Ep. #28- Kosminski Was The Suspect

[dougie]

I lived in Dartford Kent for several years,and Stone house mental hospital ,just outside dartford , has its own oral history regarding the "fact" that jack the ripper had been confined there at some time....Its not an reasonable distance from Whitechapel.
regards

[Jeff Leahy]

Cox (City CID) refers to a suspect who 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."

Fair comment Roy, I'd agree that its Robs, ideas/theories you have stated above, that I also find most interesting.

Particularly I'd like to draw attention to the above.

Firstly as it gives a discription of a man (lose though it may be, that would not contradict a discription given at Berner street by Schwartz.

But more importantly sates an Asylum in Surrey?

I was wondering if he was talking about Aaron Kosminski, why Surrey?, and are there any asylums that might make a conection, going with the idea that Kosminski's family may have placed Aaron in an asylum before 1991.

Pirate

[Roy Corduroy]

Also, I just want to say again that I am just putting ideas on the table, for discussion. For example, this whole Batty Street laundry incident. I am well aware that people may disagree with my suggestion that it may be related to Kozminski. I am not saying it DOES relate to him, I am just pointing out some curious aspects of the newspaper reports that seem to match Kozminski. This is all open to debate.

(A) Batty St Lodger was introduced into the case by Evans & Gainey in 1st American Serial Killer.

(B) Gavin Bromley has written two essays concerning it.

(1) a Casebook dissertation Mrs. Kuer's Lodger

(2) an addendum in Ripperologist 83, Sept 2007

(C) Rob, you produced this interpetation in another thread, which I will take the liberty of copying here. For discussion


Rob House Re: the Batty street Lodger

The lodger story first appeared I think on Oct 15, but the follow up articles over the next few days make it clear that the initial story was misreported, based on gossiping neighbors basically. In any case, the reporter never apparently talked to the landlady herself. And it is clear there never was a lodger at all, but that the bloody laundry was dropped off by a stranger.

All the most relevant articles (to Kozminski) are on October 18... see the Daily News, the Echo, and the Evening News, which contains an interview with the landlady and an actual lodger at the house.

The Daily News notes: "police authorities have received information tending to show that the criminal is a foreigner, who was known as having lived within a radius of a few hundred yards from the scene of the Berner-street tragedy. The very place where he lodges is asserted to be within official cognisance. If the man be the real culprit, he lived some time ago with a woman, by whom, he has been accused"

Interview with Mrs Kuer states: "She denied that the man for whom the police were searching was one of her lodgers, and asserted that he simply had his washing done at the house. He was a ladies tailor, working for a West-end house, and did not reside in the Leman-street district. "

key things here are:

1. suspect is a foreigner who lived a few hundred yards from Berner St murder site - "foreigner" is almost certainly a euphemism for "Jew". Kozminski probably lived at 74 Greenfield St, which is almost exactly 300 yards from the Berner St murder site. (you can measure this on Google maps)

2. suspect was accused by a woman he lived with - this may refer to Earl of Crawford letter

3. the man who dropped off the bloody shirts was a ladies' tailor - both Kozminski's brothers were ladies' tailors. Isaac possibly (probably) worked for a West End House, as a subcontractor.

Also from the interview with Mrs. Kuer:

"She explained the presence of blood on the shirt by saying that it was owing to an accident that occurred to a man (other than the one taken into custody) who was living on the premises, and that the police would have known nothing of it but for her having indiscreetly shown it to a neighbour. "

So here we see, the man who was taken into custody is not the owner of the shirt. The blood is explained as coming from an accident. The owner of the bloody shirt was "living on the premises". It is not explicitly stated what premises are meant, but it is not Mrs Kuer's house. The implication is, the premises refers to the ladies' tailor's premises. This supports the idea of Aaron living at Isaac's house, or more specifically his workshop, at 74 Greenfield St.

Other references to "living on premises" or in shops.

Cox (City CID) refers to a suspect who 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."

The City CID was conducting surveillance on this suspect who lived on a Jewish street, in a workshop (later described as a "house"), and the police used the cover story that they were "factory inspectors looking for tailors and capmakers who employed boys and girls under age, and pointing out the evils accruing from the sweaters' system." Isaac was a master tailor, specifically described as a sweater in the Booth surveys. Cox's story also incidentally corroborates Swanson who said Kozminski was watched by City CID: "On suspect’s return to his brother’s house in Whitechapel he was watched by police (City CID) by day & night. "

Also Sims refers to a suspect who is "a Polish Jew of curious habits and strange disposition, who was the sole occupant of certain premises in Whitechapel after night-fall." Note the phrase "sole occupant of certain premises"...

Rob H
---

This is the part I am interested in. Something that could possibly relate to a suspect on the ground.

Roy

[Jeff Leahy]

No I am not Jeff. Being in debt and having few principles had more to do with Pigott"s behaviour ,I should think.

Yes this is clearly as I understood the situation also.

But there is no question that as a spymaster, Robert Anderson would have had tabs on them all.
The Times News paper was vehemently anti- Home Rule and the editor Buckle had seized the opportunity to dish the dirt on Parnell whether through
the publication of Pigott"s forged Parnell letters,which they had never bothered to have authenticated or by Anderson"s own defamatory writings on Parnell for that same newspaper.
Regarding the way the conduits worked with Anderson and Monro: They had a number of "informers" in places as far apart as Paris,Boulogne,New York, Chicago -even Moscow reporting to them on all important Fenian activities-for example George Mulqueeny ,one of Anderson"s long term informers, was posted to report on the activities of a group at a Soho drinking hang-out,"The Golden Lion" in Wardour Street, where William O"Shea [the husband of "Kitty"-Parnell"s "squeeze"] met with a Captain Stephens and other informers or Parnell enemies ,"to compose a pamphlet to sensationally reveal Parnell"s links with terror".
Anderson,with several of his and Monro"s most reliable informers present at these meetings -gatherings whose sole objective was "destroying Parnell," was clearly aware and surely complicit in such goings on---?
Cheers Norma

Again I must refer you back to my comments about ‘behind the Scenes in American’

Which is where Anderson comments on Parnellism. As I understand these articles contain few if any direct references to Charles Stewart Parnell.

While I share your general hostility toward the British Governments treatment of one of our greatest leaders and politicians. There is nothing here that convinces me that Anderson was acting in a dishonourable manor..from a point of view. He was doing his job.

Granddad Lewis was at Dunkirk and fort in Africa against Romel. Yet I don’t seek to accuse Romel of Lying or dishonesty even if he fort for a cause that I find equally as distasteful.

However you approach this subject. And I appreciate that the pro and Anti Anderson camps are currently at intellectual 'logaheads' on the matter.

What we have in Anderson is a complex character and simplistic rhetoric is not enough to claim that the solution has been reached.

Each person reviewing the case for Kosminski must ask themselves ‘did Anderson know?’

It is a legitimate question and I don’t believe that any person, expert or NOT, can claim a definitive answer..

Its complicated, it depends on your point of view and its probably best that it remains an open question until such a time as we have further information or proof.

What also worries me is that this is a thread about Sundays podcast on Kosminski and getting to heavily bogged down on the subject of Anderson might be considered 'off thread'.

Anyway I’m not in disagreement about the above information, its what you are trying to reason from it about Anderson that has me worried?..

Again..My position on Anderson was and is, I don’t know.

However 'expert opinion' is currently, clearly divided.

Pirate

PS Thanks for your input Norma...I must get some sleep..good night

[Natalie Severn]

As a post script to the above post,Richard Pigott joined the Golden Lion Soho gatherings with William O"Shea , Captain Stephens ,Hayes etc and helped to produce the pamphlet on Parnell describing him as having links with terrorists.Anderson"s informer,George Mulqueeny reported back to him on its progress.

[Natalie Severn]

No I am not Jeff. Being in debt and having few principles had more to do with Pigott"s behaviour ,I should think.
But there is no question that as a spymaster, Robert Anderson would have
had tabs on them all.
The Times News paper was vehemently anti- Home Rule and the editor Buckle had seized the opportunity to dish the dirt on Parnell whether through
the publication of Pigott"s forged Parnell letters,which they had never bothered to have authenticated or by Anderson"s own defamatory writings on Parnell for that same newspaper.
Regarding the way the conduits worked with Anderson and Monro: They had a number of "informers" in places as far apart as Paris,Boulogne,New York, Chicago -even Moscow reporting to them on all important Fenian activities-for example George Mulqueeny ,one of Anderson"s long term informers, was posted to report on the activities of a group at a Soho drinking hang-out,"The Golden Lion" in Wardour Street, where William O"Shea [the husband of "Kitty"-Parnell"s "squeeze"] met with a Captain Stephens and other informers or Parnell enemies ,"to compose a pamphlet to sensationally reveal Parnell"s links with terror".
Anderson,with several of his and Monro"s most reliable informers present at these meetings -gatherings whose sole objective was "destroying Parnell," was clearly aware and surely complicit in such goings on---?




Cheers Norma

[Jeff Leahy]

In March 1887, Parnell found himself accused by the British newspaper The Times of support for the murderers of the Chief Secretary for Ireland Lord Frederick Cavendish, and the Under Secretary for Ireland, T.H. Burke. Burke and Cavenish had been brutally stabbed to death on May 6, 1882 in the Phoenix Park in Dublin. Letters were published which suggested Parnell was complicit in the murders. However a Commission of Enquiry, set up to destroy Parnell, vindicated him, as did a libel action instituted by him, when it was revealed in February 1890 that the letters were in fact a fabrication created by Richard Piggott, an anti-Parnell journalist who promply committed suicide. They have gone down in history as the Piggott Forgeries.

Are you trying to suggest Norma that Anderson was responcible for Piggott?

[Stewart P Evans]

Totally Irrepressible

Norma your not going to turn this into another meaning of the word 'LIE' thread are you?
..it appears we don't differ much on view point..and obviously I stand on Parnell's side..thats not the question, the question is 'was Anderson doing his job and did he ......(I cant beleive I'm going here )..did he LIE?'.
Pirate

Totally irrepressible - like a big kid.

[Jeff Leahy]

Norma your not going to turn this into another meaning of the word 'LIE' thread are you?

..it appears we don't differ much on view point..and obviously I stand on Parnell's side..thats not the question, the question is 'was Anderson doing his job and did he ......(I cant beleive I'm going here )..did he LIE?'.

Pirate

[Natalie Severn]

Jeff, you seem to be making a number of points here most of which seem aimed at laundering Anderson"s dirty dealings.
On the matter of whether or not Parnell said this that or the other to Thomas Billis BEACH [aka " Le Caron," "Informant B","Thomas","Dr Howard"].
Beach had two meetings with him .The first was a simple "introduction " to Parnell in The House of Commons in April 1881 by Patrick Egan,an Irish Nationalist. Beach had his "Fenian,or Henry Le Caron" cap on at the meeting ,having become an informer for Anderson ,by joining the Fenian Brotherhood and begun to pose as a Sullivan loyalist.
At the second meeting Parnell is alleged to have said to this "Clansman from Illinois,[" Le Caron], "I have long ceased to believe that anything but force of arms will bring about the independence of Ireland".And the Illinois Clansman promptly dumped his Le Caron hat in the trash can and raced round to 39 Linden Gardens ,Notting Hill, where Robert Anderson took copious notes until dawn and began to have visions of Parnell and a universal conspiracy.
But really,this is just one more example of this obsessive Spymaster,Anderson ,going wildly off on one of his obsessive trajectories and seeing plots everywhere -even where there were none.
Parnell was a brilliant and very astute POLITICIAN for goodness sake.As THE leading MP for Home Rule at Westminster and as a convinced "Parliamentarian" he had no intention whatsoever of joining the extra parliamentary "Fenians" who believed in the establishment of a guerrilla Army and having an armed struggle/war with mainland Britain.But he couldnt afford to lose these hotheads completely could he?They would have got rid of Parnell as soon as look at him-if he seemed to be selling them short with Home Rule [which would anyway have involved pledges to the British Empire etc]---so he had to keep them on side....say what they wanted to hear.
In a way this is what your post admits but it isnt quite clear where you place Parnell---
more later

[Jeff Leahy]

We are Family

Martin Fido is a highly qualified academic who has spent his life reading and teaching Victorian literature and who has a particular interest in Victorian religious beliefs, who has read Anderson’s secular and theological writings and therefore seems well-qualified to form an assessment of Anderson’s character.

I therefore feel perfectly justified suggesting that any discussion on Anderson Character are referenced via Martin, as he is clearly a recognized authority. And I’m sure he does not mind me singing his praises.

I'm sorry about my dyslexia but the first line should have read "I don’t think I’ve passed judgment on Anderson. ever"

And clearly I have more reason than most to be cautious of Anderson, and check him out..

However, I don’t believe anything over my Gt Gt GT Uncle, has any bearing on how he would have handled low-class immigrant Polish Jews, apart from the fact that Anderson was of his time and age.

http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Parnell_Charles_Stewart.html

(some of you may note that we trace our line back to the Tudors)

"Charles Stewart Parnell was believed by many to be the political face of terrorist organizations using extreme violence to obtain Home Rule. Whether or not that belief was well founded, it is what was believed by Anderson and others. Very briefly, Parnell met Le Caron, whom he believed to be a trusted member of the Clan-na-Gael at the House of Commons and told him that he had ‘long ceased to believe that anything but force of arms’ would bring about the freedom of Ireland and that he saw no reason when the time was right not to bring about ‘an open insurrectionary movement’. At the Special Commission Parnell was severely pressed by the Attorney General about this meeting with Le Caron and very strongly denied having said what Le Caron claimed. In fact Parnell almost claimed that he’d never met Le Caron and he initially denied that he’d given Le Caron a signed photograph, but was forced to backtrack when the photograph was produced, and when asked directly is he denied meeting Le Caron he replied, ‘I will not undertake to say that, but I should think it most improbable and unlikely’. According to Professor F.S.L. Lyons (M.A., Ph.D., Litt.D., F.R. Hist.S.), Le Caron ‘was known for his accurate reporting’ and ‘it would be naïve to deny that the balance of evidence favours Le Caron.’ Professor Lyons makes the very sensible point that what Le Caron may have said to people whose support he needed might not have reflected what he actually meant – ‘to employ the language of insurrection, without intending the reality of insurrection, may well have seemed to him a necessary tactic…”

So, here is a leading authority on Parnell acknowledging that Parnell may have voiced support for the terrorists while not actually meaning it, but how would the likes of Anderson have known which Parnell genuinely believed?"

Anderson admitted in his autobiography to having authored the series ‘Parnelism and crime’ and this caused an ‘outcry’. Until that is, he explained that “a consequence of secretarial lapse was the omission of the sub title ‘Behind the scenes in America’, thus identifying him as the author of the follow-up series of articles.

‘Parnellism’ essentially meant the home rule movement and articles in the times discussed the links between the home rule movement and crime (i.e. Terrorism or Terrorist activities). The word ‘Parnellism’ therefore was NOT a specific attack on Charles Stewart Parnell. Parnell is to my knowledge rarely mentioned personally in the ‘behind the scenes in America’ article.

I’d be interested in any examples you can provide with regards to Anderson telling lies about Charles surely you have both confused Anderson with Pigott?

But all this is bye the bye, ‘What has never been demonstrated is that Anderson is anything other than a gentleman and a gentleman of his time and age.

And I can assure you all ‘sirs’ that the Parnell’s were also raised as Gentleman.

Pirate

PS I have run this through my ‘word’ spell check as my blindness is looking very bad today..first time I’ve ever got my own name wrong . Hopefully more considered….I must apologize.

Irish home rule

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw6F3Sf-PGw

[Stewart P Evans]

Ill-informed

I dont think I've passed judgement on Anderson..every
However when labels like Bigoted, and racist are throw into the pot, I beleive you are making the basic error of judging that person by 21st century standards and not placing them in there historical context.

I'm not quite sure what your first sentence is supposed to mean.

As for the second sentence, I don't need someone as obviously ill-informed as you are to tell me whether errors of judgment are being made or not. I have material on Anderson that you have never heard of, let alone seen. And Norma has forgotten more about Anderson than you know.

Why don't you do us all a favour and just tone yourself down a bit?

[Jeff Leahy]

I don"t need to ask Martin Fido,thankyou,Jeff.
Everything I have ever read about Anderson,from his early work as a spy master and his outing of his spies at the Special commission ,his writings in The Times with the forger Pigott [1887] trashing Parnell,and his other bigoted and destructive behaviour over Home Rule, tells me all I need to know about this man and his obsessive fears about "low class" immigrant Polish Jews.He seems to me,quite frankly, to have only avoided being sectioned at Colney Hatch by the skin of his teeth himself at various times in his life.I am thinking specifically of the press conference he called in 1910 ,to his Notting Hill house,where he admitted to the World"s Press he had written those lies about Parnell in The Times . Extraordinary behaviour at any time for a high ranking public servant to be engaged in.

and I don't require a lesson about PARNELL from anybody on casebook.

Yours Jaff Leahy/Parnell

[Jeff Leahy]

When it comes to Anderson Martin Fido is hardly impartial or objective. So why don't you stop referring to these Ripper authors in support of your dubious arguments, you just cause them embarrassment.

I dont think I've passed judgement on Anderson..every

However when labels like Bigoted, and racist are throw into the pot, I beleive you are making the basic error of judging that person by 21st century standards and not placing them in there historical context.

[joelhall]

William Fishman has written several brilliant books on the Jewish east end,as has Jerry White,Jeff.
A book on Kosminski will be fascinating I am sure,but in my view this suspect was just the figment of Anderson"s bigoted and racist imagination.

i doubt this was the case really. as i mentioned on another thread i think kosminski was, with a few others such as druitt, ostrog, simply the best of a bad lot at the time. just because they seem to be 'strong' suspects, we are given none of the evidence, nor an idea of just how strong they are.

and the reason i think people still favour him?

you know it really seems to me that kosminskis background is the difference here. because there are less records of his life, i believe he remains a suspect simply because we cannot prove he didnt do it, rather than because he have evidence against him.

the faults in the memo against the other 2 are apparent as we have the means to check the information, but this is trickier with kosminski.

i always adhere to the principle that to prove something its better to attempt to disprove it. thats what we should do with kosminski to see if his case holds weight.

joel

id really love to read robs book on kosminski. some seem so sure of his candidacy, but there is very little out there to convince anyone of his guilt.

my last point in the quote remains true. anyone seeking 'proof' will no doubt find it, and unbiased investigating seems dead in most works these days, sadly.