Ostrog's 1888 arrest

[Rob Clack]

Courtesy of Maria, here's a translation of Ostrog's 1888 arrest of a microscope in France.

14 Nov. 1888 [the date is inscribed much earlier, with the first case gone before the magistrates that day].
For the prosecutor, representing the French Republic.
Lublinski Stanislas, alias Grand Guidon, 53 years of age, claiming to be a doctor of medicine, was born on 5 March 1835 in Warsaw (Poland) by... and ... [this obviously refers to the names of the parents, but has been left blank]. No indication of home address.
Theft, infringement of an order of expulsion.
(forensic pathology)
After deliberations following French law, the tribunal/the court, after some confusion and delays, established that in 1888 in Paris the defendant Lublinski fraudulently took away a microscope property of Mr. Legry, which constitutes an actual offense punished by articles [unreadable: 279? 379?] of the penal code. Given that it's also established that Lublinski, alien, was ex-pulsed from France by a ministerial order on June 9, 1886 which was lawfully communicated to the defendant, but he re-entered France and was arrested in Paris on July 21, 1888, according to article 8 of the law issued on December 3, 1849. Since the persecutor has already condemned the defendant to a sentence longer than one year of imprisonment, and that the defendant calls himself a forensic pathologist, according to article 8 of the penal code, in an application of articles 401, 8, and [18? 58?] which were read by the president, in addition to the other cases of theft and other attempted offences not being considered in the present session, it's been decided that the offence be punished by imprisonment of at least one year and at most two years, and by a penal fee assessed between at least sixteen francs and at most five hundred francs.
Any alien ignoring extraction and acting against the aforementioned article and article 272 of the penal code by exiting France and returning without the government's permission will be judged by us in this court and will be sentenced to imprisonment from one to six months. After serving his sentence, he will be brought to the border. Defendants having been sentenced to longer that one year of imprisonment due to additional offences will be condemned according to law for their first offence, which can lead to a double sentence added to their first offence and to a surveillance by the government for a duration between one year at least and ten years at most, according to article 361 of the code for criminal instruction, which states that in case of multiple offences, a punishment will be applied solely for the most serious offence. See also article from the same code, in case an attenuated punishment was applied, according to circumstances.
Lublinski is convicted to 2 years of imprisonment and to the penal fee of 448 francs and 85 cents, plus 3 francs for shipping costs. Minimal duration of the corporal sentence will fit the recruitment of the costs.
[4 signatures, difficult to read]

[Rob Clack]

And some images courtesy of Maria.

[lynn cates]

well done

Hello Rob, Maria. Nice work. Any notation/s about violence?

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Thank you so very much for kindly cleaning up the images and for posting this, Rob.

Lynn, NO hints of violence whatsoever. I still suspect that Ostrog was a mixup with Le Grand. Notice Ostrog's con name Grand Guidon in the Paris convinction document, as well as Dr. Grant in other instances. I'm trying to locate a letter Macnagthen wrote in May 1891 to the medical facility Ostrog was incarcerated. I'm interested in the exact contents of that letter (not revealed by Sugden).

[lynn cates]

adjective

Hello Maria. Could "Grand" in this context function as an adjective?

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Absolutely, Lynn. It's just an adjective. My point is how a British police officer might have reacted to this.

[Debra A]

Hello Rob, Maria. Nice work. Any notation/s about violence?

Cheers.
LC

Good work Maria.
Could him describing himself as a 'forensic pathologist' have triggered suspicions about him being the Ripper I wonder?

[mariab]

Hello Debs.
Yes, there's evidence that the British police were looking for a doctor for the Ripper murders. The problem is that Ostrog was arrested in Paris in July 1888 and was under lock and key during the entire “autumn of terror“.
What I'm interested in finding is the letter Macnaghten wrote in May 1891 to the superintendent at Banstead Hospital, where Ostrog was incarcerated. (This letter is partly quoted by Sugden on p. XVIII of his book.) Sugden says the records from Banstead Hospital are held by GLRO, which I'm not sure what it is, neither have I ever conducted research in hospital records. I was thinking of PMing Robert Linford about this, but I'm sure you can help too.

[Jonathan H]

Though it is not the letter you are seeking, here is an excerpt from the footnotes section of Paul Begg's excellent 'Jack the Ripper --The Facts' (2006) p.487:

‘In 1891 Melville Macnaghten wrote to Banstead requesting that the Convict Supervision Office be informed if Ostrog was released. There is no suggestion that Banstead were informed that Ostrog was potentially dangerous, possibly a multiple murderer and perhaps Jacks the Ripper.’

I'll bet they weren't.

Plus Ostrog becomes habitually cruel to women, is definitely insane, and carries surgical knives, in the version of the Mac Report seen by the police chief's literary pals -- but what is the Russian thief doing there at all when he had an iron clad alibi?

In his own 1914 memoirs, Macnaghten does not even bother to mention [the un-named] Ostrog in order to debunk him as a 'suspect'. Thus this primary source does arguably concur with secondary sources: Ostrog as 'Jack' is a complete non-starter.

[Phil H]

As someone with (hitherto at least) only the most passing of interest in Ostrog or Le Grand, can I just ensure that I have the implications of these discoveries right in my head?

A) The discovery shows that Ostrog was non-violent and thus unlikely to have been even a starter as a suspect for JtR?

B) The reference to Grand Guidon/Dr Grant may have led to confusion -a mix-up between Ostrog and Le Grand in someone's (Macnaghten's?) mind?

C) That the reference in the Macnaghten memoranda is a mistake?

D) Thus we can consign Ostrog to that limbo reserved for discredited suspects, and wonder whether Macnaghten was really interested in Le Grand?

Finally, is the confusion considered to be deliberate (i.e. covering something up, or accidental, on Macnaghten's part?

Sorry if this is old-hat to those of your deeply involved in the research, but I'd like to be sure i have the implications right.

Thanks,

Phil

[Debra A]

Hello Debs.
Yes, there's evidence that the British police were looking for a doctor for the Ripper murders. The problem is that Ostrog was arrested in Paris in July 1888 and was under lock and key during the entire “autumn of terror“.

Yes, but were the London police involved in the hunt for the Whitechapel murderer aware of this?

[mariab]

To Phil H.:
Your ABCD sequence is absolutely accurate, this is precisely what I meant myself. On the other side, what puzzles me is Macnaghten in 1891 being involved in the Ostrog case (by writing a letter to the superintendent at the hospital where Ostrog was incarcerated), knowing very well that he didn't have a violent offender in his hands with Ostrog, but then insisting about the “knives and cruelty to women“ in his MM, only 3 years later.

To Jonathan Hainsworth:
Thank you so very much for responding and for quoting from Paul Begg's excellent The facts (which I don't own at this point, but have read twice, borrowed from the library). Sugden quotes a sentence from the Macnaghten letter in question on p. XVIII of his book. Still, I'd be interested to see the entirety of that letter.
I completely agree with you that Ostrog as the Ripper is a complete non-starter. I'm simply interested in (if possible) establishing if his being mentioned in the MM is not a “mixup“ with Le Grand, intentional or not.
On the other side, Macnaghten technically might be correct in his calling Ostrog a Ripper suspect: Ostrog's physical description was published in the London Police Gazzette of October 26, 1888 for failing to report to the police. This mentioning of him in the London Police Gazzette concludes with: “Special attention is called to this dangerous man“.
Sugden sees this as evidence of Ostrog being suspected for the Ripper murders in the fall of 1888, when the London police ignored the fact that Ostrog was incarcerated in Paris during all that time (see Sugden p. XVII and p. 433).
Naturally, I'm going to check about Ostrog in the French equivalent of the London Police Gazzette as well, plus I'm following several hints of arrest and convinction for a Le Grand in Paris (all of it for extortion and theft-related crimes), without yet being able to say if it's him. I'm in Paris only for a week presently, but I'll be here again for the entire month of October.
(Today is a holiday in continental Europe, that's why I'm not out researching.)

PS.: Sorry Debs, just saw your post. It's been addressed above.

[mariab]

In his own 1914 memoirs, Macnaghten does not even bother to mention [the un-named] Ostrog in order to debunk him as a 'suspect'. Thus this primary source does arguably concur with secondary sources.

Yes, I've been thinking about this too. Something tells me that in a little while this thread might get highjacked into a discussion of Sir Robert Anderson...(resulting in a need to put on bulletproof vests). :-)

[Jonathan H]

To Mariab

It's just my opinion, but I think that Macnaghten chose two suspects in the Ripper mystery who were minor, if suspects at all, that is Michael Ostrog and 'Kosminski'. He did this for his own purposes; trying to 'cut the knot his own way' and keeping several competing groups satisfied at once.

For example, Tumblety, Sadler, and Grant -- all 'more likely' suspects than Cutbush -- must not be mentioned (Tom Sadler is turned into the definite killer of Coles in 'Aberconway').

I think that Mac believed by 1891 that Druitt was the fiend, and so, ipso facto, that excluded everybody else.

Michael Ostrog appealed to Macnaghtem, he the 'keenest of Old Etonians', because the Russian con man had defiled his beloved Eton with his thieving, and thus subsequently turning the swine into Ripper camouflage was a kind of delicious, though juvenile revenge.

A more important point is that Mac was choosing footnote suspects with whose biographical details he could play around with by the time, 1898, he disseminated the 'Drowned Doctor' and his hapless sidekicks to the public.

I doubt even Ostrog would have recognized himself in the writings of Griffiths and Sims, as he had never carried knives (maybe stole some?) and was not 'habitually cruel' to women, or anybody, and was not known to be a 'homicidal maniac' -- and was locked up in a French asylum at the time of the murders.

[lynn cates]

Banstead

Hello Maria. Banstead? I have Isenschmid's committal records from there. Why not send a message to the LMA and ask for the address of the appropriate authority in regards to these records? The LMA are easy to work with.

Cheers.
LC