Arbitrary Selective Rejection and Acceptence of Coincidences

[Chris]

PS Just as an aside, do you know if anyone has ever given consideration to who owned the property the kosminski's rented at various times?

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:

[Jeff Leahy]

Jeff

And there were endless newspaper stories about Ripper suspects. .

True, but I'm starting from a very specific Supposition that Aaron entered a Private Asylum in March 1889. I'm saying that Aaron Kosminski came to the police attention very early on in the investigation.

Therefore I'm interested in any news paper stories that make references that might fit Aaron Kosminski not every suspect story.

And of course as has been pointed out by Rob House, we have a 'Bloody shirt' in Batty Street.

And of course at the time the police say that they indeed follow a number of lines of enquiry, so yes it is a case of being selective. However unless we revisit these sources and look more closely at what Cox and Sagar actually said then we are not going to build a bigger picture. For that we need to know where people arriving from Kalish lived and worked in the Eastend.

And thats my intension, to see the story as a whole rather than a number of fragmented pieces. And while I accept that a number of later secondary source may have made mistakes my personal view is that if MacNaughten was working form the files he was probably a Good primary source, as of course I believe Swanson to be…and possibly more controversially I think Martin Fido's most important reasoning was that Sir Robert Anderson 'Wont have lied for personal Kudos'

Although personally I always felt that knowing something others didn't gave him a personal amount of satisfaction…

Yours Jeff

PS Just as an aside, do you know if anyone has ever given consideration to who owned the property the kosminski's rented at various times?

[Chris]

Jeff

I think it's very doubtful whether Sagar and Cox were talking about Aaron Kozminski. And there were endless newspaper stories about Ripper suspects. Just piling all these different accounts up and trying to make them fit together is a recipe for disaster.

[Chris]

I don't agree, Chris.

I think that's a fallacy based on an over-reliance on the report(s).

On the contrary, I'm saying that the police sources should be taken with a grain of salt, because we know they contain errors.

[Batman]

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…

This is not the comptemporary view though and even Swanson reported the GSG as implying disturbing the Jewish people who lived there. There are several PCs at the scene who explain why they thought it was fresh, why people would have removed it, but didn't, and no one living there claimed to know anything about it. It is a modern view that the GSG is not the hand of the ripper and became popular when Kozminski was raised as a suspect because of the obvious implication that the writer was an anti-semite. The only confusion of various possibilities is in the minds of modern interpretation.

It's quite straightforward. The GSG is double cockney calling for blame on Jews and is likely in response to the Schwartz incident earlier. Schwartz (Jews in general) is to blame for the death of Stride for getting in the way and seeing JtR assaulting her.

The same goes for Schwartz. At the time the contemporary view is that it was a name, but within a short time the detectives had understood it as a racial slur coming from the man seen assaulting Stride. It is a modern view that we can't know what this is about when the most obvious solution is the one they accepted in the contemporary, namely that Schwartz had encountered a man who tried to scare him off (successfully) by shouting an anti-semitic slur.

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.

[Jeff Leahy]

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?

They'd need a reason to have him committed. But saying they believe he was JAck the Ripper might not have been a good idea.

One of the critia's mentioned for being eligible would be Masturbation or self abuse?

Private Asylums were constructed largely for the middle classes. Holloway had made lots of money from selling medicines (LAter Beechums powders) They believed mental illness could be cured by providing clean air and environments. Alienists.

These asylums were only designed for short term stays of about a year. This was expanded about this time. But yes it seems likely that the family could have him come and go as long as they paid the bill. They also least properties by the Seaside…Seaside Homes. Holloway had convalescent homes in Poole and Brighton (June 1891) and I discovered yesterday in Bournmouth (on going)

Actually if Aarons schizophrenia and psychosis were driven by Alcohol then he should have made considerable progress once taken away from the booze.

He from time to time became insane.

Yours Jeff

[Robert]

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?

[Jeff Leahy]

Dublin Express, December 1888:

“The Dublin Express London correspondent gives as the latest police theory concerning the Whitechapel murderer that he has fallen under the strong suspicion of his near relatives, who, to avert a terrible family disgrace, may have placed him out of harm´s way in safe keeping. As showing that there is a certain amount of credence attached to this theory, detectives have recently visited all the registered private asylums and made full inquiries as to the inmates recently admitted”

Kosminski

In December 1888 a young and confused Polish Jew, found rambling on the streets and speaking little but Yiddish, was brought in by the police to the Leman station. Since he was uncommunicative, it was decided that he was unable to care for himself and that he should be taken to the parish workhouse. Then he suddenly became violent and had to be brought in under restraint. Since he didn't give them his name or adress, and noone recognized him, he was registered at the Infirmary as "David Cohen", which supposedly was used as a "John Doe" for East End Jew's without known identity, adress and next-of-kin.

In the Infirmary Cohen proved too dangerous for the other patients (and himself) and was therefore transfered to Colney Hatch, once again under restraint. There he had to remain under constant observation due to his violent tendensies; he was rambling and described as "spiteful and mischievous", he spat out food, had to be force-fead, tore down a lead pipe and wire window-guard in the yard, he was destructive, kicked passers-by and had to wear a "strong dress" in order not to tear his own clothes into pieces. Today he would most likely have been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. In October 1889 he was confined to his bed in the asylum and a few days later he died.

David Cohen

Do they both enter Asylums December 1888? IS there confusion at Leaman street police station between the two men?

[Batman]

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.

Exactly.

This is why Robert House wrote a book just about Kozminski without any recourse to Cohen at all.

[Jonathan H]

I don't agree, Chris.

I think that's a fallacy based on an over-reliance on the report(s). And even in the official version Macnaghten concedes that perhaps M. J. Druitt was not a doctor (though in no doubt he was sexually insane).

if you check out two other sets of sources you will see that Macnaghten is cognizant that Druitt was not a middle-aged medico: the 1913 reports of his farewell press conference (Druitt really had killed himself six month before Mac joined) and his 1914 memoirs (where he claims not to have said this, because it was too close to the facts).

Have you read Guy Logan's 1905 "The True History of Jack the Ripper"? It arguably backs this interpretation too.

Except by me there has been zero discussion of this source. What a pity.

[Jeff Leahy]

OK heres an article from the Aberdeen Weekley Journal Nov 16th 1888.

"The Central News is enabled to state that several houses at which the murder is believed to call occasionally are under the closest police surveillance."

This was shortly before the Kelly Funeral, and clearly suggests the police have a suspect. Much as Sagar describes.

They are watching several houses to which one man goes.

Is this the community or 'his people' referred to by Anderson?

Martin Fido dismissed Aaron Kosminski because he appears harmless a man in catatonic State.

Sagar says..The man is variously described as insane or partly insane, and said to have been watched carefully by the police. Three of the reports say that he was put into a lunatic asylum (a private asylum according to one) and that the murders then came to an end.

COX..."The man we suspected was about five feet six inches in height, with short, black, curly hair, and he had a habit of taking late walks abroad. He occupied several shops in the East End, but from time to time he became insane, and was forced to spend a portion of his time in an asylum in Surrey."

So far from being harmless, both Cox and Sagar believe the man they follow is dangerous and placed in an Asylum in Surrey. At this time he is NOT a man incapable of work of any kind.

If this could be proved then Martin Fido would almost certainly have to re-consider Aaron Kosminski's mental state in 1888. However for now I'm going to hold to the idea that a confusion between `Cohen and Kosminski might have taken place in late Nov 1888 and early Dec 1888. I also believe that both men may first have entered asylums at this time. Cox says the suspect spent a portion of his time in an asylum…(this would fit with a number of asylums run in Surrey under the alienist system).

This later lead to Dr Seward telling Swanson, incorrectly, that Kosminski was dead when infact he had been transferred to Leavesdon 1894-5.

And the final piece of the puzzle/conundrum is put in place.

Yours Jeff

[Chris]

I don't agree, because Aaron Kosminski was sectioned too late. He doesn't fit.

No one fits. But then, no one fits Macnaghten's description of "M. J. Druitt" either. That doesn't mean there's any genuine doubt that he meant Montague John.

[Jonathan H]

To Chris

I don't agree, because Aaron Kosminski was sectioned too late. He doesn't fit.

To Scott

I think there are three errors in the Swanson Annotation, none of which maybe the author's fault.

The source you found. Chris, shows that Macnaghten was fighting back against Anderson in 1910, through Sims, e.g. there was no identification of this suspect and certainly no treachery by a Jewish person or community:

Here is Sir Robert Anderson from his book of 1910:

' In saying that he was a Polish Jew I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact.'

Here is Sims from The Referee in response:

“... The statement went beyond ascertained facts. ... it was certainly indiscreet of Sir Robert to plump for the Polish Jew, and to imply that many of the Jewish community in the East End were accessories after the fact. … ’

Here is Macnaghten four years later, in which the Polish suspect is not worth mentioning, the killer is a Gentile " Simon Pure" angry at three Jews for interrupting him with Stride, and there were no witnesses beyond this one:

'On this occasion it is probable that the police officer on duty in the vicinity saw the murderer with his victim a few minutes before, but no satisfactory description was forthcoming.'

[Chris]

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..

Because it's easier to believe a single mistake was made than that several were.

[Chris]

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

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.