Arbitrary Selective Rejection and Acceptence of Coincidences

[Jonathan H]

To Chris

You've missed my point, yet in a way almost agree with it. I am arguing that Macnaghten's memoirs and 1913 comments are demonstrably more accurate than his report(s), including about the protracted nature of the Ripper hunt.



Although this is now a very unwelcome and politically incorrect opinion, Martin Fido could not go with Aaron Kosminski without rejecting Sir Robert Anderson too (and it was not just because Fido thought Kosminski too harmless).

Whatever he says now, Fido understood nearly 30 years ago that the 'Swanson Marginalia' was the last nail in the coffin for the reliability of Anderson (I agree, it is) if you switch to Aaron Kosminski, because this person does not match the most important elements of what the ex-chief had written (and told his son and probably Swanson), e.g. wrapped up by early 1889 and dead soon after that.

Ergo if Anderson and/or Swanson really meant Aaron Kosminski then they are hopelessly wrong and should not be taken seriously. If they meant David Cohen then they are still afloat as reliable sources, albeit they have the name wrong.

What compounds the debunking of Anderson and/or Swanson is that the alleged positive witness identification is much more likely to be a late, mythical addition to the story (inspired by a real event but not involving Kosminski). This would explain not only why no other senior police knew about it, but also why Macnaghten (both himself and via a populist proxy) denounces this part of the story directly in 1910 and implicitly in 1914.

I am just sorry that instead of the fading of this modern, revisionist theory about Anderson and the Polish suspect due to the Evans-Rumbelow breakthrough of 2006 it is instead because of DNA numbers in 2014 that apparently do not add up regarding a Whitechapel artifact that is not one.


But I can't keep herding kittens here, so if some insist on going with their own facts, well, that's their prerogative.

[Errata]

I don't know but I am getting confused but I'm being informed by a reliable source: "the father of Betsy Abrahams, Kasriel Szlama Kozminski, was a cousin of Woolf Abrahams. Woolf married the daughter of his own cousin, his wife Betsy. Her brother was Jacob Cohen. Jacob Cohen was a cousin of Isaac, Matilda, Woolf and Aaron."

So the Cohen connection appears very complicated?

Yours Jeff

PS From a Different source I'm also being told of a Macro coincidence. When the Rothchildes first came to the UK from Germany they married Cohens. The Earll of Crawfords Wife appears to have been related (Cousoins of some sort) to the Rothchildes. Rothchildes had various charity connections to the Eastend. In 1882 both Rothchilde and Montagu donated vast sums of money to help Russian jews in Poland affected by progroms. Montagu travelled to Russia in 1886. Crawford, Rothchildes, Montagu and Holloway, were all collectors (Art and books)

Cohen is the most common name in Judaism. It's our Smith. Levy is our Jones and Israel is our Johnson. Ridiculously common names that have little to do with actual ancestry. It's like Schneider which means "tailor". Cohen, Levy and Israel are titles. Clans in a biblical sense. Not only are they not all related, about 75 percent of the time it's only been the family last name for less than 150 years. It's all about how Western immigration forms are phrased. My third cousins are Cohens despite the fact that no one else is because the progenitor of that line filled out his form differently than the rest of his family. Since our last name is difficult, he never changed it back. Anyone with my last name is related to me. It's that odd a name. But I've never in my life met another Cohen and wondered if they were related to my third cousins. Just like I don't think Magic Johnson is related to my fiance just because they have the same last name.

[Chris]

I don't know but I am getting confused but I'm being informed by a reliable source: "the father of Betsy Abrahams, Kasriel Szlama Kozminski, was a cousin of Woolf Abrahams. Woolf married the daughter of his own cousin, his wife Betsy. Her brother was Jacob Cohen. Jacob Cohen was a cousin of Isaac, Matilda, Woolf and Aaron."

It sounds as though your source has read the article in Ripperologist 128 describing Pat Marshall's work!

The relationship between Woolf and Betsy isn't certain, but it seems likely.

And Betsy's brother was known as Jacob Cohen in England, though again it's not certain that he was the same Jacob Cohen who informed Dr Houchin about Aaron's symptoms.

[Jeff Leahy]

He found Kosminski later, but still chose to stick with Cohen. Was Cohen's last name actually "Cohen?"

I don't know but I am getting confused but I'm being informed by a reliable source: "the father of Betsy Abrahams, Kasriel Szlama Kozminski, was a cousin of Woolf Abrahams. Woolf married the daughter of his own cousin, his wife Betsy. Her brother was Jacob Cohen. Jacob Cohen was a cousin of Isaac, Matilda, Woolf and Aaron."

So the Cohen connection appears very complicated?

Yours Jeff

PS From a Different source I'm also being told of a Macro coincidence. When the Rothchildes first came to the UK from Germany they married Cohens. The Earll of Crawfords Wife appears to have been related (Cousoins of some sort) to the Rothchildes. Rothchildes had various charity connections to the Eastend. In 1882 both Rothchilde and Montagu donated vast sums of money to help Russian jews in Poland affected by progroms. Montagu travelled to Russia in 1886. Crawford, Rothchildes, Montagu and Holloway, were all collectors (Art and books)

[Chris]

Was Cohen's last name actually "Cohen?"

Who knows?

[Scott Nelson]

Sorry, but I just don't believe Martin Fido would ever have picked Cohen as a candidate if he'd found Aaron Kozminski's records earlier.

He found Kosminski later, but still chose to stick with Cohen. Was Cohen's last name actually "Cohen?"

[Robert]

Woolf is there till 1893, but he isn't the following year.

[Chris]

What about the move after Kosminski's being committed to Colney Hatch? Did the family all move within a short spec of time?

Apart from the fact that the Lubnowskis had moved within a couple of months, we don't really know. Isaac may have moved by July 1891, when there's no one registered at 74 Greenfield Street. But we don't know when Woolf moved from Sion Square.

[Jeff Leahy]

Yet both of these events are treated as red herrings by those who forward Kozminski as suspect when it seems these were considered evidence to begin with.

Of course your correct . Swanson says in his home office report that he believes its an insult against Jews..

But thats not why a dismiss both the GSG and Lipski

I dismiss them because they could both mean almost anything without knowing their context. So why I don't say they could have been written by and shouted by the killer…they don't tell us anything.

And even if it was Kosminski shouting 'Lipski' your talking about a man with Schizophrenia possibly having a psychotic episode, So perhaps he thought he was God warning Lipski to be careful…It could mean anything when considering the mans illness.

So I dismiss them a long time ago, because they can't tell us anything.

The apron on the other hand tells us a lot (And not that Eddows didn't have a sanitary towel )

Many thanks

Yours Jeff

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi Errata

Well, either the family's finances weren't sufficient to keep Aaron in a private asylum by 1891, or maybe his condition had deteriorated so much that they saw no hope of his ever being able to live at home with them again, and as he was still very young they let him be placed in Colney Hatch.
If they were indeed sending him to private asylums it looks as though they'd run out of money by 1890 when Aaron had his first brief admission to MEOT workhouse.

I'm not certain that this is the case.

Asylums like Holloway were only ever meant to be short stay Asylums. They aimed to cure people through new ideas. They created beautiful environments. Fresh Air. No stress. Relaxation. They were largely middle class (and the kosminskis ran a Tayloring business, they are possibly helped by member s of their community all of whom seem to have made money)

Holloway also had a more secure wing for male patients with more direct staff. By the time Aaron entered the Asylum they were extending the stay times. A large wall was built in 1891.

Holloway died around 1885-6 so his brother-in-law took over general charge but the staff seem to have been fairly regular living at the asylum.

Personally I feel that they just came to realise there was little they could do. At first there may have been considerable improvement, especially if Aaron was using alcohol and this was stopped.

My personal belief is that once they realised he couldn't use the asylum much longer other avenues were considered hence the letter of introduction to Crawford.

Yours Jeff

PS Oh and it seems likely that patients were allowed home for stays with family. Alice McKenzie was killed on a Monday….the weekend of a Jewish Holiday.

[Robert]

I wonder if some patients suffered from more than one reason, e.g. fell from horse in war while reading a novel.

[Wickerman]

The most surprising thing is that these places weren't full to bursting...

[Robert]

Hi Errata

Well, either the family's finances weren't sufficient to keep Aaron in a private asylum by 1891, or maybe his condition had deteriorated so much that they saw no hope of his ever being able to live at home with them again, and as he was still very young they let him be placed in Colney Hatch.
If they were indeed sending him to private asylums it looks as though they'd run out of money by 1890 when Aaron had his first brief admission to MEOT workhouse.

[Jeff Leahy]

We know from Land Tax assessments that the owner of 34 Yalford Street was one Rosenberg (probably Jacob Rosenberg, tailor, of 39 Yalford Street) and the owner of 3 Sion Square was a Mrs Luden (or Leeden). I don't think we know who owned the houses in Greenfield Street, but a lot of houses there, including numbers 12, 16 and 74, where members of the family lived at various times, were to be sold by auction in 1884:
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Many thanks Chris

Do they not know who purchased the properties?

My guess would be that they were purchased by Jews or jewish communities.

And that the Kosminski family like others used local networks within those communities to find housing..

What about the move after Kosminski's being committed to Colney Hatch? Did the family all move within a short spec of time?

MAny thanks Jeff

[Errata]

I'm trying to envisage how this private asylum idea would work. Presumably the patient would be placed in the asylum under compulsion, because if he were free to leave at any time then this would not prevent him from committing more murders. So the family get the doctors to certify him. OK, but does this mean that he can later be uncertified, and then re-certified, then uncertified etc?

And they cost quite a bit of money. Who is paying for it?