Let´s talk about that identification again

[Lechmere]

I think that is a good summary Fisherman.

If Swanson’s Kosminski was Aaron Kosminsky, then he got the time he was taken out of circulation wrong and his date of death wrong.
The significance of not knowing when the person Anderson and Swanson supposedly regarded as Jack the Ripper died (not just an average suspect) is that people get released from Asylums. They don’t always die inside. They also escape.
If Swanson regarded Kosminski as banged to rights the worst killer in British history, and if he was Aaron Kosminsky, then failing to keep tabs on his whereabouts was grossly incompetent.

If it wasn't Aaron Kosminsky (but was say Cohen) then Swanson must have got the name completely wrong. This implies gross incompetence if he thought this person was banged to rights as the Ripper.

Particularly if Swanson was ‘in charge’ of the investigation.
If he was actually only in charge of the massive amount of incoming and outgoing paperwork, then his confusion becomes more explicable and less damning.

But Swanson was a policeman so he must be defended to the hilt.

I’m not quite sure what the commendations for individual cases that were quite unlike the scope and reach of the Whitechapel Murder investigations prove.

The Peter Principle is a belief that, in an organization where promotion is based on achievement, success, and merit, that organization's members will eventually be promoted beyond their level of ability. The principle is commonly phrased, "Employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence." In more formal parlance, the effect could be stated as: employees tend to be given more authority until they cannot continue to work competently.

Jonathan
If Anderson didn't tell Swanson and kept it a secret initially it doesn't say much for Swanson's role as the person 'in charge' of the investigation.
If his memory was failing him then his annotations are unreliable and any theory based on the Seaside Home identification is built on foundations of sand.

My view is that Swanson had no first-hand knowledge as he was not in charge of the investigation. He based his opinions on the mass of paperwork that passed his desk, which is what he was in charge of. He was overloaded with information, and overworked by having to also liaise with the City police into the small hours of the morning. He understandably got muddled which was exacerbated by age by the time he came to recollect his thoughts.
I also think he was subservient to Anderson.
Warren wasn’t a police man. But he was used to commanding in a late 19th century British military manner. They had no concept of appointing a chief of staff, particularly not of relying for imagination and decision from someone from a working class background from the far north wilds of Scotland. They appointed staff and commanded personally. Warren took direct command of the Ripper investigation. He did not appoint Swanson to be anything more than his eyes and ears and to make sense of the mass of paperwork coming in and out of Scotland Yard with respect to this case.

[Garry Wroe]

As I've said before, if Lawende really was the Seaside Home witness, why did he not identify Kosminski during the City's earlier undercover operation?

[Fisherman]

As I've said before, if Lawende really was the Seaside Home witness, why did he not identify Kosminski during the City's earlier undercover operation?

I don´t think that Lawende was the Seaside Home witness, Garry. If he had positively identified whatever suspect it was that had been brought there, then he had burnt his ships in the ID department.
Any ensuing positive pointing out of yet another suspect - such as Sadler - would never have been viable. The Seaside Home witnesses´ money was firmly on the Seaside Home suspect.

It would be another thing if Lawende was also the man that ID:d Grainger. He had space left to do so, since he had NOT ID:d Sadler - OR the Seaside Home witness. Once you choose, you cannot choose once more.

In consequence of this, logically reasoning, the witness who ID:d the Seaside Home suspect could not be Lawende.

The only half useful exception to this would be if the Seaside Home identification had been an undercover operation, known to nobody but a chosen few and never registered or spoken of.
If this had been the case, one might imagine a score of policemen, not in on the undercover operation, asking Lawende to take a look at Sadler.

But one cannot imagine Lawende agreeing to come along for the ride. Not if he had unhesitatingly already made his choice.

The best,
Fisherman

[Jonathan H]

No, that's not what I am arguing.

Anderson did not keep anything secret from Swanson, or from the public for that matter. No, he did not give out the name as that would have been inappropriate as the Ripper was -- he sincerely believed -- dead, and could not receive due process.

The moment Anderson learned from Macnaghten in 1895, his confidential assistant, about this 'Kosminski' who lived near all the murders, hated harlots, had been suspected by his own family, had threatened a female relative with a knife, had masturbated like there was not tomorrow, and had been sectioned soon after the Kelly murder -- because he had ceased to be able to function -- and had died soon after that, then he he told Swanson.

We see glimpses of this in Swanson's out-of--nowhere comment about a deceased suspect in 1895, around the same time that Anderson is confidently confiding in Major Griffiths (as Alfred Aylmer) that he was pretty sure it was a maniac who was sectioned.

In 1892, Anderson gave an interview which can be interpreted to mean that he was still without a prime suspect.

Not until 1895 does this dramatically change, in the wake of [what maybe] Lawende, a Jewish witness, affirming to 1895 sailor suspect William Grant and yet that all going nowhere as the definitive 'Jack'.

Sound familiar?

Swanson never saw any first-hand information about this suspect because it had all come verbally and he sincerely believed posthumously from Anderson.

But then neither had Anderson seen any paper work either -- it had all come verbally from Macnaghten from one his 'action man' expeditions.

I believe that Mac lied to his superior: Aaron Kosminski was at best a minor suspect who had not been 'safely caged' until over two years after the Kelly murder.

We know from the asylum records that he was a Polish Jew, he was a chronic masturbator, he lived in the area, and he threatened a female relation with a knife.

But beyond that we cannot be sure that the other details are not made up by Mac to convince Anderson. Critical to this deception was telling him that 'Kosminski' was sectioned much earlier, and that he was safely deceased -- as it potentially halted any further investigation by his superior.

What I cannot get people to see, or at least debate, is that we have textual evidence that unlike Anderson and Swanson, Macnaghten knew that 'Kosminski', his fictional variation of Aaron Kosminski, was still alive in the asylum (see the now somewhat neglected 'Aberconway' version).

Arguably Mac knew more about this suspect than his superior or his junior. He also parahcuted this suspect into 1888 by having him maybe seen by a beat cop with Eddowes. He later retracted that bit of fiction.

In his memoirs Macnaghten showed what he thought of his worth by omission: he dropped him entirely (along with Ostrog -- they are nothing). He went out of his way to portray the Ripper as a Gentile 'Simon Pure' maniacally angry at a trio of Jews for interrupting him with Stride (eg. he put it in writing on the wall that he not a Jew). Mac makes it clear that the real fiend outwitted the police -- eg. Anderson -- and that his true identity was unknown until 'some years after' he killed himself.

[Lechmere]

Hi Jonathan
Sorry if I am being slow but...
When did Macnaghten find out about Kosminsky? (I presume he at least based his Kosminsky on Aaron – or is that just coincidence?)
What motivation did he have for lying to Anderson? (Is it to cover up Druitt or am I getting mixed up here?)
Why did Macnaghten wait until 1895 to tell Anderson about ‘Kosminsky’?
Why was Macnaghten so ill informed about Kosminsky? (Or was he well informed and this was deliberate misinformation?)
What was Macnaghten’s action man mission that led to him finding out incorrect information about Kosminsky? (Or did Macnaghten pretend he went on an action man mission?)

Why did Anderson so readily accept Macnaghten’s unsubstantiated claims about so important a case?

I presume you are suggesting that Swanson, who was supposedly ‘in charge’ of the investigation, relied on third hand information that he made no effort to substantiate, that the Ripper had been incarcerated and died?

[Jonathan H]

When did Macnaghten find out about Kosminsky? (I presume he at least based his Kosminsky on Aaron – or is that just coincidence?)

My guess is soon after he was incarcerated based on checking lists of incarcerated lunatics who lived locally. He saw that he had been driven insane by masturbation and it amused him.

What motivation did he have for lying to Anderson? (Is it to cover up Druitt or am I getting mixed up here?)

He loathed his pious, egocentric boss (the feeling was mutual) and did not trust him to keep his mouth shut about Druitt.

Why did Macnaghten wait until 1895 to tell Anderson about ‘Kosminsky’?

Then in 1895 Lawende unexpectedly affirmed to Grant and another debacle was in the offing. Mac produced 'Kosminski' pretending he had just found him but plugged him into the 1888 investigation as a name on a list, which had been somewhat true.

Sure enough Anderson began telling everybody.

Why was Macnaghten so ill informed about Kosminsky? (Or was he well informed and this was deliberate misinformation?)

Yes, deliberate.

I think he knew everything about him. his being sectioned happened nearly two years after Mac had been on the Force. To make it work he had to backdate his being sectioned.

What was Macnaghten’s action man mission that led to him finding out incorrect information about Kosminsky? (Or did Macnaghten pretend he went on an action man mission?)

Yes.

If you read his memoirs he claims to always be escaping his desk to be at the scene as his own Sherlock Holmes, often by himself.

He also claims that the first thing he did when joining was to comb the letters from Jack and discovered a year later the identity of the reporter who hoaxed the 'Dear Boss' letter.

He also claims that he, again alone on his own mission, found the original harlot witness who got poor Adolf Beck off the hook, in one of the most infamous mis-carriages of justice. Because Mac was alone she mistook for him for a prospective client.

Why did Anderson so readily accept Macnaghten’s unsubstantiated claims about so important a case?

Because of the masturbation factor. Mac had heard Anderson's tiresome, reactionary sermons on this subject: that self-abuse leads to madness and rape and murder, and so on.

Whereas the Old Etonian had a working knowledge of such vices and thus knew that most of Britain's ruling elite would have to be locked away in a madhouse.

In 1891, Mac discovered that a minor suspect had supposedly been driven mad by such 'solitary vices'.

Bingo!

He placed him on an official Scotland Yard report, for other smokescreen reasons, but that trigger was never pulled for the Home Office.

It lay in the Yard's file, unknown to all.

I presume you are suggesting that Swanson, who was supposedly ‘in charge’ of the investigation, relied on third hand information that he made no effort to substantiate, that the Ripper had been incarcerated and died?

Swanson relied on what his boss told him in 1895. It was information received at the highest level. There was nothing to investigate or file as the suspect was long deceased. Hence the only record by Swanson is some annotations in Anderson's book, an entirely private bit of business.

[Lechmere]

So Anderson's education didn't give him a working knowledge of masturbation?
It was a vice confined to Etonians and the English ruling elite?

Jonathan
You case seems to hang on a tortuous thread.
Druitt’s family were not part of the ruling elite and the ruling elite were not threatened by Montague’s potential guilt.
The ‘ruling elite’ did turn on their ‘own’ for sexual misdemeanour – as shown, for example, in the cases of Sir Charles Dilke and Valentine Baker.

[RivkahChaya]

Just to muddy the waters, there's a disease, the name of which eludes me, and all that come up with Google is Progeria, but it's not Progeria-- I thought it was called Williamson's syndrome, but that doesn't bring any hits-- anyway, it's a disorder of collagen formation, or elastin, IIRC, that gives a person the appearance of looking much older than they are, and as it happens, is more common among Ashkenazic Jews, than in the general population. I know two people who have it, and both are Ashkenazic Jews. They looked like they were sixty when they were forty. It's rare however you look at it, but it's something like one in a million among non-Jews, but one in 100,000 among Ashkenazic Jews. It's not like Progeria, in that people with it have a near-normal life-expectancy, but I imagine that someone institutionalized might die young, elastin disease or not.

Not saying Aaron Kosminski had this, but heck, just thought I'd mention it, in case any conspiracy-theory types are lurking.

[Monty]

"I’m not quite sure what the commendations for individual cases that were quite unlike the scope and reach of the Whitechapel Murder investigations prove.

The Peter Principle is a belief that, in an organization where promotion is based on achievement, success, and merit, that organization's members will eventually be promoted beyond their level of ability. The principle is commonly phrased, "Employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence." In more formal parlance, the effect could be stated as: employees tend to be given more authority until they cannot continue to work competently."

You stated Swanson was incompetent. Stewart has provided Swansons commendation award as proof this wasn't the case.

You then state he was promoted beyond his abilities. If you bothered to look, that the awards spread over many years and therefore through Swanson career. Showing clearly that his abilities were far suited for his rank.

The Whalley case, the murder of Isaac Gold by Lefroy, kidnapping of a Chinaman and his involment regarding the return of a stolen Giansborough are diverse cases all of which Swanson conducted or was heavily involved with. All with results I add. I could name more but it would be over killing my point, which is the questioning of Swanson as an investigator and his position is laughable.

All you have provided is your take on Warrens report and the fact the Ripper case was not mentioned in an obituary, which considering Swansons reluctance to discuss his work, his hardly surprising. However he had no control of his content. And that's it, your sole batch of evidence to prove Swanson was a error strewn filing clerk. Do you have any other evidence to support your baseless accusation?

The evidence is quite clear. Swanson was a competent Constable who was highly thought of by villains such as Worth, and peers such as Sweeney and McIntyre. His rewards record has been provided on this thread, his case record can easily be traced throught the internet and various books, I suggest the reader does that to form their own opinion.

Despite the overwhelming evidnence, Ed still maintains Swanson was nothing more than a mere clerk on the case (despite the fact the reports prove this wasn't the case at all) who was quite incompetent.

It is quite clear this accusation is wrong, however (and as I said), I urge people to do their own research on Swanson, rather than rely on the ill informed with their own suspect agenda.

Monty

[Jonathan H]

In his neglected memoirs, Sir Melville praises Donald Swanson and writes that he was in overall charge of the Whitechapel investigation.

Masturbation was the Sin of Onan, a mortal sin, and many Victorian, sexually repressed Christians took all this very seriously. With his fundamentalist beliefs and attitudes Anderson is likely to be one of them.

I have never argued that Macnaghten was covering up for one of the elite, for Montie clearly was not part of that exalted group, and neither was his family.

What I am trying to do is make all the disparate pieces fit together because the ones which have survived for us do not fit, not according to all the other theories.

It's just my opinion but all the other theories -- including Cullen saying it was Druitt but that Mac had a poor memory -- do not hang together, not without significant loose ends or by ignoring the loose ends rather than trying to make sense of them.

I am arguing that since Mac can be shown to be deceitful in his Report(s) and to his cronies, then why not to Anderson's face as well (he liked Sims and did not like Anderson).

I think what happened based on the glimpses, really just slivers, we get of the missing middle of the story is that Mac met with Farquy, listened politely, attentively and skeptically to his story of the surgeon's son and his whole murder-suicide/double-bang 'doctrine', which he had picked up on the Tory grapevine in Dorset.

Then Mac told him to shut up about it, as he was acting like the worst kind of Eton dorm snitch and that he, as the 'action man', would make appropriate though discreet inquiries, and no doubt discover that the truth was rather different.

Which it was.

Mac met with William and/or the Rev. Charles Druitt and heard the real story (no double bang the same evening) and yet left convinced, possibly because the tormented chap had confessed verbally to a family member.

Mac assured them that it would never come out, and would never need to come out as Montie could never receive be arrested, never due process.

Instead Vicar Charles said it was going to come out on the tenth anniversary, so the leak of 1891 was going to happen again and now Mac knew it.

This would be embarrassing for Scotland Yard (not Mac personally) for a Liberal government could make trouble for a Tory Opposition and a Tory dominated police administration if it came out that Jack was long dead, from a Conservative family and discovered by a Conservative MP.

The over-riding mischief that the Liberal tabloids would make would be police incompetence, however unfair

Once the Cutbush story landed in 1894, Macnaghten prepared a Report for insurance to show that 'they', the police, had known about Druitt, and knew that he was sexually insane but did have enough evidence to arrest him (actually he could not be arrested because he was long dead, which the Report conceals) and plus there were other madmen -- here are two -- who might have been just as plausible, both foreign trash, eg. your taxes at work

All three identities read out in the Commons would be untraceable by the tabloids, or by even relations of the three men (obviously the Druitts would know).

Nothing happened, so he mothballed the Report.

In 1895, the William Grant affair threatened to go thermo-nuclear -- with Lawende saying, yes, it was him -- and so now Mac scrambled to brief Anderson about a slam dunk suspect: one definitely insane, long deceased, whose family 'suspected the worst', and who was permanently off the scene soon after the Kelly murder.

But instead of the dead Druitt it was the supposedly the dead 'Kosminski'.

In 1898, knowing that Charles Druitt was going to try and publish a candidly veiled version of the truth, Mac was already primed with his mixture of fact and fiction to quash the idea that the Ripper was a man who had time to make a confession to a clergyman and who was totally unknown to the police whilst alive.

Sims had it that the drowned doctor had no time to confess was about to be arrested by the police.

In 1914, an ill Mac from retirement tried to be more open and accurate. He admitted that the real Ripper did have a window in which he could have confessed to 'his own people' (which covers Vicar Charles) and that he was unknown to the police until a long after he was deceased.

Macnaghten wanted to 'keep everyone satisfied' and protect the Yard and the Druitts because he was both a compassionate person and it made the police look better (keeping them invisible was better for the Yard's rep, eg. 'they' knew about the doctor and were within mere hours of arresting him, or so Edwardians were misled to believe).

If push came to shove and the whole story began to again spillk out of Dorset, this time a torrent, Mac would choose the Yard as his first priority -- after all the Druitt's late member was the Ripper.

[Garry Wroe]

I don´t think that Lawende was the Seaside Home witness, Garry.

I’ve long argued that the witness could only have been Schwartz, Fish.

Any ensuing positive pointing out of yet another suspect - such as Sadler - would never have been viable. The Seaside Home witnesses´ money was firmly on the Seaside Home suspect.

It would certainly have undermined the Prosecution case had a suspect been brought to trial, Fish.

The only half useful exception to this would be if the Seaside Home identification had been an undercover operation, known to nobody but a chosen few and never registered or spoken of.
If this had been the case, one might imagine a score of policemen, not in on the undercover operation, asking Lawende to take a look at Sadler.

I tend to think that the Seaside Home affair was a covert operation, Fish. According to Anderson the suspect and witness were local Jews. So why go to the extraordinary length of transporting one (and almost certainly both) to Brighton if not to avoid the prying eyes of London journalists? The only alternative I can think of was that the identification itself was conducted illegally. But then if this had been the case there would have been no possibility of bringing the suspect to trial, and thus no possibility of securing the conviction that Swanson himself implied was a certainty.

But one cannot imagine Lawende agreeing to come along for the ride. Not if he had unhesitatingly already made his choice.

My impression is that Lawende was the type of man who would have rendered assistance whenever it was required, Fish. The problem I have with him is that he would have been all but worthless as a prosecution witness. He saw next to nothing and remembered even less. At best he could have provided an indication to police as to whether any given suspect was worthy of further investigation. But as a prosecution witness he was a non-starter.

[Monty]

It was an arm chancer in my opinion.

If it had have paid off, and I honestly think even if successful it wouldn't have, then its a nail in the cases coffin.

Monty

[Garry Wroe]

You may well be right, Monty.

[Fisherman]

You stated Swanson was incompetent...

...I urge people to do their own research on Swanson, rather than rely on the ill informed with their own suspect agenda.

Monty

Hi Monty!

In all honesty, I think you need to be a bit more discerning before you throw out accusations like this.

When you write that Edward "stated Swanson was incompetent", is it not true that you forget to bring the whole story to the table? Edward says that IF Swanson accepted Aaron Kosminski at the probable killer, and if this Kosminski was the Kosminski that died in Leavesden, THEN it follows that Swanson failed to realize that Aaron Kosminski lived on until 1919 instead of dying shortly after having been transferred to Colney Hatch, as Swanson tells us. And if Swanson failed to realize this, then he could not have kept himself sufficiently informed about the destiny of the man he had accepted was the probable killer.

I don´t think that anybody would disagree that if this was so, then we have a case of gross negligence on our hands. And much of the responsibility must of course fall on Swanson - not least so if he truly was in overall charge of the case! It would have left him the overall responsibility to keep track of the case development too.

As for Swanson´s other virtues and capabilities, I fail to see that anybody has commmented on them in any negative shape or form.

So, you see, what you do here is to present a case where Edward purportedly has stated that Swanson was an overall incompetent policeman. And he has not. He has posed an if/so scenario relating only to the built-in anomalies in the triumvirate of Swansons naming Kosminski as the suspect, his giving a time of death early after the transfer to Colney Hatch and our knowledge that Aaron Kosminski died in 1919.

This accusation of yours becomes so much more regrettable in view of what you use it for: you claim that people would do better not to listen to this sort of accusation against Swanson - an accusation that you have actually formed yourself on behalf of Edward - and avoid listening to the ill informed with "agendas", perhaps implying (what do I know?) that Edward stated what you claim he stated (and which he never did state), because he has an agenda that benefits from dissing Swansons overall abilities.

The picture that emerges if you are right on Edward having made some sort of overall claim that Swanson was an incompetent man, is one of you yourself as being very keen to keep these boards clean from vicious posters who come here to mislead and distort to serve their own chosen agendas.

The picture that emerges if you are wrong on Edward having made some sort of overall claim that Swanson was an incompetent man is another one altogether, needless to say.

Of course, if you can substantiate that Edward has pointed Swanson out as an overall incompetent policeman, then this discussion is moot. Then you are correct, and no further debate is of interest. So such a substantiation would be much welcomed.

If you simply meant that since Swanson was so highly commended and praised by his contemporaries, he could not possibly have acted incompetently in relation to the Kosminski identification/incarceration/death issue, then it´s another thing. Then you are welcome to reserve yourself the right to be of that meaning. But you must surely realize that - given the surrounding circumstances - it is completely legitimate not to agree with you on this detail.

A completely fair and gentlemanly discussion can easily be had on this issue, if we only try, each and every one of us.

All the best, Monty!
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Garry:

"I’ve long argued that the witness could only have been Schwartz, Fish."

He is the one that leaps to mind if we remove Lawende, yes. Fot him not to have been the obvious choice, we need to rely on the possibility that there was somebody else that witnessed one or more of the proceedings leading up to one or more of the murders, somebody that has gone lost to us.

Obviously, the problem with Schwartz is that we know that Swanson took care to point out that somebody else that BS man may well have been the killer; there was a window of time afforded that would have more than sufficed. Therefore if we accpet that Swanson was the man who made the calls in the Ripper case, Schwartz could only be relied upion to possibly ID BS man - who may or may not have been the killer.
And Swanson said that the suspect in the Seaside Home would hang if the witness stood by his word in the court of law.

So no, Schwartz does not fit either. Since we must probably rule Lawende out, he fits better - but not good enough.

"It would certainly have undermined the Prosecution case had a suspect been brought to trial, Fish."

It would!

"I tend to think that the Seaside Home affair was a covert operation, Fish. According to Anderson the suspect and witness were local Jews. So why go to the extraordinary length of transporting one (and almost certainly both) to Brighton if not to avoid the prying eyes of London journalists?"

Because, perhaps, the witness could for some reason not be brought to London. If the witness was recovering from some illness or traume, then maybe it was easier to bring the suspect to Brighton (if Brighton it was...)
I am absolutely sure that if the police needed secrecy, then secrecy could be obtained a lot closer to Whitechapel than Brighton!

"The only alternative I can think of was that the identification itself was conducted illegally. But then if this had been the case there would have been no possibility of bringing the suspect to trial, and thus no possibility of securing the conviction that Swanson himself implied was a certainty."

True - so what would have been the point?

"My impression is that Lawende was the type of man who would have rendered assistance whenever it was required, Fish. The problem I have with him is that he would have been all but worthless as a prosecution witness. He saw next to nothing and remembered even less. At best he could have provided an indication to police as to whether any given suspect was worthy of further investigation. But as a prosecution witness he was a non-starter."

Maybe he did remember very much more than he lead on, Garry. Maybe his memory was sharper than a razor; I don´t think we have any evidence to any problems with his memory.
But overall, you are on the money - he WAS a non-starter. He secured that role when he stated that he would in all probability not be able to ID the man. Such things are rarely forgotten by the defence when it comes to pleading their cause, and it would have blown the Lawende light out in any court of law.
Then again, if Anderson was itching and if he would settle for moral proof only, being fully aware of Lawende´s shortcomings as a reliable witness, then maybe, just maybe ... but IF that happened, Lawende would NOT have been cast in the Sadler drama, so no - we need to rule Lawende out.

The best,
Fisherman