Arbitrary Selective Rejection and Acceptence of Coincidences

[Errata]

If we assume an error, which we must assume without the space time paradox about the death of Kosminski, why must we assume that is the only error? Why not get the name wrong? Kosminski is a pretty good stab at Kaminsky if you have never bothered to differentiate Jewish surnames and the sounds the Hebrew language makes. My god you should hear what people do to my last name.

And if it's all true, what is Kosminski guilty of? No one saw the murders take place. No one saw a blood stained man run cackling through the streets. Why is Kosminski a suspect as opposed to a possible witness? Because of his madness? We know that madness makes it terribly hard to be a serial killer. Because he was Jewish? There were about a million Jews who weren't suspects, so that doesn't make Kosminki one. He was followed, and apparently he was not seen tearing some poor woman to pieces or anything. Usually that kind of thing clears a suspect. If we take it as the gospel truth that he was seen by a witness, what could he possibly have been seen doing? Talking to a victim? And why wasn't a raving loony spotted at the other scenes?

We have to make assumptions. But any way you go you can be rationally and logically challenged at every turn. And there are no facts running around out there that makes anyone's assumption better than mine.

[GUT]

Mac mentions fourteen at one time or another ascribed to Jack.

presume [perhaps wrongly] that this was from official files.

I wonder just which nine they were.

My Picks

Annie Millwood
Ada Wilson
Emma Smith
Martha Tabram
Annie Farmer
Rose Mylett
Elizabeth Jackson
Alice Mackenzie
Frances Coles

Maybe I should start a separate thread on it.

[Jonathan H]

Reign of Terror?

To Scott Nelson

It is getting so that you and I are going to be some of the few left who recall that Fido actually stuck with Cohen because he was trying to prove Anderson right. for two reasons: because Cohen was deceased and sectioned much earlier to the time of the Mary Jane Kelly murder.

All of the following sources agree on the notion that there was just one season of terror and then it stopped, either because the killer was dead, fled or mad (and therefore institutionalized). Nobody hear recalls the Coles murder (Anderson recalls Mylett and McKenzie, but falsely claims Monro agreed with him that the latter was obviously not a Jack murder, while his own 1908 interview memory-shambles shows that he seems to have initially believed it was by 'Jack' because of his fusing of different pipes into the 'final' atrocity).


Major Arthur Griffiths (Alfred Aylmer), 'Windsor Magazine', 1894:

“Much dissatisfaction was vented upon Mr. Anderson at the utterly abortive efforts to discover the perpetrator of the Whitechapel murders. He has himself a perfectly plausible theory that Jack the Ripper was a homicidal maniac, temporarily at large, whose hideous career was cut short by committal to an asylum.”

Sir Robert Anderson, 'The Lighter Side of My Official Life', 1910:

'However the fact may be explained, it is a fact that no other street murder occurred in the "Jack-the-Ripper " series.* The last and most horrible of that maniacs crimes was committed in a house in Miller's Court on the 9th of November.'

The Swanson Annotation [excerpt]:

'And after this identification which suspect knew, no other murder of this kind took place in London.'

Jack Littlechild to George Sims, 1913 [excerpt]:

'It was believed [Tumblety] committed suicide but certain it is that from this time the ‘Ripper’ murders came to an end.”

“Scoundrels and Scallywags and Some Honest Men” (1929); Tom Divall an ex-Chief Inspector of C.I.D.:

“The much lamented and late Commissioner of the CID, Sir Melville Macnaghten, received some information that the murderer had gone to America and died in a lunatic asylum there. This perhaps may be correct, for after this news nothing was ever heard of any similar crime being committed.”

Sir Melville Macnaghten is also guilty of this false notion of the season of terror, ending climactically and abruptly with Kelly in his report(s). In fact he started it, hence the need to backdate Kosminski's incarceration into March 1889. Hence why Fido was not looking for Anderson's suspect beyond 1890, and only came across Aaron Kosminski accidentally and, among several reasons, rejecting him because he was sectioned way too late.

In his memoirs, Sir Melville showed that he nearly alone accurately recalled the protracted nature of the Ripper hunt and does not confuse-conflate Coles and Kelly as, arguably, does everybody else (except Reid):

'Days of My Years'(1914), Chapter IV: 'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper':

'At the time, then, of my joining the Force on 1st June 1889, police and public were still agog over the tragedies of the previous autumn, and were quite ready to believe that any fresh murders, not at once elucidated, were by the same maniac's hand. Indeed, I remember three cases - two in 1888, and one early in 1891, which the Press ascribed to the so-called Jack the Ripper, to whom, at one time or another, some fourteen murders were attributed-some before, and some after, his veritable reign of terror in 1888.'

[Scott Nelson]

What I don't understand is why people keep trying to drag Cohen into the discussion. There's really nothing whatsoever to suggest that Cohen was confused with Kozminski.

If only Swanson hadn't written that "died shortly afterwards" bit.

[Jeff Leahy]

This is really at the heart of why I started this thread called "Arbitrary Selective Rejection and Acceptence of Coincidences".

It seems on this point for some of those who forward Kozminski as JtR there is a selective rejection of what the evidence says because its paints a different complexion of what sort of person JtR was. Namely someone who uses anti-semitic insults at the sight of a Jew bothering him. That doesn't sound like a Jew does it?

Ok. Its an opinion.

I've just never taken this argument seriously based on the almost infinitesimal argument on various possibilities of what this might have meant.

In the same way that I've never taken the GSG seriously either..

The fact is the Lipski could have meant absolutely anything and could have been interpreted in almost any way…

Think how modern parlance uses the term "IGGER?

Is that good or BAD? and does the use of that word depend who is using it and how???

You then have to put yourself back on the Eastend street in 1888 and ask the question again? What might it mean?

Frankly it could mean almost anything and that would be accepting that the man who heard it, who was scared and didn't speak english, actually understood it?

The possibilities once you start trying to figure it out, take you in so many directions that it means nothing…

What we have is a witness, Schwartz

Thats it

Yours Jeff

[Batman]

So for me Lipski is a red herring and Schwartz the most probable witness…. Of course you hit the Begg conundrum was Stride a one off loan killing?

This is really at the heart of why I started this thread called "Arbitrary Selective Rejection and Acceptence of Coincidences".

It seems on this point for some of those who forward Kozminski as JtR there is a selective rejection of what the evidence says because its paints a different complexion of what sort of person JtR was. Namely someone who uses anti-semitic insults at the sight of a Jew bothering him. That doesn't sound like a Jew does it?

[Jeff Leahy]

Okay, so all that was withheld from Abberline was the Seaside Home identification not that Kozminski was a suspect. Anderson facilitated the Kozminski family by having him committed and therefore preventing ant-semetic mobs/riots etc. Alright.

Here is a problem though.

If Swanson is correct about the Jewish witness then being Metropolitan Police means that Lewende is not his witness because that is the City Police witness. Schwartz would be a more likely candidate for the Metropolitan police. Yet Schwartz's witness testimony involves Stride's attacker using an anti-semetic racial slut against Schwartz calling him Lipski.

Did Lewende describe a Jewish suspect? I thought he described a gentile sailor?

Lewende is the witness of Detective Inspector James McWilliam and Major Henry Smith I think. Anderson was assistant commissioner of the Met. So how could he alone acquire Lewende without City Police knowing about it?

Hi Batman

We're obviously going into the realms of speculation here. And most kosminskite protagonists seem to prefer Lawende as a Witness.

Personally I have some doubts about this for various reasons, but most importantly Paul Beggs observation that if he had indeed been the witness late 1890, early 1891… then why would he agree to look at another suspect at a later date.. It doesn't make sense.

Besides I've always been suspicious that the three jewish witnesses might have known more about the suspect being Kosminski than they let on and may have even known him. Was their testimony the whole truth?

So for me Schwartz has always made the better witness. Assuming we are talking about BSM then the attack described fits a random attack. Lipski could mean absolutely anything, without knowing its context.

Schwartz was the only witness to have a good look at the person they saw.

Schwartz appears to have also been a Taylor of similar age so may even have known the kosminski's. Hence why he may have refused to testify.

So for me Lipski is a red herring and Schwartz the most probable witness…. Of course you hit the Begg conundrum was Stride a one off loan killing?

Personally I don't think so, but it is more problematic than the Eddows murder and this also might have been taken into account by Swanson.

Yours Jeff

[Batman]

Okay, so all that was withheld from Abberline was the Seaside Home identification not that Kozminski was a suspect. Anderson facilitated the Kozminski family by having him committed and therefore preventing ant-semetic mobs/riots etc. Alright.

Here is a problem though.

If Swanson is correct about the Jewish witness then being Metropolitan Police means that Lewende is not his witness because that is the City Police witness. Schwartz would be a more likely candidate for the Metropolitan police. Yet Schwartz's witness testimony involves Stride's attacker using an anti-semetic racial slut against Schwartz calling him Lipski.

Did Lewende describe a Jewish suspect? I thought he described a gentile sailor?

Lewende is the witness of Detective Inspector James McWilliam and Major Henry Smith I think. Anderson was assistant commissioner of the Met. So how could he alone acquire Lewende without City Police knowing about it?

[Jeff Leahy]

If it's a secret kept from Abberline, how does he seem to know about it and dismisses it?

Abberline referrs to stories about the Ripper being locked up or having committed suicide as doubful.

Surely he is talking about Druitt, Kozminski and Ostrog here, no?

I thought I'd explained that…

There was no secret kept from Abberline. The file on Kosminski would have been available to the detectives looking into the case, as did MAcNaughten when replying to the Cutbush allegations.

The event described by Swanson is never added to the file, as the ID was done in secret and at a sperate time.

So Abberline knows about Kosminski 'file' but not the ID at the SEASIDE home

Yours Jeff

PS this is 'speculation' on my part based on the various facts and sources surrounding the case.

[Chris]

If it's a secret kept from Abberline, how does he seem to know about it and dismisses it?

Abberline referrs to stories about the Ripper being locked up or having committed suicide as doubful.

Surely he is talking about Druitt, Kozminski and Ostrog here, no?

There's no "surely" about it. The Ripper being in an asylum was a favourite theme of the press.

[Chris]

Interesting, Chris. Of course, these references are to specific homes identified by place/RHI ownership, so the equivalent for Swanson might be "the (I've forgotten the name) Seaside Home," which is perfectly possible, especially if it had one of those grand lengthy Victorian names.

Well, he was presumably only writing for his own use, and he knew which Seaside Home he meant.

I just did a Google search for the phrase "I went to the town hall". On the first two pages of the results, there were six examples of "I went to the Town Hall".

[Batman]

If it's a secret kept from Abberline, how does he seem to know about it and dismisses it?

Abberline referrs to stories about the Ripper being locked up or having committed suicide as doubful.

Surely he is talking about Druitt, Kozminski and Ostrog here, no?

[Jeff Leahy]

Interesting, Chris. Of course, these references are to specific homes identified by place/RHI ownership, so the equivalent for Swanson might be "the (I've forgotten the name) Seaside Home," which is perfectly possible, especially if it had one of those grand lengthy Victorian names.

Interesting point Robert. If he was very familiar why not write the Seaside Home Hove or even Brighton?

Yours Jeff

[Robert]

Interesting, Chris. Of course, these references are to specific homes identified by place/RHI ownership, so the equivalent for Swanson might be "the (I've forgotten the name) Seaside Home," which is perfectly possible, especially if it had one of those grand lengthy Victorian names.

[Jeff Leahy]

I thought about this for awhile and I believe this actually falls under the category of Conspiracy Theory.

While there are conspiracy theories of a much higher complexity (Stephen Knight's Final Solution) this is one of the lower complexity ones but I think there can be no mistake that we have two of the Whitechapel murder investigators colluding to withhold the identity of JtR from Abberline. Why? Why would they keep this from him?

Also this assumes Abberline didn't know about Kozminski or Swanson's interest in IDing him through the witness. Yet if Abberline is left in the dark why is it that Abberline referred to stories about the Ripper being locked up or having committed suicide as doubful? Is he not talking about Druitt, Kozminski and Ostrog here?

Well firstly I don't think the original file was kept from anyone including Abberline. It was generally known that a suspect was considered at the time and followed. I'm saying this man was Kosminski, a man who from time to time became insane. However at this time there was no proof, the man was placed in a Private Asylum.

Hence the basis of what everybody generally believed, including Abberline , Drew, Reid , MacNaughten etc etc

There was a Polish Jew 'suspect' end of…

Am I then suggesting a conspiracy? No I'm suggesting a political 'hot potato' known only by a handful of very senior officers.

Montagu had offered a reward for the capture of the fiend JtR. He hotly denied a member of his community would be responsible. The police were aware of the political dangers hence why the graffittee was wiped. And politicians like Montagu were also scared of new left wing ideas taking hold within their communities. These were indeed times of un-rest.

Within that powder Kegg I'm suggesting that the insanity of one man became an increasing problem not just for the kosminski family but potentially a whole community.

Montagu discusses his problem with Crawford who he knows is friends with Sir Robert Anderson and with whom he has contact. Matilda Kosminski is introduced to Anderson (Who knows little about Kosinski) he naturally turns to his right hand man Swanson and say… I have a mad woman here claiming her brother is JtR, any idea what she is talking about?

Swanson says well actually Sir we did have a kosminski as a suspect. Anderson says get it sorted and do it quite as we don't won't a riot in the East end.

Now whether you think that a conspiracy or not, it does explain why none knew about the ID accept a small group of people. It joins together some of the known sources, and gives an explanation why Sir Robert Anderson was so confident in his claims and why none but Swanson ever seems to have agreed with him.

A conspiracy? I don't think I'd go that far. But keeping something quiet to avoid trouble, political trouble, we know that happened at the time. So Yes I think that is possible, and no i don't really call that a Conspiracy theory.

Yours Jeff