Koz - No First Name in Marginalia

[PaulB]

To Paul
This is straight question: if I have a 'slant', do you?

A straight answer, no I don't. Not the way you do. Fourteen words down, just fourteen words, you write that Macnaghten 'broke cover', like he was a hunted fox or a spy revealing his real allegiances, but what evidence do you have for implying that? None. For all you know he was a friendly and garrulous, ever willing to share his thoughts and opinions, to say nothing of the victim photos he kept in his desk drawer, with any trusted colleague, journalist, friend, neighbour, club member... who passed within his ken. His thoughts and opinions may have been general knowledge within his wide but immediate circle. That he never wrote about them for public consumption until he penned Days of My Years is very far from surprising. Many policemen never aired their thoughts on the subject until they penned their memoirs, and most never aired them at all. So, did Macnaghten 'break cover'. No. He wrote his memoirs, that's all.

But you use 'break cover' because you do picture Macnaghten like some Moriarty in the centre of his web spinning misinformation and pulling the strings of Griffiths and Sims. To 'break cover' is pejorative writing, it is intended to give a slant to your reader's interpretation. It's no a big thing in itself, but it is part of your theory about Macnaghten.

The simple fact is that in Days of My Years Macnaghten for the first time publicly and in print expressed his opinion that an unnamed Thames Suicide was Jack the Ripper. No 'breaking cover', just an opportunity to write of his career, experiences and thoughts.

You write that it is 'irrelevant' that in 1913 and in 1914 -- the latter in published form --Macnaghten put his own self and his own name to his Ripper opinion in public.

I could not disagree more, and cannot understand how you come to that conclusion.

I come to that conclusion because Macnaghten expressing his opinion in print under his own name for the first time in 1913 is irrelevant to the fact that he expressed that opinion in 1894 and therefore held to it, despite the ebbs and flows of new information, for two decades. That Macnaghten held to his opinion for that length of time was a telling point, in my view, to TGM's observation that Macnaghten, being human, probably, like all humans, changed his mind quite frequently.

I was, in a round about way, saying that the evidence on which Macnaghten based his conclusions in 1894 must have been pretty convincing because he had not been persuaded from it by anything that came along in the next two decades.

For the first time Macnaghten broke cover and thus could be held accountable as to what he believed about this 'mystery'.

It is just as relevant as when Anderson began doing it from 1895, Abberline in 1903, Ried and Smith, et al.

Do I think that the reliability of the Marginalia, of Swanson's opinion -- if it is Swanson's opinion and not just recording Anderson's -- is less valuable because it was not for publication?

For sure. That's one way of looking at it.

That Macnaghten thought Druitt was the Ripper in 1894 I agree with.

I believe that according to his own 1914 account it began in about 1891 matching the leaking of the MP's 'doctrine'.

What complicates the above is that in the official version, filed in 1894, Macnaghten does not record such an opinion, eg. the family 'believed' not himself. Druitt is just one of three unlikelies. He is listed first seemingly at random.

Then in 1898, the MP story is reshaped and rebooted via a 'Home Office Report' which is a variation of that archived document, but when it was composed is unclear.

It is argued therefore that in 1894, in the one official document for file, Macnaghten judged Druitt to be really nothing much, despite the certainty of the family and the suggestive timing of his self-murder, eg. so close to the 'awful glut' -- which it wasn't.

Therefore the official opinion should trump anything Mac told credulous cronies, or any rejected 'draft' version, or colorful memoirs which have to sell.

I don't know what any of this has to do with the authenticity of the marginalia and the attempts on no evidence whatsoever to claim that there are serious doubts about it. However, if by 'official opinion' you mean Anderson's opinion, who says it trumps anything Macnaghten 'told credulous cronies' (more pejorative wording; why 'credulous'?)?

The bottom line is that you don't really have any idea at all of the evidence on which Macnaghten based his beliefs about Druitt. Nor do you have any idea of the evidence against Kosminski. Neither do I. Neither does anybody else. So Anderson doesn't trump Macnaghten, Macnaghten doesn't trump Anderson, and nobody trumps either of them. Nobody trumped.

The only thing that happens is that you decided where your research hour and research dollar is going. You spend it on Macnaghten, Rob House spends it on Anderson. You then share it with other people. Thank goodness. But the point is that you are both looking for that Holy Grail that explains why Druitt and Kosminski were ever suspected in the first place.

[PaulB]

Hi All,

We appear to have two opposing camps, neither of which can conclusively prove its argument.

And thus the flame of Ripperology burns eternally bright.

Regards,

Simon

Au contraire, Simon. One 'camp' calls upon the evidence of two handwriting examiners who have stated within the limits of their professionalism that the marginalia is authentic, and upon the impeccable provenance of the source, and upon the utter lack of any evidence that any of those in a position to forge or otherwise tamper with the marginalia would have done so. And on the other side you have somebody who on absolutely no evidence whatsoever claims that there exist serious doubts about the marginalia's authenticity, when the reality is that there are no doubts at all.

[The Good Michael]

Au contraire, Simon. One 'camp' calls upon the evidence of two handwriting examiners who have stated within the limits of their professionalism that the marginalia is authentic, and upon the impeccable provenance of the source, and upon the utter lack of any evidence that any of those in a position to forge or otherwise tamper with the marginalia would have done so. And on the other side you have somebody who on absolutely no evidence whatsoever claims that there exist serious doubts about the marginalia's authenticity, when the reality is that there are no doubts at all.

Okay then, one camp and one... outpost?

Mike

[Jonathan H]

To PaulB

We will of course agree to disagree, as ever.

I don't accept that I am slanting anything.

I am simply interpreting limited and incomplete sources in an attempt to create a unifying theory without loose ends.

I am joining dots together whilst always conceding that the dots can be joined other ways -- as you did with your previous post about Macnaghten.

Such conclusions can only ever be provisional.

By the way, when I wrote about the potential unreliability of the Swanson Marginalia, I did not mean its authenticity. I was clumsily referring to Swanson's credibility as a primary source writing in a private document -- and making errors about his own alleged chief suspect.

All sources have values and limitations, the disagreement is over the balance. Are they more reliable than unreliable?

I'll just tidy up a few other bits and pieces.

I have seen you write that before, about Mac's memoirs; about him pointing to a Thames suicide.

In 'Laying the Ghost ...' he never mentions the location and method of the likely Ripper's suicide.

Never even hints at it.

I agree, you'd think he would. What with his eye for the memorable anecdote and vivid detail even if exaggerated?

But he doesn't. Perversely neither 'drowned' nor 'doctor' make it into his public account.

Is that slanting it when I write 'perverse'?

I don't think so. It is perverse, that the Ur-source of the drowned doctor Super-suspect drops both those elements in his own account.

Why did he do that?

It was one of the first surprises when I read the whole chapter in 'Days of My Years' for myself rather than rely on the interpretation of secondary sources -- those which include the memoirs of course.

Well, [the un-named] Druitt wasn't a doctor and in the one account of his for the public under his own name Mac was careful not to commit himself to this error -- or should I write: lie? Nothing about what the 'Simon Pure' did for a living ...?

The river omission is even odder, as it was true. He thus denied his readers the most colourful and vivid bit about that suspect; his penitential plunge into a river (eg. see Sims what does with it in 1907)?

Griffiths and Sims had made it consistently clear to the public that the suicidal doctor drowned himself in the Thames, the latter even making it crystal clear that it was within hours of the Kelly murder.

The MP had made it clear in a source you recently found that he stuck by his opinion, despite the arrest of Sadler and apparent police scepticism -- that the Ripper had killed himself 'the same evening' as the final murder.

My theory is that Macnaghten could not include the river detail if he wanted to concede that this suspect did not kill himself 'the same evening', because it exposed a compression of events for the sake of a melodramatic climax.

It made the story impossible, so it had to go.

for if you elongate the gap between Kelly's murder and the fiend's own murder, then how can he be hanging about for longer than it takes to stagger to the Thames? It's already quite a stretch to even believe that nobody saw him on his way to the river, but any longer than a straight line from Miller's Ct. the Thames ('raving and shrieking' in Sims) and it is rendered ludicrous.

In 1914, Macnaghten stretches the gap to a loose twenty-four hours and shrugs that it might have been longer.

In reality it was was longer. Again the cosy old paradigm of the police chief who did not know much about the basic details of his preferred suspect is arguably shown to be very fragile.

Now, either the cronies were 'credulous' or they were in on it, that the suspect was being fictionalised.

Is that slanting it? I don't think so. It is interpreting contradictory data.

We know that 'Aberconway' is not a copy of a definitive document of state, nor does it reflect the real archived version about Druitt's worth as a suspect? That it was never sent to the Home Office.

Yet Sims, in 1903, breathtakingly swats away Abberline, no less than a genuine policeman who investigated the Whitechapel murders, because the playwright knows about the 'Home Office Report' -- which isn't one.

Now either Sims wrote that sincerely (and rudely) and therefore was misled by Macnaghten -- and was therefore credulous via his friendship with an high-ranking cop -- or he was in on it, and knew full well that the police of 1888 were of course not about to arrest the 'mad doctor'.

The Major probably knew that 'family' in the 'Home Office Report' had become 'friends'. That's deceiving his readers, a piece of deceit which Mac never corrected in Sims. The latter has more material on the likely Ripper, which also spins the story away from Druitt, eg. being in an asylum.

Now that is fact, Paul.

It is a fact that Sims' profile takes you away from the real Montague Druitt. The question is how and why did that happen?

The old paradigm said because Macnaghten began to sincerely forget bits and pieces.

I accepted that until I read your 2006 book, specifically your suggestive line that perhaps Mac should not be taken 'literally' in all that he writes?

For example, his memoirs deny that Druitt had ever been 'detained' in an asylum, or that he was about to be arrested, or that he killed himself within hours of the Kelly murder and thus strongly indicate, to say the least, that he was not forgetful but instead affably manipulative.

I respect the interpretation of Anderson as the most reliable police source and more sources found in the future may show it to be stronger again. In this interpretation Macnaghten becomes a sideshow: a man with merely a theory which may have hardened as a well-earned retirement beckoned (and he was seriously ill) whereas Anderson allegedly alone among these police sources, actually claimed that the Ripper had been definitely identified. Since Mac did not know much about Druitt, then we can judge him to be less reliable and certainly less emphatic than his former boss.

Then battle is joined over Anderson's values and limitations, and so on.

Yet I believe this interpretation to be quite unconvincing because Mac's 1913 comments, and his 1914 memoirs, and propagating his opinion via reliable surrogates, and Druitt-as-the-Ripper originating in Dorset, show that he too was just as convinced and just as certain about his chief suspect.

Sure, they both might have been wrong, but one of them might have been right.

That could have been Sir Melville Macnaghten because he, arguably, seems to have a better handle -- based on the frustrating fragments left to us -- on both the real Aaron Kosminski and the real Montague Druitt.

I offer the working theory that the 'North country Vicar' of 1899 is writing about Druitt and therefore we most certainly do have a provisional explanation as to why Macnaghten was so posthumously certain, along with the family and the politician.

The drawback is that 'epileptic mania' does not literally exist ...

[Trevor Marriott]

Au contraire, Simon. One 'camp' calls upon the evidence of two handwriting examiners who have stated within the limits of their professionalism that the marginalia is authentic, and upon the impeccable provenance of the source, and upon the utter lack of any evidence that any of those in a position to forge or otherwise tamper with the marginalia would have done so. And on the other side you have somebody who on absolutely no evidence whatsoever claims that there exist serious doubts about the marginalia's authenticity, when the reality is that there are no doubts at all.

Well I will give you 10 out of 10 for tenacity but what Simon says is correct the only difference is that I am man enough to say I cannot conclusivley say that the marginalia is a forgery.

However you categorically say conlculsively that it is not a forgery in whole or part. I thjnk you need to take your blinkers and rose tinted spectacles off for a moment and look at the full picture of eveything surrounding the marginalia. You will then clearly see that taking everyhting in the right perspective there is not only a serious doubt about the marginalia but everything connected to it from MM right up to Andersons entry and then onto the Marginalia.

Absolutley nothing about these occurrences stands up to close scrutiny.

In 1894 MM formulates the MM based on what? We do not know, but in that he names amongst others a person named Kosminski as being a likely suspect in surname only. What we do know is that there is no official records or reports which can corroborate his initial suspicion that a man named Kosminski was ever regarded a likely suspect. (Lests not go ito all this business about records being lost stolen or destroyed this old chestnut has been done to death and is widely used as in this case to prop up theories)

MM then later formulates the AV in which he then exonerates the likely suspect named Kosminski, now you can play around with this word all you like but exonarates is a strong word for him to use and is clear and specific from the Oxford English dictionary "To free a person from blame"

Now yesterday you make a ridiculous statement that MM could have exonerated him from being the ripper but that would still leave him as a suspect. Well as i said yesterday if he was exonaterated by MM as being the ripper how can he still be regarded as a suspect ? In sequence it is a transition from suspect to perpretator to being eliminated from being the perpretrator or a suspect.

That in itself should have been the end of any further suspicion of any involvement in The murders by anyone named Kosminski.

But no in the 1980`s Martin Fido carries out his extensive reserach into trying to find a mad polish jew who could have been the Kosminski named by MM.I can only assume as a historical excercise, cue briefly Aaron Kosminski, then exit Aaron Kosminki enter Nathan Kaminski /David Cohen (square pegs in round holes)

Now the point I would argue is by this time MM had exonarated the man named Kosminski so why were reserachers hell bent on keeping alive a Kosminski as a likely or prime suspect. it seems they were.

1980 Jim Swanson discovers the marginalia and offers it to the News of the World who pay a substantial amount for the rights ,but never print it. Now this I find strange. You yourself stated yesterday in a post that this marginalia is of important evidential value and if that be the case why didnt the NOW publish it because way back then it would have been regarded as an important find. The part of the marginlia which makes it important is the part which names Kosminski.

I have to ask the question at that time did the marginalia include the name Kosminski? if it didnt then there is a plausible explanation as to why they didnt publish it.

Sometime between 1980-1987 Jim Swanson obtains the rights back from the NOW.

Swanson then offers it to the Telegraph who do publish it in 1987 and publish it with the name Kosminski included. Cue a feeding frenzy of authors you included which has contiuned to this day all championing Kosminski as a prime suspect.

The marginalia is examined by two different document examiners at different times who cannot conlusivley say that Donald Swanson wrote all of the annotations. It is ascertained that the annotations were written at two different times. Now why would Donald Swanson do that after all looking at the annotations it would take only a few moments to write it all in one go why two diferent times? Of course its is also noticeable that right at the very end appears those golden words "Kosminski was the suspect"

No mention of the christian name of the Kosminski no mention of the name of the witness. Swanson also mentions this seaside home ID which has purportedly taken place against all known police protocol and not a scrap of official documentaion or any later witness testimony from anyone else involved in this from a police perspective or from anyone from the seaside home. Total silence that speaks volumes in itself. Furthermore the marginalia does not include the name of the witness nor the christian name of the Kosminski.

I have to ask did any high ranking officer serving with the police at that time know the christian of the most fearsome serial killer in the annals of britsh criminal history.it seems not.

The another contentious part of his marginalia whereby they bring the suspect back home as if they had been out on a jolly to the seaside and drop him off knowing that they were freeing a killer. The only two people who refer to this are Anderson and Swanson. Yet we know that many other high ranking officers in later years conformed that the police did not have any clue as to the identity of the killer.

You suggest the marginalia corroborates Andersons entry well we know he cannot be totally relied upon in many of his writings, furthermore we know that right up until the publication of his book he was telling the press that they had no clue as to the identity of the killer. Why did he simply not tell the press what Swanson told the press in 1895 that they knew the killer and that he was dead.

The only corroboration Anderson gives gto the marginalia is to not name the suspect or to not name the witness.

No I am sorry much of this is fairy tale stuff and if it is ever proved that the marginalia wasnt written by Swanson in its entirety then I guess you and others are going to be very unhappy bunnies.

[PaulB]

To PaulB

We will of course agree to disagree, as ever.

I don't accept that I am slanting anything.

I am simply interpreting limited and incomplete sources in an attempt to create a unifying theory without loose ends.

I am joining dots together whilst always conceding that the dots can be joined other ways -- as you did with your previous post about Macnaghten.

Such conclusions can only ever be provisional.

By the way, when I wrote about the potential unreliability of the Swanson Marginalia, I did not mean its authenticity. I was clumsily referring to Swanson's credibility as a primary source writing in a private document -- and making errors about his own alleged chief suspect.

Jonathan, you have indeed joined the dots, and having joined them you present your scenario as if it is accepted fact. In your scenario Macnaghten sits at the centre of a web and manipulates people like Griffiths and Sims, and so you use pejorative wording like 'break cover' in a discussion like this one. The fact is that it is not accepted that your scenario is true, it is not accepted that Macnaghten was manipulating anyone, and it is therefore not accepted that Macnaghten in any sense broke cover.

And the trouble is that this is a debate over whether there are good and justifiable grounds for questioning the authenticity of the marginalia, or whether Trev is blowing hot air through his bottom, which rather makes Swanson's credaibility as a source of secondary importance. Let's first establish that the marginalia is authentic.

All sources have values and limitations, the disagreement is over the balance. Are they more reliable than unreliable?

I'll just tidy up a few other bits and pieces.

I have seen you write that before, about Mac's memoirs; about him pointing to a Thames suicide.

In 'Laying the Ghost ...' he never mentions the location and method of the likely Ripper's suicide.

Never even hints at it.

I agree, you'd think he would. What with his eye for the memorable anecdote and vivid detail even if exaggerated?

But he doesn't. Perversely neither 'drowned' nor 'doctor' make it into his public account.

Is that slanting it when I write 'perverse'?

I don't think so. It is perverse, that the Ur-source of the drowned doctor Super-suspect drops both those elements in his own account.

Why did he do that?

It was one of the first surprises when I read the whole chapter in 'Days of My Years' for myself rather than rely on the interpretation of secondary sources -- those which include the memoirs of course.

Well, [the un-named] Druitt wasn't a doctor and in the one account of his for the public under his own name Mac was careful not to commit himself to this error -- or should I write: lie? Nothing about what the 'Simon Pure' did for a living ...?

The river omission is even odder, as it was true. He thus denied his readers the most colourful and vivid bit about that suspect; his penitential plunge into a river (eg. see Sims what does with it in 1907)?

Griffiths and Sims had made it consistently clear to the public that the suicidal doctor drowned himself in the Thames, the latter even making it crystal clear that it was within hours of the Kelly murder.

The MP had made it clear in a source you recently found that he stuck by his opinion, despite the arrest of Sadler and apparent police scepticism -- that the Ripper had killed himself 'the same evening' as the final murder.

My theory is that Macnaghten could not include the river detail if he wanted to concede that this suspect did not kill himself 'the same evening', because it exposed a compression of events for the sake of a melodramatic climax.

It made the story impossible, so it had to go.

for if you elongate the gap between Kelly's murder and the fiend's own murder, then how can he be hanging about for longer than it takes to stagger to the Thames? It's already quite a stretch to even believe that nobody saw him on his way to the river, but any longer than a straight line from Miller's Ct. the Thames ('raving and shrieking' in Sims) and it is rendered ludicrous.

In 1914, Macnaghten stretches the gap to a loose twenty-four hours and shrugs that it might have been longer.

In reality it was was longer. Again the cosy old paradigm of the police chief who did not know much about the basic details of his preferred suspect is arguably shown to be very fragile.

Okay, but that's got a lot to do with Macnaghten, questions you are asking and questions you are answering, but it doesn't have a whole lot to do with the marginalia.

Now, either the cronies were 'credulous' or they were in on it, that the suspect was being fictionalised.

Is that slanting it? I don't think so. It is interpreting contradictory data.

(1) ‘Credulous’ means over-ready to believe or ready to believe on weak or insufficient grounds. What evidence do you have that, say, Sims was over-ready to believe? Why didn’t he simply accept something persuasively told by a trustworthy source in a position to know? As far as I know, you have no evidence that Sims was over-ready to believe; on the contrary, Sims was arguably seeking confirmation from Littlechild. So, yes, ‘credulous is pejorative, is slanting.

(2) They don't have to have been credulous or complicit, a dupe or a knowing accomplice. They could just have been told and questioned and accepted something by a trusted and informed source, just like we all do every day of our lives? Making them out to be dumb or in n it is slanting.

We know that 'Aberconway' is not a copy of a definitive document of state, nor does it reflect the real archived version about Druitt's worth as a suspect? That it was never sent to the Home Office.

Yet Sims, in 1903, breathtakingly swats away Abberline, no less than a genuine policeman who investigated the Whitechapel murders, because the playwright knows about the 'Home Office Report' -- which isn't one.

Now either Sims wrote that sincerely (and rudely) and therefore was misled by Macnaghten -- and was therefore credulous via his friendship with an high-ranking cop -- or he was in on it, and knew full well that the police of 1888 were of course not about to arrest the 'mad doctor'.

The Major probably knew that 'family' in the 'Home Office Report' had become 'friends'. That's deceiving his readers, a piece of deceit which Mac never corrected in Sims. The latter has more material on the likely Ripper, which also spins the story away from Druitt, eg. being in an asylum.

Now that is fact, Paul.

It is a fact that Sims' profile takes you away from the real Montague Druitt. The question is how and why did that happen?

The old paradigm said because Macnaghten began to sincerely forget bits and pieces.

I accepted that until I read your 2006 book, specifically your suggestive line that perhaps Mac should not be taken 'literally' in all that he writes?

For example, his memoirs deny that Druitt had ever been 'detained' in an asylum, or that he was about to be arrested, or that he killed himself within hours of the Kelly murder and thus strongly indicate, to say the least, that he was not forgetful but instead affably manipulative.

Fine. But again it isn't really relevant.

I respect the interpretation of Anderson as the most reliable police source and more sources found in the future may show it to be stronger again. In this interpretation Macnaghten becomes a sideshow: a man with merely a theory which may have hardened as a well-earned retirement beckoned (and he was seriously ill) whereas Anderson allegedly alone among these police sources, actually claimed that the Ripper had been definitely identified. Since Mac did not know much about Druitt, then we can judge him to be less reliable and certainly less emphatic than his former boss.

Then battle is joined over Anderson's values and limitations, and so on.

Ah ha! Now we're hitting the nitty-gritty, and yet again it is your perception that acceptance of Anderson diminishes Macnaghten. But who says Anderson is the 'most reliable' police source?

[Jonathan H]

Some of my best stuff there, Paul, and it gets consigned to the irrelevant pile.

Oh well. We agree to disagree. I think that was all relevant to my not-a-slanter defense.

Martin Fido thought Anderson was unlikely to mean Aaron Kosminski as his suspect because he was sectioned too late.

The overwhelming evidence is that the Marginalia is authentic for reasons given by many already.

Does Trevor have the right to question its authenticity?

Of course, but the argument used to debunk it as an hoax is weaker, to put it mildly, than the one which strongly argues that it is not an hoax and is really Swanson's authentic, private jottings.


'Accepted fact'?

By whom ...? It's not 'accepted' by anybody here?

I always write: I am alone. It is a theory. I maybe wrong -- for all the bloody good it does me ...

[PaulB]

Some of my best stuff there, Paul, and it gets consigned to the irrelevant pile.

It's read and digested and notes are taken. It just isn't relevant to the discussion here.

Oh well. We agree to disagree. I think that was all relevant to my not-a-slanter defense.

It may have been, Jonathan. All I'm trying to say, really, is that I don't consider Druitt any more or less likely than any other suspect, Kosminski included. All we are doing is trying to understand our sources and hopefully find more information, the fact that somebody thing Druitt or Macnaghten is a potentially more profitable line of inquiry and somebody else thinks Kosminski is is neither here nor there. They are both worth investigating.

Martin Fido thought Anderson was unlikely to mean Aaron Kosminski as his suspect because he was sectioned too late.

Indeed he did. And does.

The overwhelming evidence is that the Marginalia is authentic for reasons given by many already.

Yes, it is.

Does Trevor have the right to question its authenticity?

Of course, but the argument used to debunk it as an hoax is weaker, to put it mildly, than the one which strongly argues that it is not an hoax and is really Swanson's authentic, private jottings.

'Accepted fact'?

By whom ...? It's not 'accepted' by anybody here?

I always write: I am alone. It is a theory. I maybe wrong -- for all the bloody good it does me ...

Sorry, you lost me a bit here. Yes, Trev has every right to question the authenticity of the marginalia, although I rather wish he'd stop parading his observations as if they were new. There is absolutely nothing he says that wasn't thought of years ago, discussed, argued about, looked into... It's all old and ancient hat.

It's where you say accepted fact that I get lost on...

I know you always write it is a theory, Jonathan, and I, for one, am grateful you take the time and trouble to air it, but just sometimes it is either off topic or diverting, and sometimes you use our theory to argue an angle as if your theory was a fact that needed to be taken into consideration. And I think you've done that here. Just a little. My point is that Anderson and Swanson do not devalue Macnaghten, or vice versa. We don't know enough about any of them to make any hard and fast conclusions. That's where Trevor goes way off the rails too, because he asks questions of the story we're told and then draws a conclusion (in his case the marginalia is a fake), or he interprets Macnaghten exonerating Kosminski and Ostrog as if he actually did exonerate them, when it is in fact manifestly obvious he didn't. What we have to do is answer the questions, you are attempting to do that, and making some good points too.




Yes, I know you do. And I, at least, am very grateful that you do so. Somebody keep hammering home The problem is that you

[Jonathan H]

Hmmm

A very cryptic last line?

I'll try and read it again tomorrow during daylight.

I I think you are saying that since each suspect has his police 'patron' of arguably varying degrees of certainty, then they are all in a kind of equipoise until a source, or sources turn up to break this stalemate.

I subscribe to the belief that a strong argument can be mounted that Macnaghten claimed that he solved it to his satisfaction, as best you can without catching the maniac in the act, then that might be the best provisional solution.

I think that by eliminating 'Kosminski' and Ostrog from his memoirs, and hammering it home that there was no slam dunk witness and that the best suspect was not Jewish he was, by implication, 'exonerating' everybody who was not Druitt -- perhaps quite wrongly.

But he was consciously doing it. For Macnaghten and Anderson were in some kind of competition, even if only one was playing this game.

The reason I find the cronies credulous is becasue they accepted what they surely must have known was rubbish: that the 'police' were very sure by the end of 1888 that the Ripper was probably a suicided doctor, because ... why? Because their top cop pal said so. This is especially true of Sims.

Littlechild had no idea that 'Dr D' originated with Mac.

In fact, I was being too generous in writing that Macnaghten 'broke cover' in 1914 because he barely did so since he omitted both 'doctor' and drowned'. He still kept much of the real story veiled writing he says 'chiefly for his own amusement'.

[Monty]

In 1894 MM formulates the MM based on what? We do not know, but in that he names amongst others a person named Kosminski as being a likely suspect in surname only. What we do know is that there is no official records or reports which can corroborate his initial suspicion that a man named Kosminski was ever regarded a likely suspect. (Lests (sic) not go ito all this business about records being lost stolen or destroyed this old chestnut has been done to death and is widely used as in this case to prop up theories)

However its valid and remains so.

Records have been lost and destroyed. Lets not try and dismiss this fact out of hand.

It remains.

Monty

[PaulB]

Hmmm

A very cryptic last line?

Mysteriously truncated and way down the page. It said that the problem (from my perspective anyway) is that sometimes you bang on about Macnaghten inappropriately, as if we were in conflict or as if you felt obliged to take down Anderson a few pegs, or shove Macnaghten up a few. As said, you don't have to feel that way. Macnaghten's thoughts are just as valuable as Anderson's or Swanson's or anybody else's.

I'll try and read it again tomorrow during daylight.

I I think you are saying that since each suspect has his police 'patron' of arguably varying degrees of certainty, then they are all in a kind of equipoise until a source, or sources turn up to break this stalemate.

Yes I am.

I subscribe to the belief that a strong argument can be mounted that Macnaghten claimed that he solved it to his satisfaction, as best you can without catching the maniac in the act, then that might be the best provisional solution.

Fine. Some won't agree with you, but that's a reasonable position to adopt if you want to.

I think that by eliminating 'Kosminski' and Ostrog from his memoirs, and hammering it home that there was no slam dunk witness and that the best suspect was not Jewish he was, by implication, 'exonerating' everybody who was not Druitt -- perhaps quite wrongly.

Aw, and I was getting in an agreement groove there. Here's examples of you slanting again: Have you shown - indeed, can be shown - that Macnaghten 'eliminated' Kosminski and Ostrog from his memoirs, rather than simply didn't include them? Can you demonstrate that Macnaghten was aware of a 'slam dunk' witness? If there was a witness, and Anderson says there was, then either Anderson was lying, Macnaghten was unaware of it, or Macnaghten intentionally didn't mention him. The latter doesn't reflect on Macnaghten or his veracity very well. But moving on...

But he was consciously doing it. For Macnaghten and Anderson were in some kind of competition, even if only one was playing this game.

Okay...

The reason I find the cronies credulous is becasue they accepted what they surely must have known was rubbish: that the 'police' were very sure by the end of 1888 that the Ripper was probably a suicided doctor, because ... why? Because their top cop pal said so. This is especially true of Sims.

Littlechild had no idea that 'Dr D' originated with Mac.

That's open to question. One assumes that Sims told Littlechild that he got the Dr D info from Griffiths, who in turn, he says, got it from Anderson. Now, there are arguments swirling around that piece of text, but a solid argument is that Littlechild meant Macnaghten - the information in Griffiths came from Macnaghten, Dr D, if Druitt, was Macnaghten's suspect. So maybe Littlechild did know, or at least suspected, that Dr D originated with Macnaghten.

In fact, I was being too generous in writing that Macnaghten 'broke cover' in 1914 because he barely did so since he omitted both 'doctor' and drowned'. He still kept much of the real story veiled writing he says 'chiefly for his own amusement'.

Generous or not, it is still prejudicial in that you are encouraging your reader to share your opinion about what Macmoriarty was doing.

[PaulB]

However its valid and remains so.

Records have been lost and destroyed. Lets not try and dismiss this fact out of hand.

It remains.

Monty

The world can at least be grateful that Trev hasn't joined the often loony fringe of Biblical scholarship. Since he has huge trouble understanding how official files can be known to have existed, he simply wouldn't be able to comprehend how and why it can be said that the New Testament Gospels drew on earlier and now lost books.

However, one observes how convenient it is to Trevor to be able to discount every piece of evidence by claiming it is either forged or didn't exist, or was somebody's fantasy. You can't really argue against reasoning like that. Not that is is 'reasoning', of course. It's utter nonsense. But the marginalia is a forgery, so that's got rid of. No proof, of course. Just a bunch of unoriginal questions which have been asked a thousand times, and argued about, and written about. And there are no official records about Kosminski, and since he denies that records must have existed otherwise Macnaghten wouldn't have heard about him, so there's no evidence, not even presumed evidence, that Kosminski was a suspect.

It's great, isn't it. With 'reasoning' like that you can argue anything.

[Trevor Marriott]

However its valid and remains so.

Records have been lost and destroyed. Lets not try and dismiss this fact out of hand.

It remains.

Monty

You are not able to prove that anything connected to this was lost or destroyed or that it ever exsited in the first place.

If it did ever exist what a coincidnce evidence to show perhaps who JTR was, lost or destroyed, and look at all the rubbish police files and records that has been left behind and not destroyed or lost.

As I said before its a cop out used by those who champion Kosminski and the marginalia. I would have thought you with your experience would be one of the first to question this mythical ID procedure which went against all known police protocol and procedures of the day. If there is a doubt about that there has to be a doubt about eveyhtibg else connected to the marginalia. They both stand or fall together. !

[Jonathan H]

Why ... would I be discouraging a reader from sharing my view (scratches knuckle-head)?

Of course Macnaghten knew there was supposedly a slam dunk witness because 1. he had read it in Anderson's memoirs, and used his own to subtly refute them, and 2. he knew about Lawende but wrote beat cop, just as he disguised the [Druitt] 'family' as friends' with the Major and Sims.

He thus pointedly rejected the idea of a clincher witness.

Before you say I am slanting, did you not yourself do this in your previous post. eg. interpret that what when Littlechild wrote Anderson, he really meant Macnaghten.

Possible -- but how about he meant Anderson.

A somewhat puzzled Littlechild thought that 'Dr D' is either somebody he's never heard of, or is perhaps a garbled version of 'Dr. T.' who was a doctor, of sorts, and was 'believed' to have taken his own life, after jumping bail, and the 'Jack' murders stopped.

Littlechild's point to Sims is, arguably, that Anderson 'only thought he knew' and therefore Anderson telling Griffiths about this 'Dr D' does not make it gospel as the true chief suspect.

In my opinion Littlechild is quite unaware that Macnaghten was pulling the string behind the scenes with Sims, and thus Sims provided Mac with a measure of 'cover'.

Between he positions Anderson lying -- no way! -- and Anderson being a feeble geriatric -- a bit strong? -- there is a third positiuon. He has sincerely if self-servingly misremembered the non-identification of Sadler by Lawende a Jewish witness.

I know the countyer-argument.

One of them is that in more sectarian-conscious times people did not willy-nilly mistake Jews for Gentiles, and vice versa.

On the other hand, in 1908 Anderson, a staunch, reactionary Tory, misremembered William Harcourt, a Liberal Home Sec. from years previous, as the relevant minister he was put under pressure about the Ripper case?!

That's quite a howler: wrong time, wrong minister, wrong party, wrong ideology!

In fact, it was Henry Matthews, a Tory, though Harcourt was back in government as Treasurer until June 1895, the time when Anderson first asserts that he is pretty sure that the fiend was locked up in a madhouse -- while Swanson is saying that the best suspect is deceased (By 1910 these two bits have fused together via the Swanson Marginalia in Anderson's book).

[Bridewell]

Agree or Not Agree, That is the question

I am man enough to say I cannot conclusivley say that the marginalia is a forgery.

Hi Trevor,

Glad you cleared that one up. I obviously mistook the meaning of your 'totally agree' comment earlier in the thread.

If it did ever exist what a coincidnce evidence to show perhaps who JTR was, lost or destroyed, and look at all the rubbish police files and records that has been left behind and not destroyed or lost.

If you were the sort of person to filch papers from files, would you nick the rubbish and leave the good stuff? Wouldn't you actually nick the good stuff and leave the rubbish? No coincidence needed, just a bit of good, old-fashioned, common-sense deduction.

Regards, Bridewell.