Kosminski - Dead or Alive

[Wickerman]

In the case of Tumblety, he was an American (Americanisms in the Dear Boss letter), was wearing an American slouch hat (Constables were on the lookout for this), .....

Awfully tall though wasn't he, for a Ripper suspect.
In most cases the 'suspect' seen was short, in the 5' 6-7" range.

[Abby Normal]

I would say that Tumblety, at one point at least, was a major suspect- a very likely one as Littlechild says. In fact of the 4 main contemperous(or near contemperous) suspects-Kosminski, Tumblety, Chapman and Druitt-Dr T is the only one it seems who came to the attention of the police and was suspected during the time of the murders (1888).

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

As Kosminski appears to have morphed into Tumblety, I would direct your attention to Trevor Marriott's article in Ripperologist 127, August 2012.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

Very ...

Some researchers are not grasping the significance of to whom Littlechild wrote and revealed the Tumblety revelation.

It was the uber-famous George Sims, who outranked him in class and connections and supposedly Ripper truth.

This the Sims of the drowned, unemployed, affluent English mad doctor who was definitely the Ripper, or so Edwardians were misled to believe.

This is not a scoop which Sims wants to discover is all wet as it will be very embarrassing to him.

Littlechild has initiated this letter because Sims' suicided doctor bugs him, as it is not quite right.

Littlechild mistakely believes that 'Dr D', as Sims seems to have patronisingly truncated-disguised Druitt's name, is something fed to the writer by Anderson via Griffiths. This is, to Littlechild, either a separate, minor suspect or a garbled version of the real suspect -- a much more humiliating one for Anderson's CID than this 'Dr D' whom they supposedly nearly arrested.

So he sets Sims right about the real chief suspect -- a man who was arrested, not about to be.

Littlechild never corrects the status of the suicided doctor. He never says Dr D was really Dr T, but he was later cleared, or was not that strong a auspect anyhow.

How Littlechild would have loved to have downgraded the status of this suspect too, who jumped his bail, but he cannot because, yes he implies, Dr T was 'very likely' to have been the fiend, or the best suspect they had to be the fiend -- despite Tumblety not being known as a sadist
(meaning his sadism must have been concealed).

Littlechild also confirms to Sims another detail which bring Dr D and Dr T into alignment as probably the same suspect: it was believed that Tumblety killed himself after he made it to France.

I think this is a sincere comment by the ex-head of the Secret Dept. because he knows that if Sims wishes to he can easily find out about Tumblety's particulars. Moreover, in aniticpation of that inquiry, Littlechild is getting in first; he has been told by somebody that Dr T destroyed himself.

In 1907 Sims had written about 'two theories' at Scotland Yard about the Ripper: the drowned English doctor and the young, American medical student. Now Littlechild has strongly suggested to Sims, whom he would expect to broadcast this scoop, that they are the same suspect. For the American may have taken his own life too

Macnaghten's name does not appear in the Littlechild Letter, yet he shadows it. For he is the progenitor of Druitt as a doctor, and is Sims' source no doubt both the drowned doctor and the American medical student (who is young like Druitt, whereas the English doctor is middle-aged like Tumblety).

Interesting that Sims' 1915 and 1917 mentions of the Ripper shows the 'drowned doctor' intacticus. Tumblety has been kicked to the curb.

Did 'Tatcho' anxiously check with 'Mac' about this extraodinary scoop and get reassured, very smoothly and charmingly, that dear old Jack Littlechild was showing a faulty memory -- because this Tumblety of whom he writes had died of natural causes in 1903?

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Anderson not only personally contacted US Chiefs of Police about Tumblety, he sent Andrews to Canada for this reason.

Exactly what is the evidence that Anderson sent Andrews to Canada, actually southern Ontario, in connection with Tumblety? (emphasis on the word "evidence.")

Wolf.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Wolf,

Good question.

Thanks to your research we know that Inspector Andrews didn't go anywhere near New York.

And why would he have bothered? Inspector Fred Jarvis was already there.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

Why else was Walter Andrews in Canada, since as Dew writes he was one of the three field detective-figures working the Whitechapel murders?

R. J. Palmer wrote some excellent articles for the sadly defunct 'Examiner' arguing, persuasively for me, that Walter Andrews was indeed sent to Canada by Anderson in order to do a background check on prime Ripper suspect, Dr. Francis Tumblety.

Interestingly this trip goes unmentioned by Littlechild because Dr T. had supposedly vanished in France, and maybe killed himself -- a much less embarrassing tale from the Yard's point of view than wasting tax-payer's money on a wild goose trip.

I wonder who thought that fib up?

Yes, the local press which favoured the Irish-Catholic sectrian divide, turned Andrews' trip into a scurrilous bit of business to do with the Parnell imbroglio, but that makes no sense as a plausible politcal scenario -- to put it mildly.

Of course if somebody has evidence that Andrews was not investigating Tumblety as part of the on-going Ripper investigation I'd love to see it?

That battle might be better going across to the Tumblety thread (God help us).

Mike's original question is why did Anderson (and perhaps Swanson) think that 'Kosminski' was deceased when Macnaghten knew -- correctly -- that he was alive?

This is echoed, of course, by Littlechild being told by somebody -- somebody he took seriously -- that Tumblety was [probably] deceased, by his own hand, soon after the Kelly murder too. Certainly inactive forever.

Sound familiar?

My last post was on the theme of 'very'; that Littlechild was writing to the famous writer who persistently claimed definitive knowledge of a sucided doctor suspect as the likely fiend -- and that the ex-polce chief did not contest that element of the scoop.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

Inspector Andrews traveled to Halifax, Nova Scotia, with Roland Gideon Israel Barnett, celebrated financial “fakir” and bucket-shop speculator, in order to deliver him to the Canadian authorities in Toronto.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

That's right, Simon ... and to do a background check on Dr. Francis Tumblety -- Scotland Yard's 'very likely' suspect to be Jack the Ripper.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

No, no, thrice no.

On his North American trip Inspector Walter Andrews did not go anywhere near New York; nor did he give a flying fig about Tumblety.

But whilst in Canada he did have other things on his agenda.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

New York? I never mentioned New York.

Have you read Palmer's trilogy debunking the debunkers?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

Yes, I have.

And both Wolf and I have debunked the debunking debunkers.

Facts or fantasy? Your choice.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

You know me, Simon.

Always the facts.

I'm the Fact-Man. As Sir Melville writes in his 1914 memoirs: 'certain facts' led to a 'conclusion' but only 'some years after' the police had been fruitlessly chasing a phantom.

I abhor the fantasists -- a polite term in this context -- the ones who created the Rasputin revelation of 1923, the Dr. Stanley scoop, the voluminous, unlimited, all-purpose Dr. Dutton archives, the Ripper as Prince Noodle-head, the Royal Watergate, the you've-got-to-kidding 'diary' (poor Maybrick was murdered twice!) and the penile misadventures of the allegedly impotent Walter Sickert.

Wolf's pieces of a few years ago were very good, and a good read to this day, but their flaw was their political naivette.

Where have you debunked the debunking of the debunkers?

Can I access it?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

Wolf? Politically naive? My goodness, you're a tough date.

In all modesty may I commend "Smoke and Mirrors," my article in Ripperologist 106.

I'm certain Adam Wood will have a back-number.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

A close relation of mine subscribes, so I will see what I can scrounge.

Look forward to it as I do all your articles.

In the spirit of point/counter-point let me say that the Polish Jewish suspect being deceased makes for a much more satisfying tale. Much better than just 'safely caged' (soon after Kelly) especially the disappointment caused by a treacherous witness.

Except that, this element of the tale was never propagated to the public.

This argues in favour of Anderson 'knowing' this from the start, the Polish Jew being dead, rather than being a detail he has self-servingly confused with some other suspect.

That lack of informing the public that the fiend was safely dead is ambiguous enough to be taken for many things, or not much at all.

But if you've read Scott Nelson's recent, fascinating piece in the latest 'Ripperologist ' then ...