably belonging to Swanson, and was one of a bunch of other books, and think he ought to initial is fake marginal writing DSS?

And it isn't the only marginal writing initialed. It's what Swanson did. Year in, year out, he initialed reports. He probably initialed his to-do lists and shopping list. It's what he did.

I have my own personal belief as to who when why and for what purpose this could have been forged if it is forged but as you know I cannot prove that at this time. The first stage in that process would be to prove that Swanson did not or could not have written some or all of the annotations. If that is proved the rest of the puzzle will fit.

I dont propose to argue these matters further

[Trevor Marriott]

Nice try, Trev. But no banana. We don’t know who the expert is, what they are an expert in, what qualifications and experience they have, or what the evidence for their conclusion is. That’s got nothing whatever to do with whether or not I prop up Kosminski, and I don’t, it’s got everything to do with the quality of your evidence, which since we know nothing about it, is zilch.

The answer to your questions only become relevant when my expert has examined them and has published the results, it is then you can question their credibilty. I am happy with the reults to date. I have done all that I can and have offered up the olive branch but it has been declined so be it.

There isn’t any ‘serious doubt’ about the authenticity of the marginalia, Trevor. None at all. There’s just you saying that there is.

You try taking similar evidence to court in a criminal trial see how far it gets

I’m not asking you to publish it on here or anywhere else. I’m simply saying that one needs to know the document against which the marginalia writing was compared. There are several reasons why this is important, one which has caused a problem or two in the past is that Swanson, Anderson, and others, had reports and correspondence copied out by a secretary which they then signed. Care therefore has to be taken to ensure that a document was actually written by the signatory. You are claiming that there are differences between the marginalia and an exemplar document which are obvious even to a non-expert eye. Since two experts have compared the marginalia to known examples of Swanson’s handwriting and have not noticed such obvious differences, one can only wonder what your exemplar document is, and, if it is this 1894 memo, if it has definitely been established that the handwriting is Swanson’s.

The handwriting is definatley Swansons trust me on that


80% was Nevill’s spontaneous and generous estimate. The report does not give any percentage. It states, as has been published: ‘I have not found any differences between the known and questioned writings
in features that I consider are clearly fundamental structural features of the writing. However, in certain circumstances my findings might occur if Swanson were not the writer of the questioned writing. Consequently, my findings do not show unequivocally that Swanson is the writer of the
questioned writing but they do support this proposition. I have therefore concluded that there is strong evidence to support the proposition that Swanson wrote the questioned annotations in the book The
Lighter Side of My Official Life.’

In other words, whilst allowing for the caution all experts now display when being asked for an unequivocal answer, and given the impossibility of giving a definitive answer, the conclusion was that Swanson authored the marginalia. Indeed, the argument that Swanson authored the marginalia was supported by ‘strong evidence’.

But not conclusive !!!!!!!!!!!!

On balance I’d say that was a probability percentage way higher than 80% - that the marginalia was written by Swanson was supported by strong evidence and that ‘no differences were found…’

You are not an expert !

Trevor, let’s set this straight. Macnaghten doesn’t exonerate anyone. He says he is inclined to exonerate two. There’s a big difference between a feeling and a fact. And he only reaches this inclination in light of the evidence he has received about Druitt, and we do not know what that evidence was and cannot assess it and have no idea whether it was good evidence or not. All we can say is that Macnaghten found it persuasive. It is also questionable whether he knew about the positive eye-witness identification, so he may have ‘exonerated’ Kosminski without knowing the full facts.

Oh dear for an educated man you do talk twaddle at times

But even accepting without reservation that Macnaghten exonerated Kosminski, he only exonerated him as the Ripper. He did NOT exonerate him as a suspect.

Well I cant see how you can still be a suspect for being Jack The Ripper if you are eliminated from being the actual perpretator. END OF STORY,END OF KOSMINSKI


Are you unaware that the handwriting report clearly states the conclusion that the marginalia was written at different times, the writing possibly separated by a substantial interval? This conclusion was based on the fact that different pencils were used and the passage of time was indicated by an ‘occasional tremor which is similar to that sometimes found in the writing of individuals with certain neurological conditions, such as Parkinsonism.’

Written at different times hmmmmmmm would those times be between 1980 -1987 ?

I'm not forgetting the forensic tests at all, Trevor. I am simply ignorant about pencil manufacture and whether or not the constituents of pencil lead have changed significantly since 1910. Determining the age of the graphite, which I assume could be in the millions of years, obviously isn't going to help anyone, so can be determined that the pencil 'lead' in the marginalia dates from sometime after the time when Swanson could have written it? Was pencil 'lead' different in the mid-80s from 1910 or 1920?

I have no idea but its a test which might go to determine when the annotations were written

Hardly, Trev. You are making very serious claims which aren't really supported by any evidence except that of an expert you claim has examined the marginalia. We only have your word that this expert exists and that an examination has been made, and whilst I don't doubt either statement, neither that expert's knowledge or ability nor the evidence on which the conclusion can be assessed. That's not cherry-picking. Nor is the fact that you seem to be ignorant of the (published) findings of previous expert examination of the marginalia.

So far no everyone has declined to publish either of the experts reports.

The marginalia is a potentially valuable piece of source evidence. Examination of it strongly indicates that it was written by Swanson, there is impeccable provenance, and there is no reason to suppose that any member of the Swanson family (the only people who could have tampered with it) have behaved improperly. The doubts you raise, based on the scant reasoning you have produced, are serious.

I disagree its not as valuable as you make out the name Kosminski appears in The MM. MM exonerates him in 1894.

The marginalia couldnt have beenwritten before 1910, in it the same surname that appears in The MM is mentioned, along with a mythical ID parade. which is not mentioned anywhere in any officila police record, why is that ,because it never happened.

You will continue to champion someone called Kosminski but please remove the name Aaron from all future reference if you dare !

[Bridewell]

Marginalia

That argument doesnt stand up MM prepared the memo for a specific purpose with the intention of someone presumabaly higher in the chain of command to read.There would be no point in giving half a name even if he himself knew the full name someone reading the memo would surely want to know and question it.

This is a thread about the Swanson Marginalia, which was the subject of my post. Jonathan mentioned the MM. I didn't.

Werent you taught to include as much information as possible when compiling reports. ?

We're discussing the Swanson Marginalia, not my reports or anybody else's.

Regards, Bridewell.

[PaulB]

Hi Jonathan
Why write to himself and initial his writings ?

You know something, Trevor; if you don't think Swanson would have initialed his own writings, why do you imagine that a forger would have thought he would? Why do you think a forger would take a book that has been in Swanson's family for decades, that was an inscribed presentation copy to Swanson, that was among a bunch of other documents unquestionably belonging to Swanson, and was one of a bunch of other books, and think he ought to initial is fake marginal writing DSS?

And it isn't the only marginal writing initialed. It's what Swanson did. Year in, year out, he initialed reports. He probably initialed his to-do lists and shopping list. It's what he did.

[PaulB]

The counter-argument to that, Paul, is that 'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper' (which is written in 1914, not 1913) is not just another Macnaghten source.

Rather it is the only one which Mac published under his own knighted name, and is the [de-facto] third version of his 'memo' (he had 'Aberconway' at his elbow to adapt, though he disingenuously claims to be writing from memory).

For the first and only time Macnaghten would be held accountable for a Ripper opinion.

It is also anti-Anderson through and through in its content and themes, eg. Anderson himself is airbrushed out of existence, plus Mac asserts: I found the Ripper, albeit posthumously, and I found the 'Dear Boss' hoaxer about a year after I started at CID, and I found it was 'one of us' while, guess who, was uselessly chasing a phantom!

Remember, from the public's point of view, Macnaghten's 1913 retirement comments and subsequent 1914 memoirs were his first known contributions on this subject at all (Littlechild in 1913 is quite clueless that Mac is Sims' source for 'Dr. D').

So, according to the retiring Commissioner, the Ripper really was a man who took his own life about twenty-four hours after the Kelly murder.

Is this the 'drowned doctor' of Griffiths and Sims? Hmmm ... That was the same night though -- wasn't it?

Well, perhaps not as 'doctor' and 'drowned' are not even part of Mac's opaque profile (actually it is the same suspect, but you would need other sources, decades later, to know this.)

Mac is reticent but says in 1913 that he knows exactly who the Ripper was, but many things have to be kept 'secret' -- even apparently destroyed, implying that they are his papers and not owned by the police -- and that the maniac was 'remarkable' and 'fascinating'.

On the other hand, in the 1894 archived Report 'Kosminski' and M. J. Druitt and Michael Ostrog are all three dismissed by the same source as weak suspects, about which there was no hard evidence -- just all three are better than Cutbush (?!).

The difference being that Druitt, a minor, hearsay suspect, who might have been a doctor and then again might not have been, andsupposedly investigated whilst alive, was definitely known to be a sexual maniac and so his 'good' family, understandably, 'believed' he was Jack the Ripper(?!)

Which bring us back as to why Swanson does not give 'Kosminski's' first name? Because Macnaghten did not, and the suspect begins with him in the extant record -- at least for now.

Sorry, Jonathan, but are you offering a counter argument to my reply to TGM, or to your preceeding post which I had not seen when I posted. Because the above isn't a counter-argument to what I wrote to TGM, which was simply that Macnaghten expressed his belief that Druitt was the Ripper in 1894 and again in 1914 (I stand corrected), which he did, and the point is that he did not change his mind on the matter. It's irrelevant that the latter was his first public pronouncement on the subject. The rest is your slanted take on the subject ('weak suspects', 'no hard evidence' - which is neither known to be what Macnaghten thought nor known to be what Macnaghten knew to be the truth) which basically amounts to a reliance on Macnaghten, which may be right.

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Jonathan

Yes that's possible, Bridewell.

Macnaghten could have written in his memoirs that there was a Polish Jewish suspect who could not be totally eliminated from suspicion.

Instead he just eliminated him altogether.

Swanson is writing to himself, after all, so he doesn't have to put any name at all.

Why write to himself and initial his writings ?

I was just applying basic historical methodology; eg. how are certain sources similar and different from each other -- and why?

Is that elastic enough to lead to different and competing interpretations.

I sure think so, but some do not; that there can be one only explanation.

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Jonathan,

Or because there was only one suspect by the name of Kosminski, so there was no need to include a first name in order to distinguish between two or more?

Regards, Bridewell.

That argument doesnt stand up MM prepared the memo for a specific purpose with the intention of someone presumabaly higher in the chain of command to read.There would be no point in giving half a name even if he himself knew the full name someone reading the memo would surely want to know and question it.

Werent you taught to include as much information as possible when compiling reports. ?

[Trevor Marriott]

I haven't seen anything yet?

Yes, indeed I haven't.

Monty

Take the blinkers off and the rose tinted spectacles

[Jonathan H]

Yes that's possible, Bridewell.

Macnaghten could have written in his memoirs that there was a Polish Jewish suspect who could not be totally eliminated from suspicion.

Instead he just eliminated him altogether.

Swanson is writing to himself, after all, so he doesn't have to put any name at all.

I was just applying basic historical methodology; eg. how are certain sources similar and different from each other -- and why?

Is that elastic enough to lead to different and competing interpretations.

I sure think so, but some do not; that there can be one only explanation.

[Bridewell]

First Name

Which bring us back as to why Swanson does not give 'Kosminski's' first name? Because Macnaghten did not, and the suspect begins with him in the extant record -- at least for now.

Hi Jonathan,

Or because there was only one suspect by the name of Kosminski, so there was no need to include a first name in order to distinguish between two or more?

Regards, Bridewell.

[Jonathan H]

The counter-argument to that, Paul, is that 'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper' (which is written in 1914, not 1913) is not just another Macnaghten source.

Rather it is the only one which Mac published under his own knighted name, and is the [de-facto] third version of his 'memo' (he had 'Aberconway' at his elbow to adapt, though he disingenuously claims to be writing from memory).

For the first and only time Macnaghten would be held accountable for a Ripper opinion.

It is also anti-Anderson through and through in its content and themes, eg. Anderson himself is airbrushed out of existence, plus Mac asserts: I found the Ripper, albeit posthumously, and I found the 'Dear Boss' hoaxer about a year after I started at CID, and I found it was 'one of us' while, guess who, was uselessly chasing a phantom!

Remember, from the public's point of view, Macnaghten's 1913 retirement comments and subsequent 1914 memoirs were his first known contributions on this subject at all (Littlechild in 1913 is quite clueless that Mac is Sims' source for 'Dr. D').

So, according to the retiring Commissioner, the Ripper really was a man who took his own life about twenty-four hours after the Kelly murder.

Is this the 'drowned doctor' of Griffiths and Sims? Hmmm ... That was the same night though -- wasn't it?

Well, perhaps not as 'doctor' and 'drowned' are not even part of Mac's opaque profile (actually it is the same suspect, but you would need other sources, decades later, to know this.)

Mac is reticent but says in 1913 that he knows exactly who the Ripper was, but many things have to be kept 'secret' -- even apparently destroyed, implying that they are his papers and not owned by the police -- and that the maniac was 'remarkable' and 'fascinating'.

On the other hand, in the 1894 archived Report 'Kosminski' and M. J. Druitt and Michael Ostrog are all three dismissed by the same source as weak suspects, about which there was no hard evidence -- just all three are better than Cutbush (?!).

The difference being that Druitt, a minor, hearsay suspect, who might have been a doctor and then again might not have been, andsupposedly investigated whilst alive, was definitely known to be a sexual maniac and so his 'good' family, understandably, 'believed' he was Jack the Ripper(?!)

Which bring us back as to why Swanson does not give 'Kosminski's' first name? Because Macnaghten did not, and the suspect begins with him in the extant record -- at least for now.

[PaulB]

Though this isn't the place for it, here is an opportunity to weigh in on this idea, and perhaps I can keep it on topic. Macnaghten may have suffered from the same thing we all suffer from. We all change our opinions slightly as we get new information, and especially when the old information wasn't particularly satisfying. I believe it is very important to stress that Macnaghten didn't dismiss Kosminski. Instead, he may have become excited about new information that replaced the ennui of the old ideas. If i were a betting man, I might even say that had Macnaghten been privy to all the new theories that have come out or have evolved somewhat over the years, he would have wavered on his Druitt stance, and maybe over and over again. I can't be sure, but we all have changed our minds over the years with the exception of two or three Hutchinsonians who bear no mentioning here (though I did). Why would Macnaghten be different, and why would a switch in emphasis make Kosminski less suspect. The answers: He wasn't different and Kosminski hasn't diminished.

Mike

Hi Mike
As Macnaghten wrote the memorandum in 1894 and was still advocating Druitt in his autobiography in 1913, I think it is fair to say that he stuck to his guns, though it is entirely possible that he wavered and wobbled now and again. The thing is, though, that Macnaghten could have been wrong, in which case 'Kosminski' (and other suspects) would go back in the frame. Likewise, if Anderson was wrong, Druitt goes back in the frame. (The reality, though, is that they are all in the frame because we don't know whether Macnaghten, Anderson, or the Man in the Moon was right about their favoured suspect being the Ripper.) But Macnaghten did not exonerate anyone, at least in the sense that he had evidence to show that they were innocent.

[Jonathan H]

To TGM

Yes, that's possible.

But it can be also be argued that it is more likely Macnaghten had a better sense of 'Kosminski' as a suspect than did Anderson/Swanson, let alone the evidence against Druitt about they have nothing to say.

This is based on Mac in 'Aberconway' seeming to know that the sspect was still alive, and Anderson/Swanson not knowing this, in fact under a very false delusion. Furthermore, Swanson has the suspect dying 'soon after' his incarceration which seems to be where Macanbgteh placed it: about March 1889. Anderson too seems to place the witness identification back there too.

But Sims, Mac's mouthpiece, has the same suspect alive and out and about long after the Kelly murder, in his 1907 piece.

So who really knew the most about Aaron Kosminski lying behind 'Kosminski'?

Plus, Macnaghten arguably did eliminate this suspect, as anything important, by implication in 'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper' (1914)because he has the only chief suspect as a Christian Gentile, denies that he had ever been detained in an asylum, that 'Jack' wrote anti-Semitic graffiti, and that there was only one witness, a beat cop, and he saw nothing of value.

So any other story about a Jewish suspect and a Jewish witness is, as Sims' would claim in 1910, a 'fairy tale'.

[The Good Michael]

Trevor, let’s set this straight. Macnaghten doesn’t exonerate anyone. He says he is inclined to exonerate two. There’s a big difference between a feeling and a fact. And he only reaches this inclination in light of the evidence he has received about Druitt, and we do not know what that evidence was...

Though this isn't the place for it, here is an opportunity to weigh in on this idea, and perhaps I can keep it on topic. Macnaghten may have suffered from the same thing we all suffer from. We all change our opinions slightly as we get new information, and especially when the old information wasn't particularly satisfying. I believe it is very important to stress that Macnaghten didn't dismiss Kosminski. Instead, he may have become excited about new information that replaced the ennui of the old ideas. If i were a betting man, I might even say that had Macnaghten been privy to all the new theories that have come out or have evolved somewhat over the years, he would have wavered on his Druitt stance, and maybe over and over again. I can't be sure, but we all have changed our minds over the years with the exception of two or three Hutchinsonians who bear no mentioning here (though I did). Why would Macnaghten be different, and why would a switch in emphasis make Kosminski less suspect. The answers: He wasn't different and Kosminski hasn't diminished.

Mike