A Case of Misattribution?

[Garry Wroe]

Thanks Rob

You and Garry have provided two of the best reads I ever had since becoming interested in JtR...

Thanks, Dave. Much appreciated.

[Garry Wroe]

Kosminski's own - Jewish - family Dobbed him in. Maybe they didn't read the Torah or maybe the claim that a Jew wouldn't testify to a gentile about a fellow Jew is something of a myth.

According to Anderson, Lechmere, the murderer was being protected by his family. If they were unprepared to give him up to 'Gentile justice' they clearly didn't alert investigators as to any suspicions they may have harboured.

[Garry Wroe]

I enjoy thinking about your theory, because it DOES make sense. It is perfectly logical and may very well be the truth. So I'm not trying to be difficult.

I didn’t think you were being difficult, Tom. Not for a moment.

I'm just saying that what evidence remains to us, and there's more than one source, point to Lawende being the police's prime witness, and Schwartz falls off the radar early on.

As I said in a previous post, Tom, absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. Granted, we know that Lawende was used as an identificational witness in the Sadler case, but is it realistic to assume that investigators would have abandoned firmly established procedure in using Lawende and Lawende alone during the Ripper manhunt? It makes no sense, especially since Lawende by his own admission was unlikely to have identified Eddowes’ companion if presented with him once again.

Therefore, your theory is working on the assumption that Schwartz was still in London come that time, when in reality, many, many Jewish immigrants of that time used London as a stop over on their way to America. Some of the IWEC members, for instance, moved on to New York and New Jersey.

That’s a point I myself made on this very thread, Tom. But then, as Tracy indicated in an earlier post, we do have an Israel Schwartz who maintained strong links with Berner Street for many years after the murders.

So while your logic is sound in that the police would have wanted to use all the reliable witnesses at their disposal, the simple fact might be that Lawende was the only one left...and this conclusion is supported by the evidence.

Assumption, Tom, not evidence. Schwartz might have remained in the East End long after the Ripper killings, as might Mrs Long. But it is Swanson who throws a spanner into the works as far as Lawende is concerned. In short, there is no way that the evidence of a witness as flimsy as Lawende could have convicted Kosminski in its own right. Thus the Seaside Home witness must have seen something that could have been directly connected to a murder. The only witness who conforms to such is Schwartz. This leaves one of only two possibilities: either Swanson was wrong, or Lawende wasn’t the Seaside Home witness. The problem here, of course, is that if Lawende really was the Seaside Home witness, why did he not identify Kosminski during the earlier undercover City investigation?

[Bridewell]

I Know

Hi Colin

I'd have guessed at that (after all it's what Tom quite rightly suggests)...but did none of them, at all, stay right pond (possibly anglicising their names in doing so) ?

Again, I emphasise, I'm not being funny...simply asking...

Best wishes

Dave

Hi Dave,

I know you're not being funny. The obvious anglicisation would be a straight translation of Schwartz to Black, but there are even more of them!

Regards, Bridewell.

[Cogidubnus]

I can confirm that, according to Ancestry, there were a great many men called Israel Schwartz who emigrated to the USA, so I guess any one of them could be the man in question - or not!

Hi Colin

I'd have guessed at that (after all it's what Tom quite rightly suggests)...but did none of them, at all, stay right pond (possibly anglicising their names in doing so) ?

Again, I emphasise, I'm not being funny...simply asking...

Best wishes

Dave

[Bridewell]

Schwartz

Hi Tom

I too enjoy Garry's theorising, and, therefore, found your post interesting...but your last sentence seems to be suggesting there is evidence that Schwartz was no longer around at (for want of a better term) ID time...not being funny, is there? Maybe I'm missing something...or am I misunderstanding your meaning perhaps?

All the best

Dave

Hi Dave,

I can confirm that, according to Ancestry, there were a great many men called Israel Schwartz who emigrated to the USA, so I guess any one of them could be the man in question - or not!

Regards, Bridewell.

[Cogidubnus]

I enjoy thinking about your theory, because it DOES make sense. It is perfectly logical and may very well be the truth. So I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm just saying that what evidence remains to us, and there's more than one source, point to Lawende being the police's prime witness, and Schwartz falls off the radar early on. Therefore, your theory is working on the assumption that Schwartz was still in London come that time, when in reality, many, many Jewish immigrants of that time used London as a stop over on their way to America. Some of the IWEC members, for instance, moved on to New York and New Jersey. So while your logic is sound in that the police would have wanted to use all the reliable witnesses at their disposal, the simple fact might be that Lawende was the only one left...and this conclusion is supported by the evidence.

Hi Tom

I too enjoy Garry's theorising, and, therefore, found your post interesting...but your last sentence seems to be suggesting there is evidence that Schwartz was no longer around at (for want of a better term) ID time...not being funny, is there? Maybe I'm missing something...or am I misunderstanding your meaning perhaps?

All the best

Dave

[Jonathan H]

To Mike

Thanks. I would argue that Sir Robert is a vital primary source but in terms of values and limitations the scales, arguably, fall on the latter side.

He thought that his Ripper was deceased, presumbale 'like' Swanson, 'soon after' he was sectioned -- which was supposedly in early 1889.

Whereas his confidential assistant knew that both those aspects of the Polish Jew suspect were not true. The same source which, by implication, dismissed his former boss' opinion as worthless, and off-track.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Garry,

I enjoy thinking about your theory, because it DOES make sense. It is perfectly logical and may very well be the truth. So I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm just saying that what evidence remains to us, and there's more than one source, point to Lawende being the police's prime witness, and Schwartz falls off the radar early on. Therefore, your theory is working on the assumption that Schwartz was still in London come that time, when in reality, many, many Jewish immigrants of that time used London as a stop over on their way to America. Some of the IWEC members, for instance, moved on to New York and New Jersey. So while your logic is sound in that the police would have wanted to use all the reliable witnesses at their disposal, the simple fact might be that Lawende was the only one left...and this conclusion is supported by the evidence.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Michael W Richards]

To Lechmore

Sir Robert Anderson is I think a sincere primary source but also sincerely, and self-servingly muddled. By self-serving I mean that a case which was eprceived to be unsolved by the contabulary, a P.R. debacle, in fact, was in fact solved. They just could not arrest, let along charge the miscreant.

Anderson mixes up the pipes from the Kelly and MacKenzie murders, and mixes up the Liberal Home Sec. of 1886, Harcourt, with the Tory Home Sec. Matthews, about which one exactly was putting him under pressure for the Whitechapel horrors.

That's very telling. In 1908, Anderson was pompously blaming a prominent Liberal, of the leftist party he despised, for giving him such unfair and spineless grief -- when really it was a Tory from his own party. Even more revealing is that Harcourt was a more major figure in Liberal politics in 1895, the same year which is the first time in the extant record that Anderson suddenly claims that the Ripper's identity is [probably] known to be a locked-up lunatic.

By 1910, Anderson has I believe sincerely confused the Salder non-identification with the permanent incarceration of Aaron Kosminski, and then backdated the lot, in his fading memory to late 188, early 1889. That Macnaghten redacted the incarceration to March 1889, yet knew that 'Kosminski' was not deceased -- and revealed this to his cronies in 1898 -- is also very telling. Anderson was manipulated, and Swanson, arguably, provides only repetition not confirmation of this marginal muddle.

Hi John,

Lets not forget though that along with your mentioned faux pas, Monro never agreed with Sir Roberts assertion that the Times incident spawning the Parnell Commission was in effect approved by Monro, Anderson was mismanaging at least 2 double agents for Fenian causes the years up to and including the Ripper murders, and he is the only senior official who stated the killer was, for a fact, a Polish Jew.

He is someone to be wary of I think.

Best regards,

Mike R

[Garry Wroe]

I agree that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, or whatever, but it's pretty tough to make the suggestion you're making without ANY evidence.

The commonly held assumption, Tom, is that Lawende was the only witness used for identifications because he was the only witness known to have viewed Sadler. My argument that investigators would have used all of the witnesses deemed credible is based upon standard police procedure.

[Garry Wroe]

Myself:-

Let’s look at Lawende from a different perspective, Dave. If Swanson was accurate when stating that City detectives mounted a covert round the clock surveillance on Kosminski, Major Smith would almost certainly have called upon Lawende to ascertain whether Kosminski was the man seen with Eddowes shortly before her death. The fact that Smith ultimately admitted defeat in the Ripper case is important, for it informs us that Lawende could not have identified Kosminski on behalf of the City force. Thus he either wasn’t Anderson’s witness, or he was and the identification was tainted courtesy of his previous exposure to Kosminski. If the latter, he would have been unusable in any criminal trial and therefore couldn’t have been the witness whose evidence would have convicted Kosminski.

Dave:-

Smith is generally full of bullshit and self-aggrandisement...at least that's the current interpretation ... contemporary feeling would've said merely that he was a good clubman...he certainly told a good story (rolling like a 74 etc).

He wasn’t the most reliable of sources, to be sure, Dave. But this is irrelevant with reference to the point I was making. The fundamental issue is that Kosminski appears to have become a person of interest as far as City investigators were concerned, to the extent that he was placed under round the clock surveillance. At the time Lawende was considered by Smith to have been a credible material witness. The surveillance operation wouldn’t have been abandoned merely because detectives failed to catch Kosminski ‘in the act’. It would have been terminated only once City investigators were satisfied that Kosminski was not the man responsible for Eddowes’ death. The simplest and most time-effective way of making such a determination would have been for the City force to have called upon Lawende to establish whether Kosminski was the man sighted with Eddowes shortly before the Mitre Square murder. Since Smith subsequently admitted defeat in the case it may be safely assumed that Lawende did not identify Kosminski as part of the City investigation. This means one of two things: either Lawende was not the witness who identified Kosminski as part of the Met investigation, or he was indeed Anderson’s witness and the identification was fundamentally flawed.

I suspect, therefore, that he [Smith] would've had huge difficulty in admitting a complete defeat...like a recalcitrant witness who'd defeated him...I still can't in all honesty decide which though...my heart says Schwartz and my brain says Lawende...

Trust the evidence, Dave. It says Schwartz.

[Garry Wroe]

Myself:-

The police to a large extent decided who was and who was not committed for trial, meaning that Swanson would have been experienced and knowledgeable in such matters.

Spiro:-

Not so, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General decided if and when a case progressed to trial or for anyone to be as you say 'committed' to trial.

During the period under scrutiny, Spiro, police made the decision to prosecute in all but a small minority of cases. Generally, authority was ceded to the Director of Public Prosecutions only for high profile or potentially controversial cases. Thus Swanson would most certainly have been experienced and knowledgeable in such matters.

As we know, this did not happen in the Whitechapel murders with any suspect because, as Macnaghten notes officially; "No one ever saw the Whitechapel murder, many homicidal maniacs were suspected, but no shadow of proof could be thrown on any one."

Well, Spiro, the investigators who were actually engaged on the case believed that the killer had been seen. Why else was Lawende called in to view Sadler?

This leaves only one simple explanation for Swanson's beliefs. In the absence of any direct sighting of the Whitechapel murderer at either Mitre Sq or Berner Street, the police were mindful of extracting a confession to support their trial application, which again did not happen.

But the police did believe that the killer had been sighted, both at Mitre Square and Berner Street, and possibly at Hanbury Street too.

There was no evidence, no trial, hence, a suspect who was deemed insane could not have been "caged in an asylum" legally despite Anderson's assurances and Swanson's beliefs.

Swanson named the suspect as Kosminski, and it is a historical reality that Aaron Kosminski was confined to an asylum where he lived out the remainder of his days.

[Jonathan H]

Which Home Sec ...?

To Lechmore

Sir Robert Anderson is I think a sincere primary source but also sincerely, and self-servingly muddled. By self-serving I mean that a case which was eprceived to be unsolved by the contabulary, a P.R. debacle, in fact, was in fact solved. They just could not arrest, let along charge the miscreant.

Anderson mixes up the pipes from the Kelly and MacKenzie murders, and mixes up the Liberal Home Sec. of 1886, Harcourt, with the Tory Home Sec. Matthews, about which one exactly was putting him under pressure for the Whitechapel horrors.

That's very telling. In 1908, Anderson was pompously blaming a prominent Liberal, of the leftist party he despised, for giving him such unfair and spineless grief -- when really it was a Tory from his own party. Even more revealing is that Harcourt was a more major figure in Liberal politics in 1895, the same year which is the first time in the extant record that Anderson suddenly claims that the Ripper's identity is [probably] known to be a locked-up lunatic.

By 1910, Anderson has I believe sincerely confused the Salder non-identification with the permanent incarceration of Aaron Kosminski, and then backdated the lot, in his fading memory to late 188, early 1889. That Macnaghten redacted the incarceration to March 1889, yet knew that 'Kosminski' was not deceased -- and revealed this to his cronies in 1898 -- is also very telling. Anderson was manipulated, and Swanson, arguably, provides only repetition not confirmation of this marginal muddle.

[Lechmere]

You probably didn't mean to suggest it but extradition is different from deportation