Koz - No First Name in Marginalia

[PaulB]

You could argue that looking at by way of the police practices today why do officers seize a variety of things when a crime has been commmited because they might be of evidential value but if those things are soon eliminated then they become irrelevant.

Because of all what was going on at Goulston Street and the fact that the uniform officer had pointed it out it was probably right and proper to do so, seeing as the two of them couldnt even write it down correctly. But was it looked on as evidence thereafter did anyone come out and say the killer wrote it.

Mr Begg comes back and again with the old chestnut now he says all the City files were lost or destroyed or stolen. I dont subscribe to that for one moment, the city kept their own files my understanding is that they have not so long ago been transferring them and are still doing so. So if they were stolen could it have been a police officer then?

Has Don Rumbellow given any indication that when he had access to them he found any evidence to suggest files had been lost stolen or destroyed.?

Wow! You mean the City police files weren't destroyed during WWII like everyone, Don included, has believed! Gosh! That's about the single most exciting revelation of the decade. The City police files are extant. I can barely contain myself...

Mind you, if it turns out that they were destroyed in WWII you are going to look very silly. And ignorant. Again.




Not an old chestnut, Trevor. And it has been explained why. You have never, not once, countered the argument. But what's new. But this just gets funnier by the hour. You are a world acknowledged expert on the case, Trevor, or so you say on your website, so you know whether all-important City files exist or not You therefore have all the facts at your fingertips, don't you?

[Bridewell]

Your Own Book

Mr Begg comes back and again with the old chestnut now he says all the City files were lost or destroyed or stolen. I dont subscribe to that for one moment, the city kept their own files my understanding is that they have not so long ago been transferring them and are still doing so. So if they were stolen could it have been a police officer then?

Has Don Rumbellow given any indication that when he had access to them he found any evidence to suggest files had been lost stolen or destroyed.?

Trevor,

"As to the extent of the papers that have been lost or destroyed, we cannot tell. Supposedly, most of the City of London Police files were lost in the Blitz during the Second World War".
(page 304, 'Jack the Ripper: The 21st century Investigation').

You subscribed to this 'old chestnut' yourself in your own book! It's a bit unfair to criticise Paul for doing something you've done yourself and then to claim that you 'don't subscribe to that for one moment'.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Monty]

"Mr Begg comes back and again with the old chestnut now he says all the City files were lost or destroyed or stolen. I dont subscribe to that for one moment, the city kept their own files my understanding is that they have not so long ago been transferring them and are still doing so. So if they were stolen could it have been a police officer then?

Has Don Rumbellow given any indication that when he had access to them he found any evidence to suggest files had been lost stolen or destroyed.?"

Where did you get that info from Trevor? That they have and still are transferring files from the CoLP? And what files are they?

And before you answer, please bare in mind that I have been in close contact with the CoLP stand in curator and Record Officer for the past few years.

Monty

[The Good Michael]

Mind you, if it turns out that they were destroyed in WWII you are going to look very silly. And ignorant. Again.

In fairness, it can never be proved they were destroyed. Cabals, cartels, sects, and Fenians have methods of hiding things where they will never be found.

Mike

[PaulB]

Keep up the good work you wil soon be officially asked to join the cartel I understand there are one or two vacancies ly

He might even be asked to join the cabal.

It's noticeable that you don't even attempt to answer Colin's point.

[PaulB]

In fairness, it can never be proved they were destroyed. Cabals, cartels, sects, and Fenians have methods of hiding things where they will never be found.

Mike

You did promise you wouldn't say that.

[PaulB]

Trevor,

"As to the extent of the papers that have been lost or destroyed, we cannot tell. Supposedly, most of the City of London Police files were lost in the Blitz during the Second World War".
(page 304, 'Jack the Ripper: The 21st century Investigation').

You subscribed to this 'old chestnut' yourself in your own book! It's a bit unfair to criticise Paul for doing something you've done yourself and then to claim that you 'don't subscribe to that for one moment'.

Regards, Bridewell.

Brilliant! This just gets funnier by the minute.

[PaulB]

"Mr Begg comes back and again with the old chestnut now he says all the City files were lost or destroyed or stolen. I dont subscribe to that for one moment, the city kept their own files my understanding is that they have not so long ago been transferring them and are still doing so. So if they were stolen could it have been a police officer then?

Has Don Rumbellow given any indication that when he had access to them he found any evidence to suggest files had been lost stolen or destroyed.?"

Where did you get that info from Trevor? That they have and still are transferring files from the CoLP? And what files are they?

And before you answer, please bare in mind that I have been in close contact with the CoLP stand in curator and Record Officer for the past few years.

Monty

Just goes to show, you can't trust these curators and record officers to tell you anything...

... I can't stop laughing. What with TGM's 'rhetorical?' and Colin quoting Trev's own book, the comic value here is wonderful, and Trev saying he doesn't subscribe to the City files being destroyed and asking if Don knew they'd been stolen when he had them... absolute bliss.

[Bridewell]

Bump!

Hi, I’m a chaste newbie, so be nice!
Just a thought, but with regards to the fact that Swanson didn’t provide Koz’s first name in his Marginalia…Perhaps he felt it unnecessary? In other words, perhaps Koz was such a well known suspect, and so well know to the police, that he deemed “Kosminski” to be sufficient? If indeed he was the “prime suspect”, this would seem logical. After all, when we talk about Elvis Presley, to sometimes simply say “Presley”, same with “Kennedy”, or “Lennon”? The first name can seem superfluous?
Considering the swathes of paperwork including suspect dossiers that are missing/destroyed, it may not be implausible to consider that he was far more well known to the contemporary Peelers than he is to us?
Just a thought….

Probably time to bump the thread as poor old Carotid Capers, whose first ever post this was, has rather been left behind - although I've just noticed that even he (or she?) refers to "swathes of paperwork including suspect dossiers that are missing/destroyed", so perhaps we hadn't wandered as far off-topic as I thought.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Monty]

Paul,

Who is this Don Rumbellow fellow anyway?

The records held by CoLP refer mainly to post war crimes, as you'd expect. There are a few pre war items, like records and props used during the Sidney Street siege and Houndsditch murders case, as well as some personel effects handed over from families of former PCs.

In regards to the Ripper, Order books survive from the period and are far from complete, with Moor Lane and Bishopsgate being the two stations concerned.

Direct mention to the Eddowes murder, and direct info of the other murders do not exsist in these books. In fact, the only entry for October 1888 re Bishopsgate is a truncheon inspection. This isn't surprising as the order books deal predominantly with the day to day running of the station and not the investigation.

Bishopsgate, the station from which the investigation was ran, was very badly damaged in World War II and Moor Lane was destroyed.

These are facts.

Monty

[Supe]

Bridewell,

You subscribed to this 'old chestnut' yourself in your own book! It's a bit unfair to criticise Paul for doing something you've done yourself and then to claim that you 'don't subscribe to that for one moment'.

Yes, but more than one celebrity has been surprised by things he or she never knew in his or her autobiography because it was ghost-written. So, who knows . . .

Don.

[Hunter]

It isn't unusual for people of all walks of life to be prejudiced against another race. Policemen in the Met have had their fair share of accusation and bias against certain communities for many many years here and there.

I asked an English friend who by sheer co-incidence lives in the same small town as I in Norway about exactly this. He is an ex-policeman, serving in various Met Police Divisions. He said..
"Right up until the late 50's and early 60's there was a small but underlying racism problem involving the East End involving the Jewish population. It started to change with the influx of first West Indian communities, then predominantly Asian communities in the general area from the 60's onwards."

Now I am NOT putting too much weight on this, but give it as an example that in the 1880's and I am sure onwards, there were anti-semetic policemen (as indeed there were in all walks of life) in the area. Sir Robert Anderson didn't exactl;y paint a pretty picture of the community himself, I note.

Whether this applies to Halse for example, I have no idea..and I do NOT make the assumption nor accusation. But it would explain your comment. It may not be evidence, per se, but it would discredit the Jews. Remember the Pizer incident? The feeling that an "Englishman wouldn'tdo such a thing" re the manner of the muredrs was pretty strong. That isnt anti-semetc in itself, by by default?

In these politically correct times it is hard to imagine such open comment and feeling such as Anderson's towards any community. It would not be unusual for a person to "want" to "find blame", would it?

I repeat, I put no real weight on it personally. But I wont dismiss the possibility out of hand either. And I do realise the mention of the erasure of the word Juwes as well.
l

Hi Phil,

What I am about to intimate is not intended to be argumentative. As you suggest, you do not put real weight on it, but since this speculation was put forth, and for the benefit of students who peruse these boards for information (if there are any such individuals even following this thread by now) I want to offer some clarification.

Anderson and his later clumsy and awkward assertions notwithstanding, the police in 1888 went out of their way to quell any racial strife (both real and perceived) concerning the Jews and these murders. The Pizer incident you mention is a good early example. The next day after Pizer was exonerated, they had the same man who apprehended him, Sgt. Thick, escort him to Baxter's inquest so that exoneration could be made public; for Pizer's safety as well as the community. At an inquest that was marked with contention between the coroner and the police, this was a rare example of mutual cooperation for not only the benefit of Pizer, but for the Jewish community as a whole.

Indeed, as you know, the whole controversy surrounding the erasure of the graffiti was the result of Warren's and Arnold's concern for the inhabitants of the area, which were largely Jewish. D. C. Halse's' suggestion to erase the word 'Juwes' was nothing more than a proposed compromise to preserve possible evidence for photographing; removing the word that was considered most inflammatory. This only suggest that Halse wanted to preserve evidence that may be related to a murder... nothing more.

I would not implicate anything nefarious on any individual, unless I had information on that particular individual that inclined me to do so, despite evidence that some other persons - both past and present - may have prejudices. At this remove, Halse's' actions indicate an officer only trying to perform his duty as he saw fit.

[Bridewell]

Hunter,

Superb piece of reasoning. Entirely agree.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Monty]

PC Hutts letter to the press also supports this.

Monty

[Phil Carter]

Hi Phil,

What I am about to intimate is not intended to be argumentative. As you suggest, you do not put real weight on it, but since this speculation was put forth, and for the benefit of students who peruse these boards for information (if there are any such individuals even following this thread by now) I want to offer some clarification.

Anderson and his later clumsy and awkward assertions notwithstanding, the police in 1888 went out of their way to quell any racial strife (both real and perceived) concerning the Jews and these murders. The Pizer incident you mention is a good early example. The next day after Pizer was exonerated, they had the same man who apprehended him, Sgt. Thick, escort him to Baxter's inquest so that exoneration could be made public; for Pizer's safety as well as the community. At an inquest that was marked with contention between the coroner and the police, this was a rare example of mutual cooperation for not only the benefit of Pizer, but for the Jewish community as a whole.

Indeed, as you know, the whole controversy surrounding the erasure of the graffiti was the result of Warren's and Arnold's concern for the inhabitants of the area, which were largely Jewish. D. C. Halse's' suggestion to erase the word 'Juwes' was nothing more than a proposed compromise to preserve possible evidence for photographing; removing the word that was considered most inflammatory. This only suggest that Halse wanted to preserve evidence that may be related to a murder... nothing more.

I would not implicate anything nefarious on any individual, unless I had information on that particular individual that inclined me to do so, despite evidence that some other persons - both past and present - may have prejudices. At this remove, Halse's' actions indicate an officer only trying to perform his duty as he saw fit.

Hello Cris,

And I am entirely in agreement with you. As I said I put no weight on the suggestion. It was offered as an alternative that crossed my mind.
I deliberately didn't suggest nor implicate any individual, Halse included, would have done this, but suggested the thought, if there, was opportune.
As regards Anderson, I admit to having a lesser degree of understanding as to his comments than your good self, in the sense that I do not believe he was quite so innocent in this matter. Just my evaluation and opinion.

Sadly, and it is a truism, slurs of racial prejudice do occur in all walks of life. The Police, all over this country and probably in a great many countries, have been known, mostly on an individual basis, to be "against" foreign individuals and communities in their particular countries over the decades.

Happily, the actual "groups" within the East End were not quite as secular I believe in 1888 as one might imagine. This is the impression I have been given, and most non-Jewish residents had absolutely no problem within their own community with the Jewish population, nor, it seems, the Irish population.

"East End 1888" is probably one of the best books I have read on the subject of integration and acceptance of the Jewish Community. It gives, I believe, a balanced view.

Thank you for your reply. Appreciated.

best wishes

Phil