Aaron or not

[Jeff Leahy]

In the sense that schizophrenia wouldn't be named, or even classified as such, until long after 1891, that's perfectly true. However, to diminish Whitfield's opinion on this basis would be as invalid as it would be unfair - the term just didn't exist in his vocabulary.

Now, that's not to say Whitfield couldn't have looked at a case and ruled it out as (e.g.) "Manchurian Moon-madness", based on his previous experience and the terminology available to him at the time.

Ah ha.. And many thanks for that Sam..

And by strange chance I head down stairs and turn on BBC 1 and Allan Yentobs program on music and the Brain...

and we witness Allan Yentobs brain scan and reaction to music, we witness a young man with Tarrets who plays drums, we witness a man stuck by lightning who can now give classical recitals..

The BRAIN..its close to my heart..I cant spell..but I know rythm and music, I visualize them in a way you will never be able to understand..

the beat, the tone, the nuonce of each verbal expression..

Aarons brain was simply wired differantly to you or I...schitzophenic..

Its hard to understand but if perhaps your brain was also wired differently you'd get it...

So I'm not trying to say that just because we have 'NAMES' for various conditions today that they did not know what we are talking about then..they clearly had experience of these conditions..

Schitzophrenia goes back to the dawn of time..they understood..what it meant alright..

However, we clearly have started to discover more about brain activity and brain abnormality, TODAY, than at any other point in history...and we clearly still have lots to learn.

So yes Whitfeild would have had first hand experience with patients..

Clearly not that disimilar, to that, my brother would have had..

However my brother would have had a sense of perspective about the brain and its functions today, not available to Whitfeild..

I referance you back to Allan yentobs program.re:music..and the human statuses..Dyslexia is simply another variation of thought process, we now know that there a many variations on thought processes..

SO im not knocking Whitfeild..his experience would have been totally valid however he simply couldn't have had the case studies and back ground material on the subject that psychologists have today..

So sorry a Sam I must beg to differ, Whitfeild could only have worked with what was known at the time..and compared with today thats...well "tiny"

Jeff

PS that yentob bloke he's pretty damn good isnt he?

[Natalie Severn]

No evidence against Kosminski being the Ripper or violent?

1 Threatening his sister with a knife.
2 Sole occupant of certain premises after nightfall.
3 The disputed Identification.


In fact the ID is the only contemporary evidence we know of against anyone. Wether only points 1 and 2 lead directly to the ID i do not know. Or was there additional evidence against him that led to police suspiscions?

Natalie, i think you do Anderson a disservice giving him the belief that only a Jew could have committed such a crime. Im sure Anderson dealt with many Christian murderers in his time. His worldview would not have been moulded by only his religious knowledge but also his career in CID.

Jason,
Since Anderson was a SPYMASTER working for the state,devoted to the Ulster Unionist cause who had spent his entire working life SPECIALISING in "DISINFORMATION" ,it strikes me that anybody willing to trust a word he ever said on anything really does need "to get real".
The dozen or so books he wrote on his millenarist Christian theology dont reassure.Far from it-------I often wonder how well Kosminski who believed he was obeying the instructions of a "guiding universal power' would have got on with Anderson and his conversations with Christ..........I mean if anyone was "hearing voices" in this Ripper Saga it was those two...............!!!

[Jeff Leahy]

Jason,
Since Anderson was a SPYMASTER working for the state,devoted to the Ulster Unionist cause who had spent his entire working life SPECIALISING in "DISINFORMATION" ,it strikes me that anybody willing to trust a word he ever said on anything really does need "to get real".
The dozen or so books he wrote on his millenarist Christian theology dont reassure.Far from it-------I often wonder how well Kosminski who believed he was obeying the instructions of a "guiding universal power' would have got on with Anderson and his conversations with Christ..........I mean if anyone was "hearing voices" in this Ripper Saga it was those two...............!!!

Ah! the old Anderson and Jack had lots in common argument..yes it would appear so

[Sam Flynn]

In point of fact knowledge of what schizophrenia is has NOT progressed all that much.

...at the very least we have a standard name for it now, Nats, which is more than Whitfield had in 1891 ("Manchurian Moon-madness" notwithstanding)

[Varqm]

Just an observation,

From what I gather is that ,without drawing conclusions, with what is known of Aaron and the memoirs' description of him it is more likely than not he was not the Kosminsky Swanson, etc. were writing about. But since Aaron Kosminski is the only one on record of having been brought to an asylum we kind of,for now,have no choice.

[Jeff Leahy]

Begg inists that the person referred to as the "City PC" who witnessed someone in "Mitre Square" as being Schwartz, who was not a PC, not in the City, and nowhere near Mitre Square.

Are you trying to tell me that Paul Begg beleives Schwartz to be the CITY PC?

If so you are in factual error (again). Of course Begg does refer to McNaughtens 'three jews in a cart statement, are you getting confused also?

It is generally accepted that the witness being referred to was Lawende, who, while not a PC, was a witness for the City police and was near Mitre Square and most certainly was used as a witness in later attempts to try to identify people as the Ripper.

No it is NOT generally accepted that Lawende is the witness (shall we take a poll on it?)..infact as I have clearly pointed out to you 'It does NOT make sense'.

'IF' Lawende was the man who identified Kosminski, why would the police knock on his door some weeks later and say "excuse me Mr Lawende, I know that you positively identified Mr Kosminski as Jack the Ripper last week but would you come down to the station and look at a different man just incase you were wrong and he is also Jack the Ripper?"

It dosn't make sense. And Begg quite clearly gives several pages evaluating the evidence against the people who may or may not have been the witness..Given that evidence, I personally beleive that Schwartz is the most likely person to have been Swanson's witness...

Though hey perhaps it was Pipeman? We do not know for sure that he was working with BS...I'm simply making the point that Schwartz is the obvious chioce and then you have to ask yourself (staying on thread) Could Aaron Kosminski and BS man be one of the same?

Lawende was also a City Police witness, the ID was a MET line up, he simply does not make sense...

Jeff

[Observer]

Hi Stewart

As I have explained already, whether or not Lawende's evidence would have been any use is irrelevant as it would appear that he was used in the attempted identification of Sadler as Jack the Ripper between 14 and 18 February 1891. Any half decent defence counsel would have made short work of any of the suggested witnesses (Lawende, Schawartz or Levy) had they been used at a trial. For a start none of them could be actually proved to have seen the murderer at work because of time differentials and, in the case of Eddowes, lack of proper identification of her as the actual woman seen. This alone makes a nonsense of the claims of Anderson and his 'definitely ascertained fact.'

Hi Stewart

Hi Stewart

My post #17, came before your post #19 so at the time of writing post #17 you hadn’t explained anything to me.



But as you rightly point out, what’s the use of Anderson declaring that the only person who had a decent look at the Ripper declined to identify Kosminski on the grounds that he was a fellow Jew, and his identification would lead to Kosminski’s hanging. Surely Anderson would have realised that a competent defence team would have made mincemeat out of any evidence from any witness.

I realise that the police were desperate to apprehend the killer at all costs, it was common sense to show Kosminski to Lawende, but surely they also let Levy and Harris view Kosminski, and why stop there, how about Long, Cox Lewis, Hutchinson, PC Smith, Marshall, Schwartz et al?

All the best

Observer

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi Observer

One point that I have always agreed with Stewart 'Totally' on is the suggestion that Kosminski is Swanson's suspect not Andersons.

The pieces just fit together better for me that way.

Anderson sifts through the various suspects put foreward, picks up on Swansons Idenification..and convinces himself..'we new who it was'

It explain why Swanson creates the marginalia in the first place...

But the point you raise is fair..given that Swanson believes he has his man, why only bring Schwartz foreward in an attempt to identify the killer? Why not every witness?

For me Swanson has to be opperating on other information...

There must be a specific reason why Berner Street? why Schwartz?

and why Aaron kosminski?

And I cant help thinking what if Aarons own family had approached Swanson and put him forward as a suspect? That to might tick a lot of boxes?

The question is did Swanson have information that we do not..

And i think that highly probable.

Yours Jeff

[Natalie Severn]

Now Jeff,steady on. Just think a bit about what you have just said.If Kosminski"s family had "approached" Swanson...like what "Hi Mr Swanson, we"ve got news for you about our brother Aaron.He"s not quite right in the head you see and we think he might be Jack the Ripper!"-------ok not quite like that but what does that give Swanson? Carte Blanche to tell the world,thats what ,that Jack the Ripper had been found! Think of the kudos for the yard-----all those hateful newspapers insinuating none of them could do their jobs properly----!Even more importantly no one could have stopped the police from properly naming him-because the family werent that important and could either be persuaded to allow the police to go public with the news or,if they objected to that,let the news leak into the National Press and call it "an accident'.
Jeff,if they had known who the ripper was so would we !

[Stewart P Evans]

Speculation

Hi Stewart
I realise that the police were desperate to apprehend the killer at all costs, it was common sense to show Kosminski to Lawende, but surely they also let Levy and Harris view Kosminski, and why stop there, how about Long, Cox Lewis, Hutchinson, PC Smith, Marshall, Schwartz et al?
All the best
Observer

I'm afraid that there are no definitive answers we have only speculation. Factors involved may be that Lawende, in the end, was considered as the witness who got the best look at the supposed murderer and witness availability may have been a factor; some may have moved on and been untraceable at this later time. Mrs Long did not see the suspect's face and various reasons could be guessed at for the others not being used. We simply don't know. All we do know for certain is that it was reported on 18 February 1891 that the Mitre Square witness had been used in a failed attempt to identify Sadler as the Ripper.

[Stewart P Evans]

Annotations

Also, as I understand, and from memory, there are other examples of Swanson marginalia, other than this poticular one, which gives some creadance to this marginalia as genuine..
I stand to be corrected if I'm wrong but this is how I understand the situation, am I correct?
Jeff

There are a few other marginal notes in the book. However, it is not the marginalia that raises the questions, it is the annotations on the rear endpaper.

[Stewart P Evans]

Suspect

Lawende was also a City Police witness, the ID was a MET line up, he simply does not make sense...
Jeff

City police witness or not, they were trying to identify a suspect they believed to be responsible for the Met murders also - the City witness was used for Sadler. What ID are you talking about as a lineup?

[Jeff Leahy]

City police witness or not, they were trying to identify a suspect they believed to be responsible for the Met murders also - the City witness was used for Sadler. What ID are you talking about as a lineup?

Yeah sorry Stewart I meant identification (or supposed identification) not line up.

[Stewart P Evans]

Identification

Yeah sorry Stewart I meant identification (or supposed identification) not line up.

Thank you for that clarification. In Jack the Ripper The Facts Paul Begg refers to a line-up as follows (page 353) -

"The police usually asked people on the street to attend an identity parade, but we must assume that there were not many low-class Polish Jews strolling along the pavement outside the convalescent home from whom twelve or so volunteers could have been found for a line-up, and a low-class Polish Jew is otherwise hardly likely to have blended in with a group of recuperative policemen."

However, what he fails to take into consideration is the fact that an identity parade was not the only form of identification - there was also identification by confrontation (one-to-one) which is the more likely form to have been used in the case being described by Anderson. Indeed Anderson's own words are, "I will merely add that the only person who had ever had a good view of the murderer unhesitatingly identified the suspect the instant he was confronted with him."

Of course, a confrontation is regarded as a much less valuable form of identification than picking a suspect from a parade of a dozen or more men.

[Jeff Leahy]

Of course, a confrontation is regarded as a much less valuable form of identification than picking a suspect from a parade of a dozen or more men.

Yes thanks for that Stewart...

So just following what we are agreed on....(ie Kosminski is Swansons suspect).

For some reason Swanson is at his desk, twirling his fingers with no new leads on the case, nothing for certain since Mary Jane Kelly, or perhaps he is toying with the reports on Alice McKenzie, July 1889.

All of a sudden he decides to take a suspect being watched by another force down to somewhere in Kent...(poss Sussex) and confront the suspect with one of four men..

Schwartz, Lawende, Levy or Pipeman...

But as Stewart has already pionted out a defence council would have made pritty short work of Lawende who didnt have a good look at Eddows and Levy (even if he did know Kosminski) because he had already denied he saw anything...

Which leaves either Schwartz or Pipeman...neither of whose testimony actually will tally with estimated time of death (I'm happy to take further input from anyone here) And Schwartz doesnt actually claim to have witnessed the murder, although to be fair, Swanson may have had a better idea than us what Schwartz actually did see..

But thats rather beyond the point being made...surely Swanson went to a lot of trouble to confront 'witness' with 'suspect'...WHY?

Surely he must have known the problems this evidence would have in court, yet he still went ahead...?

My conclusion is that there must have been more evidence. I cant help wondering if inside information had arrived on his desk that morning from somewhere else. Something that would have triggered his interest into discovering more about Kosminski?

Yours Jeff