Schwartz, a fraud?

[Wickerman]

The Lipski issue would not have been the only obstruction to Schwartz being called.

In the case of Schwartz I'm inclined to believe that there is nothing available in the surviving police records or press reports to justify Schwartz not appearing at the inquest.
Which to my mind suggests that there is still something about Schwartz himself, or about his statement, that we do not know.

Regards, Jon S.

[Garry Wroe]

We do not have hard evidence that Aaron Kosminski was ever the subject of a witness confrontation …

No, Jonathan, we don’t.

… Swanson may be only repeating a tale he was told by Anderson.

The Seaside Home episode is immaterial for our purposes, Jonathan. Swanson had an intimate knowledge of both the Ripper case and the strengths and weaknesses of the various witnesses it threw up. The real issue, therefore, is not if or how the Seaside Home identification took place, but rather the fact that Swanson believed that the evidence of one of these witnesses was sufficient to have secured a conviction in its own right.

(Plus BS man does not match Lawende's Jack the Sailor, though 'Knifeman' does)

‘Knifeman’ doesn’t, I’m afraid, Jonathan. Not even remotely so. Besides which, the comparison is only relevant if Stride was a Ripper victim, and I’m more than a little doubtful on that score.

[Garry Wroe]

Of course, there was no reason to sequester Hutchinson because that inquest had concluded and the body never made it into Baxter's jurisdiction.

True, Hunter. But Lawende was sequestered primarily to keep the press at arm’s length. For some reason, that never appeared to be a consideration where the Met was concerned. Perhaps it was simply a case of the City learning from the Met’s mistakes.

Abberline was probably not happy that Hutchinson talked to the press because that, alone, would have negated much of Hutchinson's value as a witness.

I seriously doubt it, Hunter. The indications are that Hutchinson had already undergone an investigative fall from grace before the press got anywhere near him.

Schwartz was crucially important as far as the police was concerned, but I am cautious about Anderson and his witness. His statement was made many years later in a document that is inconsistent and strewn with errors.

Agreed. But as I stated in a previous post to Jonathan, Anderson and the Seaside Home incident are irrelevant with reference to any evaluation of Schwartz. The pivotal issue is Swanson’s belief that the evidence of one of the emergent witnesses was such that it would in itself have secured a conviction. Since only the sighting of an actual attack could have resulted in such an outcome, the task is to identify any witness who fits the bill. There is only one. Israel Schwartz.

Contemporaneously, the witnesses would have been the focus of the man heading the investigation, Donald Swanson. His witness chart, compiled after the 'double event' bears that out. In a couple of Swanson's reports at about the same time, he explains the strengths and weaknesses of both Schwartz and Lawende as witnesses, but discounts neither. One aspect that he didn't mention, but would have been significant to a policeman, was the fact that Lawende had corroboration to his sighting; none of the other witnesses did.

Again, though, Hunter, the crucial issue is that which relates to the semantics of Swanson’s marginalia jottings. According to Swanson the witness’s evidence ‘would convict the suspect, and witness would be the means of murderer being hanged which he did not wish to be left on his mind.’ (My emphasis.)

The meaning is unambiguous. But was it applicable to Lawende?

In short, no. Even if Lawende had not freely admitted that his recollection of the Church Passage episode was vague, what exactly did he see? A man and woman standing together engaged in quiet and nonaggressive conversation. Perhaps I’m missing something, but I cannot for the life of me see how this sighting could have resulted in a murder conviction.

Compare this to the fracas witnessed by Schwartz and Swanson’s words begin to make sense. Schwartz saw Stride being manhandled by an aggressive individual just a few feet from the spot on which her body would be found fifteen minutes later. More to the point, the medical evidence opens up the possibility that Stride was killed within a minute of Schwartz departing the scene.

So whilst I do take on board your observation regarding corroboration, independent confirmation of very little is still very little. And as honest and decent as Lawende undoubtedly was, no amount of corroboration could have secured a conviction on his evidence alone.

[Michael W Richards]

2 points for Maria

Hi Maria,

I have a rebuttal to your post # 390....

Fanny Mortimer stated to the police that she had been off and on at her door between 12:30 and 1am, the last 10 minutes of that period almost continuously. If true, and that is somewhat supported by her validated 12:55-56am sighting of Leon Goldstein, then she should have been a part of the proceedings. As Israel should have been, if believed.

On the timing of the three witnesses, were you aware that Kozebrodski had left the club for a period that night then returned at 12:30? He stated in one interview that it was 10 minutes later he was summoned to the yard. The implication here is that he would have had access to a clock in the club, and known when he arrived back at it.

Many cite the lack of watches in order to explain how some witnesses were off 15-20 minutes on their estimates, while Diemshutz, Eagle, Schwartz and Wess are given the benefit of the doubt on their times.

You've read Spooner's explanation on how he arrived at the Beehive and how long he was there before seeing club men running, Isaac's explanation on when he was notified and what transpired next, and Fanny's statements about her activities, Browns account of what he saw,... its clear that all of the authority figures at the club suggested a discovery after 1am, and the regular members and outsiders saw nothing of a Schwartz, Pipeman or BSM when they saw the woman in the alley near 12:45am. Near the earliest cut time that Blackwell suggested. Might they have been off a few minutes....sure, but most of them 15-20minutes early? Could Isaac have just forgotten that he left the yard with Louis around 1:03am when he said that he left the yard alone at Louis's insistence around 12:45am? When questioned less than an hour after the fact?

Hmm. I wonder whom among these witnesses has the most to lose if Police suspected that a club member killed her on their own property. Better if he was a Gentile and from off premises by far for all of those men. And surprisingly thats just what their stories offer.

All the best Maria,

Mike R

[Garry Wroe]

If the Marginalia are private, to whom is Swanson making his claim that the case was solved?

Precisely.

[Garry Wroe]

There was NO necessity whatsoever for Mortimer to have appeared at the inquest, as she wasn't a relevant witness.

Mrs Mortimer would have been instrumental in establishing the precise time of death.

[Bridewell]

The real issue, therefore, is not if or how the Seaside Home identification took place, but rather the fact that Swanson believed that the evidence of one of these witnesses was sufficient to have secured a conviction in its own right.

Hi Garry,

That is indeed the crux of the matter in my view. The problem I have is that, for that to be true, the witness concerned would have to have seen, not just an attack but, quite unambiguously, a murder. Lawende doesn't fit, and Schwartz only does so if he saw more than the surviving records suggest that he did.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Garry Wroe]

The problem I have is that, for that to be true, the witness concerned would have to have seen, not just an attack but, quite unambiguously, a murder.

Those were different times, Bridewell. No fingerprinting, DNA, CCTV and so forth - hence a far greater emphasis on eyewitness evidence. A clever barrister would have presented Schwartz as having witnessed not just an assault, but a preamble to the actual murder. It wouldn't hold water today, but defendants were convicted on far less during the late-Victorian era.

[Bridewell]

Waddell

Those were different times, Bridewell. No fingerprinting, DNA, CCTV and so forth - hence a far greater emphasis on eyewitness evidence. A clever barrister would have presented Schwartz as having witnessed not just an assault, but a preamble to the actual murder. It wouldn't hold water today, but defendants were convicted on far less during the late-Victorian era.

Hi Garry,

You have a point. William Waddell was convicted on nothing more than circumstantial evidence - it was strong circumstantial evidence admittedly, but it was no more than that.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Wickerman]

According to Swanson the witness’s evidence ‘would convict the suspect, and witness would be the means of murderer being hanged which he did not wish to be left on his mind.’ (My emphasis.)

The feature about Swanson's emphatic assurance is that he writes from the point of view of a Chief Inspector, but he is now retired.
This is where Swanson now becomes another retired police official reminicing as one "who nearly collared Jack". We nearly had him, if it wasn't for....

If Swanson had wrote so emphatic at the time of the murders we might be able to put more weight behind his conviction in his recollections, but as we know, at the time of the murders the conviction was "we had no clue".

To a man we know the police from Anderson down to Reid, all had no clue. So it matters little how much emphasis he puts into his recollections around 1910, we should resist being misguided by such afterthoughts.

Regards, Jon S.

[Tom_Wescott]

A quick point about witnesses at the inquest

In the Tabram case, there were two witnesses the police considered important and potentially relevant, and they were PC Thomas Barrett and Pearly Poll. Although Barrett was called as a witness at the inquest, it was only in his role as first constable on the scene. He was not asked to discuss the soldier with whom he spoke at 2am, nor give a description of him, even though doing so might have 'shaken something loose' in the press since his attempts at identification at the Tower had failed. In short, although no one questioned Barrett's honesty, had he not also been first cop to the scene, he would not have been called to the inquest at all. This was a Metropolitan Police thing, and might make for a more fitting comparison with Schwartz then how the City Police handled their witnesses.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Garry Wroe]

That's a pertinent point, Tom. The problem , however, is that the Coroner held legal sway over the inquests, not the police. Indeed it was (and still is) a contravention of the law for the police to withhold material witnesses or information from the Coroner. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm thoroughly confused.

[Jonathan H]

All marginalia from Anderson?

To Bridewell

The Marginalia is for Swanson himself and I agree that he does not have to impress anyone about this scoop except himself not even, apparently, his own family.

This has to be weighted against the limitation of a primary source like this; that you can write what you like to yourself, eg. to make yourself feel better.

For you know that you do not have to justify it to anybody else.

Especially if Evans and Rumbelow are right that Swanson is correcting a tale he has told Anderson and the latter has made a mess of it between two versions (eg. in the first having the suspect being confronted with a witness while already sectioned, the give-away detail that these are events being falsely recalled from the year 1891, not 1888/9)).

Those words are not as strong and as valuable, historically speaking, compared to either Anderson's or Macnaghten's memoirs because they were putting their competing and opposing Ripper opinions into the public domain-- and under their own knighted names.

Even Jack Littlechild was writing to somebody -- in fact a still famous journalist.

Personally, I think that Evans and Rumbelow are correct.

That the 'Seaside Home' is the misremembering of Tom Sadler and the Sailor's Home.

Where I disagree is that the memory failure is by Anderson, and not Swanson. who is recording his ex-chief's opinion not his own (eg. Anderson in 1908 misremembered the Home Sec. who put him under pressure, self-servingly altering a Tory into a loathed Liberal -- sound familiar? Anderson sincerely misremembered the issue of the pipes; mixing up the Kelly and McKenzie crimes -- sound familiar?)

You see, Bridewell, that idea that he does not have to write to anyone but himself cuts both ways.

Swanson added bits and pieces he had heard from Anderson but since it was just to himself he did not have to write: hey, this is Sir Robert's words not mine, because he already knew that.

Consider that Swanson also wrote the name of Macnaghten beneath Anderson's lines about a policeman who 'vexed' him about a threatening letter.

Wow! That's quite a slight against Mac, the self-styled, fearless 'action man', now denounced as turning to jelly over a mere letter.

No wonder Mac, in his 1914 memoirs, mentioned so many significant policemen by name and with great affection -- including Swanson -- but airbrushed Anderson totally out of existence, and pointedly dedicated the book to the latter's successor.

My theory is that Swanson knew nothing about that story about the letter, because it did not happen like that (Mac may have simply been investigating a lead, and so on, not turning into a terrified noodle). Therefore, in 1910 the identification came from Anderson, verbally, in the form of a put-down about his confidential assistant -- and Swanson, who had no idea to whom it referred, duly recorded it.

I think the same is true of the 'Dear Boss' letter.

In that instance Anderson told Swanson that other senior police thought that it was a hoax and they all knew the reporter who had faked it. Whereas in Mac's memoirs he claims it was himself who tracked down the hoaxer after a year.

In that instance Anderson is admitting to an error, eg. being fooled, yet he still does no such thing as admit a mistake, which in his own memoir he admits he would never do. So he takes safety in numbers by making it seem as if there was a phalanx of agreement -- and, of course, this also mean-spiritedly denies Mac his individual achievement in debunking the letter.

Every annotation, arguably, can be traced back to Anderson.

That is why Swanson put them in Anderson's book: to compliment and clarify his ex-chief's opinions.

Swanson did not have to write that he was doing this as it was marginalia only for his own eyes (in the public domain nobody backed Anderson in 1910, or thereafter -- nobody -- certainly not Swanson, not Abberline or Reid, or Smith, and in 1913 and 1914 Macnaghten set about tearing down his despised ex-boss' Ripper prognostications with what he claimed was the real story.)

To Garry Wroe

Just saying something is not true is not an argument, pal.

This is Lawende on the man he saw:

'The Times' on 2 October - "of shabby appearance, about 30 years of age and 5ft. 9in. in height, of fair complexion, having a small fair moustache, and wearing a red neckerchief and a cap with a peak".

And:

The description of the man seen by "two men coming out of a club" is given in a report by Donald Swanson, dated 19 October 1888, as "age 30 ht. 5 ft. 7 or 8 in. comp. fair fair moustache, medium built, dress pepper & salt colour loose jacket, grey cloth cap with peak of same colour, reddish handkerchief tied in a knot, round neck, appearance of a sailor."

This is Schwartz from 'The Star' Oct 1st 1888:

'A SECOND MAN CAME OUT
of the doorway of the public-house a few doors off, and shouting out some sort of warning to the man who was with the woman, rushed forward as if to attack the intruder. The Hungarian states positively that he saw a knife in this second man's hand, but he waited to see no more. He fled incontinently, to his new lodgings ... The man who came at him with a knife he also describes, but not in detail. He says he was taller than the other, but not so stout, and that his moustaches were red. Both men seem to belong to the same grade of society.'

What is similar and what is different?

Both men are of medium build, as opposed to stout (and Lawende did not describe a short man), both men are wearing proletarian attire, both men have moustaches but no beard, and both men are fair/red, eg. of Gentile appearance rather than Jewish (the 'sailor' has a red kerchief and Schwartz in his rush away from the scene, remembered the colour 'red').

The differences are that Lawende described a man with a peaked, sailor's cap and Schwartz did not, but nor did he say, specifically, that he was bare-headed.

Let us not forget that Schwartz claimed this man was armed with a knife and police believed that the man seen chatting, very amiably with Eddowes a short while later, secretly concealed a knife on his person -- if he was the murderer.

Plus 'Knifeman' has the perfect cover: seemingly coming to an Unfortunate's protection in a drunken street brawl when actually he is cruelly going to turn on her once the other men have scattered.

To Jon S.

The reason I agree with you except about Macnaghten (and Littlechild, though to a lesser extent) is his memoirs, the de-factothird version of his Report, which essentially matches the primary sources between 1888 and 1891. Also because his Ripper -- unlike Anderson's -- begins in the extant record prior to sources by this chief, and he was just as certain as Anderson.

They cannot both be right, and both could be wrong, but only one, Mac, deals directly with the other's suspect; in fact shows greater accurate knowledge of the other's suspect (eg. not deceased, no super-witness, and harmlessly out and about for a long time after Kelly).

[Garry Wroe]

The feature about Swanson's emphatic assurance is that he writes from the point of view of a Chief Inspector, but he is now retired ... This is where Swanson now becomes another retired police official reminicing as one "who nearly collared Jack". We nearly had him, if it wasn't for....

I can certainly see why some might think along those lines, Jon, but as Bridewell has intimated, who exactly was Swanson intending to impress by applying a few notes to a book that might never have been seen by another living soul?

[mariab]

Mrs Mortimer would have been instrumental in establishing the precise time of death.

Not quite, since she hasn't witnessed anything of relevance.