Whiggishness and the anti-Anderson Lobby

[Paul]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Hainsworth
Historical methdology teaches us that tales told from a great distance from their origin, which make a source look better about a public debacle, however unfair, have to be treated with great caution.

Would you please sight the source and context in which it was made, for this theory? Or is it an invention?

Actually, Jonathan is perfectly correct, but the operative word is "caution". And questions to be asked of such a source is what the distance from the event to the telling actually is, how close to the event the source was (i.e., did he take part in it? If not, how and from whom would he have learned about it? How honest/accurate was that person? And so on. Also, if the source looks better because of what he says, is that intentional/characteristic of the source, and, if so, was is the source otherwise boastful to the point of dishonesty, is he boastful at all, does any perceived boastfulness come from an honest and understandable desire by the source to describe the historical events through which he lived and in many instances participated?

The word is caution, not disbelief.

Even the argument that memoirs are unreliable because the author will usually paint himself in the best light possible, doesn't necessarily mean that the incidents described didn't take place.

In the case of Anderson, in the land of "the buck stops here" as head of the C.I.D. Anderson was ultimately responsible for the conduct of the Ripper investigation and would have to accept the criticism, but in the real world he was abroad for most of the time and took hands-on responsibility for the investigation from October 1888 onwards. He didn't really have much to feel responsible for. Moreover, the crime figures, as he gives them, show a marked improvement from 1889 onwards, so he had much to be proud of. Furthermore, assuming his story is correct even in it's simplest fundamentals, there was a suspect who was committed to an asylum before he could have been brought to court. Anderson need have said no more. He certainly didn't need to invent a story about an eye-witness who his fellow coppers and the press knew didn't exist and on which he could have been required to give the facts.

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

To Paul

Actually you put my opinion well, despite the sceptical flourish at the end.

The giveaway that is exactly what Anderson's self-serving fading memory has done is the very might-be mistake you see as insignificant (now who's cherry picking?) that he has redacted the story into 1888/9 -- dancing to Macnaghten's tune about the timing of Kosminski's incarceration.

For Anderson the humiliating events of 1891 do not exist,m except in a new form which is much more satisfying.

I don't want to go over the same gound as we are not going to agree.

I would just say that I have never said the Sailor's Home theory is certain.

I always refer to it as the Sailor's Home theory.

It is I, and others, who have to wrench people back from claiming that Anderson-Swanson-Kosminski is a fact, when it is also a theory to explain scrappy and contradictory sources (by contradictory I mean the lack of support for this allegedly dead-cert tale by other significant policeman of the era).

I just happen to think it is brilliant because for me, as an individual, it answered a conundrum: why would the police have Tom Sadler paraded before a Ripper witness if Anderson-Swanson already knew, as a 'definitely ascertaiined fact', that the fiend was 'safely caged' in a madhouse-- and just a few days before?

Because it is the same witness, with the suspects substituted; a real 'confrontation' misremembered as aging sources always do, with the tale much, much better -- how lucky eh? -- for those who were publicly pilloried for their alleged failure.

Rumbelow does not post, and Stewart has had enough, so it is left to me, an admittedly inadequate 'fan' to argue, according to you poorly -- and you are probably correct as I am not them -- their sublime theory by two highly-regarded and experienced writers on this subject.

It's entirely my fault if it fails to convince. I strongly recommend people read 'Scotland Yard Investigates' as it is -- arguably -- the best book on the this contentious subject.

But that's enough from me, and it's up to others to take up this side of the argument.

[Paul]

*My bold

Hi Paul

Sorry for jumping in but it was hardly a proven alibi:

Thomas Robinson:"He was with me 5 or 6 minutes. The conversation began about 10.15".
Lloyds 1/3/91

Edward Gerard Delfosse: "On Friday, Feb 13th a man came about 10.30am".
Lloyds 1/3/91


Kind Regards
Jon

Hi Jon,
Yes, you are quite right. I did overstate that. I meant only that he was said by Cambell to have sold him the knife at the time when Sadler claimed to have been elsewhere, a claim supported by Delfosse (?). Taken overall with Sadler's strong denial that he possessed a knife, the fact that there wasn't one on his person when he was stopped and searched by a policeman, and to a much lesser degree by irregularities in the identification of which Sadler complained, the accuracy of Cambell's identification is highly questionable.

And, of course, all I am really trying to get established is how it is perceived that this alleged selling of a knife by one Gentile sailor to another Gentile sailor in the sailors' home could get transformed into a positive eye-witness identification by one Jew of another Jew in "the Seaside Home", especially if the latter identification never took place at all.

Isn't it Cambell who actually said that Sadler had been with him about five or six minutes, the conversation having begun at 10.15? I believe, though, that the coroner in his summing up alluded to the possibility that the identification of Sadler as the knife-seller was possibly a case of mistaken identity.

[Paul]

The giveaway that is exactly what Anderson's self-serving fading memory has done is the very might-be mistake you see as insignificant (now who's cherry picking?) that he has redacted the story into 1888/9 -- dancing to Macnaghten's tune about the timing of Kosminski's incarceration.

But Anderson hasn’t redacted anything to 1888/89. And even by your own admission there is no evidence that anyone saw the memorandum, so there is no evidence whatsoever that Anderson was even remotely aware of the date Macnaghten ascribed to “Kosminski’s” committal. And you haven’t even effectively demonstrated that Anderson had a “self-serving fading memory”.

It has been pointed out repeatedly that in 1895 Anderson had a theory about a suspect committed to an asylum and that there is no reason to believe that this was not a theory about “Kosminski”, and whilst you rightly point out that Anderson did not mention the eye-witness until 1910, you have provided no firm basis for any supposition that this was because no such witness existed. Furthermore, Macnaghten wrote in 1896, but in 1895 we have Anderson credited with a theory about a the Ripper having been committed to an asylum. So precisely when is Anderson supposed to be date-shifting to conform with a date in a report he may never even have seen?

(And not cherry-picking. I am simply saying that if a sequence of events happened in 1891 and Anderson moved them in time to 1888/89, so what? Okay, so it would perhaps show that Anderson wanted to bolster the police a little, but the events still happened. You, however, are arguing that the events never happened at all. So you have Anderson moving events that never happened at all from the year when they didn't happen to 1888/89, and doing so largely because he was following a date provided by a man he - according to you - loathed in a report we have no evidence that he ever saw.)

For Anderson the humiliating events of 1891 do not exist, except in a new form which is much more satisfying.

Again, you have provided no evidence beyond speculation that Anderson found the events of 1891humiliating. Indeed, had he done so, and given that nobody knew about them, why would he have referred to them when he had no need to do so? But the real question is, what humiliating events are you talking about? A Jew was committed to an asylum. In your scenario, what was humiliating about that?

I don't want to go over the same gound as we are not going to agree.

I would just say that I have never said the Sailor's Home theory is certain.

I always refer to it as the Sailor's Home theory.

Yes, maybe you do, but you refer to it as “sublime”, you accept it, and you have woven it seamlessly into the fabric of your own theorising. I am merely pointing out that under the surface simplicity it requires some pretty complicated mental gymnastics to make it work.

It is I, and others, who have to wrench people back from claiming that Anderson-Swanson-Kosminski is a fact, when it is also a theory to explain scrappy and contradictory sources (by contradictory I mean the lack of support for this allegedly dead-cert tale by other significant policeman of the era).

I just happen to think it is brilliant because for me, as an individual, it answered a conundrum: why would the police have Tom Sadler paraded before a Ripper witness if Anderson-Swanson already knew, as a 'definitely ascertaiined fact', that the fiend was 'safely caged' in a madhouse-- and just a few days before?

Well, yes, it does answer that conundrum, but it is a conundrum of your making. Since the eye-witness can only have placed the suspect at the scene of one of the murders, when another murder similar to the series was committed so soon after the suspect’s committal to an asylum it would only have been right and sensible to bring in Lawende to try to put Sadler at the Mitre Square crime scene. Surely there is nothing unacceptable, illogical, non-procedural about this?

I’d just point out that the “definitely ascertained fact” refers to the suspect being a Jew. Anderson does not say that it was a “definitely ascertained fact” that the suspect was Jack the Ripper.

Because it is the same witness, with the suspects substituted; a real 'confrontation' misremembered as aging sources always do, with the tale much, much better -- how lucky eh? -- for those who were publicly pilloried for their alleged failure.

Yes, it sounds great doesn’t it. But I am confused. You are arguing that there never was an identification of “Kosminski” and that this was “invented” by Anderson much nearer to 1910, along with inventing the core of his story, namely the refusal of the witness to testify. And this being done by a man who one would expect to have had every detail of this series of crimes engraved on his memory. . Further, it relies on Anderson misremembering, which isn’t really supported by factual evidence, and, when you come down to it, it really isn’t that easy to show what he misremembered or how he could have come to misremember it.

Rumbelow does not post, and Stewart has had enough, so it is left to me, an admittedly inadequate 'fan' to argue, according to you poorly -- and you are probably correct as I am not them -- their sublime theory by two highly-regarded and experienced writers on this subject.

But you are the one who pushes their theory and has incorporated it into your own and ultimately used it in your conclusions about the priority that should be given to the sources and how they should be interpreted.

I have no strong objection to theorising as long as it is clearly presented as such and constructed on facts. But I’m afraid that I can’t see where yours is so constructed. The foundation is that Anderson had a self-serving, fading memory, yet there is very little or no evidence for this, and you go on from there. As said, I have no objection to theorising. Indeed, looking at the source material in different ways is essential, is in many ways the only way we have of advancing our understanding, and can lead to profitable avenues of inquiry, so I welcome what you do, but it isn’t really history is it? We can’t say, can’t even seriously suggest that Anderson redacted events to 1888/89 to fit what Macnaghten says when you haven’t the slightest evidence that Anderson knew a tittle of what Macnaghten wrote or thought. Or, even if he did, that he would modify his own thinking to incorporate Macnaghten, who you otherwise portray as loathing Anderson and vice versa.

You are pursuing some excellent research and, as said, your theorising is a very welcome spur to all of us to look more closely at the source data, but I my opinion the edifice you are constructing is too flimsy to alter the priority we give to sources, let alone how they should be interpreted.

[Chris G.]

Hi Paul

I owe you an answer about my claim that Scott Hannaford in his dissertation spoke of contradictions between Anderson's memoirs and Swanson's marginalia. I suppose what I mean is more that they don't exactly match, but that could be partly because of the nature of the two pieces of writing, the men not really addressing each other, one writing his memoirs and not naming the suspect, the other making private notes for himself.

I’d just point out that the “definitely ascertained fact” refers to the suspect being a Jew. Anderson does not say that it was a “definitely ascertained fact” that the suspect was Jack the Ripper.

"In saying that he was a Polish Jew I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact."

Yes this could be read the way you choose to read it. But it could be equally read as saying---

"In saying that the suspect was a Polish Jew I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact."

or

"In saying that that the killer was a Polish Jew I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact."

I really think you are taking too narrow a view. Is Anderson telling us about whom he believed was the killer or not?

Chris

[Paul]

Hi Paul

I owe you an answer about my claim that Scott Hannaford in his dissertation spoke of contradictions between Anderson's memoirs and Swanson's marginalia. I suppose what I mean is more that they don't exactly match, but that could be partly because of the nature of the two pieces of writing, the men not really addressing each other, one writing his memoirs and not naming the suspect, the other making private notes for himself.



"In saying that he was a Polish Jew I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact."

Yes this could be read the way you choose to read it. But it could be equally read as saying---

"In saying that the suspect was a Polish Jew I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact."

or

"In saying that that the killer was a Polish Jew I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact."

I really think you are taking too narrow a view. Is Anderson telling us about whom he believed was the killer or not?

Chris

Offhand, Chris, apart from the previously cited instance, I can't think of anything where they don't match. Swanson provides a lot of detail Anderson doesn't, which is understandable as he was writing solely for himself, but where otherwise are they saying anything even remotely different?

Anderson is telling us who the killer was, but he is not telling us that the killer's identity was "a definitely ascertained fact", and that argument was made to me very forcibly several years ago by Dave Yost, so it's not an interpretation of my own, and in fact it is one I disagreed with. But it is undeniable that Anderson writes that it was a definitely ascertained fact that the suspect was a Jew. It seems a pedantic point, but it isn't, it is what Anderson wrote and you can't switch his words around to make them mean something different. And this is true, especially when you realise that a very direct and specific criticism leveled at Anderson by "Mentor" was that no evidence was presented showing that the suspect was a Jew.

[Chris G.]

Anderson is telling us who the killer was, but he is not telling us that the killer's identity was "a definitely ascertained fact", and that argument was made to me very forcibly several years ago by Dave Yost, so it's not an interpretation of my own, and in fact it is one I disagreed with. But it is undeniable that Anderson writes that it was a definitely ascertained fact that the suspect was a Jew. It seems a pedantic point, but it isn't, it is what Anderson wrote and you can't switch his words around to make them mean something different. And this is true, especially when you realise that a very direct and specific criticism leveled at Anderson by "Mentor" was that no evidence was presented showing that the suspect was a Jew.

But who is the "he" in that sentence about what is a definitely ascertained fact? Isn't he the same man who is the suspect that Anderson has been talking about, and the same man that Anderson claims was the killer? Yes Mentor objected to the idea that the man Anderson was discussing was a Jew, apparently because he thought the reasons for suspecting the man were flimsy, but nonetheless the sense of that sentence written by Anderson is that the "he" that was being referred to is the same man that the former Scotland Yard man claimed was the murderer. So, Paul, I really think it is you and my old friend Dave Yost who are making a distinction where there is none.

Best regards

Chris

[Paul]

But who is the "he" in that sentence about what is a definitely ascertained fact? Isn't he the same man who is the suspect that Anderson has been talking about, and the same man that Anderson claims was the killer? Yes Mentor objected to the idea that the man Anderson was discussing was a Jew, apparently because he thought the reasons for suspecting the man were flimsy, but nonetheless the sense of that sentence written by Anderson is that the "he" that was being referred to is the same man that the former Scotland Yard man claimed was the murderer. So, Paul, I really think it is you and my old friend Dave Yost who are making a distinction where there is none.

Best regards

Chris

Chris,
Anderson wrote: "In saying that he was a Polish Jew I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact."

His words are precise and their meaning clear.

And when we read in the Jewish Chronicle, 4 March 1910, "Mentor", in a not particularly well thought out tirade against the absurdity of Anderson's claims, writing: "There is no real proof that the lunatic who was "caged" was a Jew...", Anderson can be seen to be responding to that particular and serious charge.

It is our assumption that he also regarded the suspect being Jack the Ripper as "a definitely ascertained fact", but that need not be the case. No matter how firmly he believed that the suspect was Jack the Ripper, he may also have recognised that it wasn't "a definitely ascertained fact".

Anderson did not write, "In saying that he was Jack the Ripper I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact". I wish he had. I really do. It really would harden his claims considerably. But he didn't, and it is wrong to interpret his actual words as if that is what he meant.

Anderson describes an incident where he was utterly convinced that a man was a murderer. It was a case of moral proof. Would he have described that man's guilt as "a definitely ascertained fact"? Or would he have at least been able to make the distinction between a theory, no matter how firmly held, and a fact which was incapable of refutation?

We don't know the full extent of the evidence against the suspect, but, as already said, the eye-witness identification can only have placed him at one of the murder scenes. Whilst it is perfectly possible that the suspect behaved in such a manner as to betray his responsibility for the other murders, and whilst that is possibly what Swanson meant when he observed that the suspect knew he had been identified, it is equally possible that the suspect's guilt was extrapolated from whatever evidence made the suspect a suspect in the first place, coupled with the identification. The suspect's guilt was therefore not "a definitely ascertained fact".

In short, whilst Anderson was personally convinced that the suspect was Jack the Ripper, it was possibly not "a definitely ascertained fact" and we are wrong to put that meaning in his mouth, or at the end of his pen. It is not what he said.

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

To Paul

Macnaghten writing in ... 1896?

Do you mean early 1894? The year before Anderson told Griffiths that he had a 'perfectly plausible theory'?

I think that, making sense of the little we have, Macnaghten deployed, verbally only, the information about Kosminski in 1895. That is why Anderson thinks the Polish Jew was incarceraterd soon after the final murder, and Swanson thinks perhaps the same suspect is dead. Neither detail is true of Aaron Kosminski. He was actually 'safely caged' when Mac had been at Scotland Yard for 18 months, and still alive.

This is all part of Macnaghten's agenda: hide Druitt from everybody else at Scotland Yard (true the name sat in a report in the archive but nobody knew that).

Why tell Anderson anything at all? My guess is that Lawende affirming to William Grant caused a problem which had to be 'fixed'.

The 1891 'humiliation' for Anderson was not Kosminski's incarceration, about which he never knew the correct date, bur rather the Sadler debacle.

The more reliable Macnaghten, in his memoirs, shows cognizance as to the true duration of the Ripper hunt, whereas Anderson, predictably, has it over by early 1889. That wipes out the events of early 1891, yet recreates them; in which a Kosminski had been incarcerated at about the same time as a failed witness confrontation using a Jewish witness (who a few years later said 'yes' to another SEAman).

[Paul]

Macnaghten writing in ... 1896?

Do you mean early 1894? The year before Anderson told Griffiths that he had a 'perfectly plausible theory'?

Sorry, up to my eyes with work and several late nights on the trot – yes, 1894.

Anderson did not tell Alfred Aylmer that he had a 'perfectly plausible theory', Aylmer attributed to Anderson a theory which he described as 'perfectly plausible'.

Are you seriously suggesting that Macnaghten told Anderson about the identification of "Kosminski", attributing it to March 1899, and that Anderson simply accepted the tale?

I think that, making sense of the little we have, Macnaghten deployed, verbally only, the information about Kosminski in 1895. That is why Anderson thinks the Polish Jew was incarceraterd soon after the final murder, and Swanson thinks perhaps the same suspect is dead. Neither detail is true of Aaron Kosminski. He was actually 'safely caged' when Mac had been at Scotland Yard for 18 months, and still alive.

So now we are hypothesising without any supporting evidence that Macnaghten only verbally told others and only about “Kosminski”, and misleading Anderson into thinking this event happened in March 1889? It would be good if there was a tittle of evidence for any of this.

This is all part of Macnaghten's agenda: hide Druitt from everybody else at Scotland Yard (true the name sat in a report in the archive but nobody knew that).

Oh, come on. This is sinking ever deeper in a mire of hypothesising. Why on earth would Macnaghten want to hide Druitt’s name from everybody else at Scotland Yard! Sheesh, in comparison to some of the stuff the Yard suppressed, and involving people far more imporatant that a school teacher and sometime barrister, Macnaghten is hardly likely to have given a toss about keeping Druitt's name a secret. And do you seriously imagine that Druitt's name wasn't freely discussed? Farquharson spoke of his theory in private, but self-evidently openly enough for it to get reported in a newspaper, the reporter stating “that a good many people believe it” – a “good many people”, Jonathan. Do you think other MPs didn't hear the story, didn't discuss it themselves, didn't allude to it to men at the Yard? The idea of Macnaghten wanting to hide the name is ludicrous - if he wanted to do that would he have written it in a report (which we surmise, but don’t certainly know, was never circulated). Would he have spoken of him to journalistic chums? Would he have alluded to the man in his memoirs? Why mention Druitt at all?

But why are we even bothering to discuss this. There is no evidence that Macnaghten had any agenda about Druitt!

Why tell Anderson anything at all? My guess is that Lawende affirming to William Grant caused a problem which had to be 'fixed'.

What problem? Is it an imaginary problem, or is there evidence that it caused a problem?

The 1891 'humiliation' for Anderson was not Kosminski's incarceration, about which he never knew the correct date, bur rather the Sadler debacle.

The a litany of claims you make are met with a repetitious “there is no evidence…” and yet again you present us with another statement for which there is no evidence at all, namely that Anderson was in the least humiliated by the Sadler “debacle”, or gave it so much as a second’s thought.

The more reliable Macnaghten, in his memoirs, shows cognizance as to the true duration of the Ripper hunt, whereas Anderson, predictably, has it over by early 1889. That wipes out the events of early 1891, yet recreates them; in which a Kosminski had been incarcerated at about the same time as a failed witness confrontation using a Jewish witness (who a few years later said 'yes' to another SEAman).

Macnaghten is the more reliable source – unsupported. Anderson has the Ripper hunt over by early 1889 – no he doesn’t. And so on. It's a fine skeleton manufactured from speculation, but it lacks the flesh of reality and the vital signs of life that are facts. And it just goes on and on, endlessly, repeating the same stuff, not answering objections, and just attributing things to Anderson which don't have any supporting evidence.

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

To Paul

I see, rather, a clash of theories. It is in the eye of the beholder which is stronger (literally for me as I only have one).

One is the Anderson-Swanson-Kosminski theory, to give it a crude working title, which argues that the story is quite straight-forward and is only complicated by secondary sources/modern researchers blinded and distracted by their own cul de sac agendas (eg. the Americam Quack Red Herring, Druitt ludicrously disguised yet everybody know about him, the hoaxed diary, et al).

When obviously the best theory, based on tbe head of the Yard at the time and the operational head of the case, neither known to be either 'ga ga' or corrupt, and who were there, goes like this:

A local Polish Jew, demonstrably mentally ill (and even violent) Aaron Kosminski was suspected -- for evidence which has not survived --and, subsequently, his identity as the fiend was very strongly supported by an affirming and yet un-coperative witness. What would have been done about that thorny dilemma was quickly rendered moot by the suspect's permanent incarceration in an asylum.

Of course Anderson and Swanson wheled out other witnesses, even maybe the same witness, to look over other Ripper suspects because that is their job, their duty, and their profession -- and just being thorough.

(I myself speculated in an earlier post -- though be warned: I am the arch-fictionaliser -- that the Seaside Home police hospital may have been used because of Anderson's sensible sensitivity about leaks to the press, and the potential for sectarian reprisals. Hence, perhaps, the lack of knowledge by other senior policemen?)

Yet to me this is a theory which is far more incredible than anything I have read or come up. It flies in the face of common sense and it tortures the surviving sources into abject submission.

So we are at an impasse, and we just have to agree to diagree.

As for why Macnaghten would both be hiding Druitt and yet want to push forward the same suspect; naming him in two non-identical reports, one archived at the Yard, and the other shown to the most famous [civilian] writer on crime -- yes, why indeed?

It seems to make no sense, hence the cosy paradigm of Macnaghten not only clueless beyond belief, but also [out-of-character] indiscreet, callous and insensitive towards a family whose respectable circle of friends and acquaintances would instantly recognise their deceased member: the mad, middle-aged, unemployed doctor, asylum veteran (oh that's right, they already knew, didn't they, and he apparently had no family).

Geez, isn't it lucky that that Big Mouth Mac had so stuffed up the biog details about the Drowned Not-a-Doctor that the Druitts were in fact shielded from the tabloids by this thoroughly inaccurate profile -- you know, thanks to Mac's loose-lipped incompetence and shocking memory?

So, so lucky ...

[Paul]

To Paul

I see, rather, a clash of theories. It is in the eye of the beholder which is stronger (literally for me as I only have one).

One is the Anderson-Swanson-Kosminski theory, to give it a crude working title, which argues that the story is quite straight-forward and is only complicated by secondary sources/modern researchers blinded and distracted by their own cul de sac agendas (eg. the Americam Quack Red Herring, Druitt ludicrously disguised yet everybody know about him, the hoaxed diary, et al).

When obviously the best theory, based on tbe head of the Yard at the time and the operational head of the case, neither known to be either 'ga ga' or corrupt, and who were there, goes like this:

A local Polish Jew, demonstrably mentally ill (and even violent) Aaron Kosminski was suspected -- for evidence which has not survived --and, subsequently, his identity as the fiend was very strongly supported by an affirming and yet un-coperative witness. What would have been done about that thorny dilemma was quickly rendered moot by the suspect's permanent incarceration in an asylum.

Of course Anderson and Swanson wheled out other witnesses, even maybe the same witness, to look over other Ripper suspects because that is their job, their duty, and their profession -- and just being thorough.

(I myself speculated in an earlier post -- though be warned: I am the arch-fictionaliser -- that the Seaside Home police hospital may have been used because of Anderson's sensible sensitivity about leaks to the press, and the potential for sectarian reprisals. Hence, perhaps, the lack of knowledge by other senior policemen?)

Yet to me this is a theory which is far more incredible than anything I have read or come up. It flies in the face of common sense and it tortures the surviving sources into abject submission.

So we are at an impasse, and we just have to agree to diagree.

As for why Macnaghten would both be hiding Druitt and yet want to push forward the same suspect; naming him in two non-identical reports, one archived at the Yard, and the other shown to the most famous [civilian] writer on crime -- yes, why indeed?

It seems to make no sense, hence the cosy paradigm of Macnaghten not only clueless beyond belief, but also [out-of-character] indiscreet, callous and insensitive towards a family whose respectable circle of friends and acquaintances would instantly recognise their deceased member: the mad, middle-aged, unemployed doctor, asylum veteran (oh that's right, they already knew, didn't they, and he apparently had no family).

Geez, isn't it lucky that that Big Mouth Mac had so stuffed up the biog details about the Drowned Not-a-Doctor that the Druitts were in fact shielded from the tabloids by this thoroughly inaccurate profile -- you know, thanks to Mac's loose-lipped incompetence and shocking memory?

So, so lucky ...

There is no reason to describe Macnaghten as "Big Mouth Mac". He is not necessarily any more of a bigmouth, or any the less indiscreet than any other of the policemen who has hinted at knowing who committed a series of "unsolved" crimes, be it Anderson, Elliot Ness or John Du Rose. Or, for that matter, those who thought it their place to categorically state that the crimes were never solved.

Nor, as far as I am concerned, is there any need to weave convoluted theories which seem to depart further and further from the probable and reasonable to explain why there wasn't an eye-witness identification which Anderson thought clinched a case but which didn't.

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

Wow, and you often complain that I do not deal with your counter-points?!

You do not deal with the fictional details which Mac almost certainly fed Sims, which would have put the Druitts in jeopardy -- unless this notoriously discreet and close-mouthed operator knew they were fiction.

If he knew they were fiction, then he knew what was not fictional, eg> that Druitt was really a young barrister.

Of course, much of that Sims' material does not make it into the 'A to Z', a brilliant, indispensible reference book but, like all secondary sources, it has its biases and omissions too.

That Sims' 1907 piece is, in my opinion, vital. For ont thing it shows that it was known by somebody at the Yard that Kosminski was out and about for a considerable length of time after the Kelly murder.

Anderson and Swanson so not seem to know that. Somebody did?

For another example, the section on M.P. Henry Farquhrson does not have a referall to Druitt. There is supposed to be (because it is rendered in bold) a reference you can go to which is about the 'Confusion Theory' regarding Kosminski and Sadler -- it is not there.

I am not criticising. Secondary sources are always pushing a line, or sveral lines. They can't do everything and they can't include everything and they can't please everybody -- that's for hamburgers. There are time limits, resouces limits, financial limits, and so on.

I think 'Scotland Yard Investigates's is a really great and beautifully illustrated book, with its wonderful opening chpater on Warren and it's closing, thought-provoking one on Anderson.

But it, in my opinion, completely under-estimates and under-appreciates Macnaghten's claim to have 'laid to rest' the Ripper's ghost. It includes neither his memoir, nor the 'Aberconway' version in appropriate detail, nor what he fed Sims.

Does that make it flawed? Of course, as are all secondary sources. Is it still terrific? Of course.

Accoding to you what I am doing is nothing but a series of flawed assumptions.

Fair enough.

But look to have read PC Moulson's report is to know that Chiswick is too far to stagger from Miller's Court, on the same morbing as the Kelly murder.

To know that friends were searching for their missing member is outside the Moulson report, and shows knowledge of the inquest, if not having conferred with a family member (Plus Sims is a good likeness for Druitt when thr writer was young and thinner, and Montie generically matches Lawene's 'Jack the Sailor' -- and even Schwartz's 'Knifeman').

Are you really 'serious' that Mac could know a tiny detail like the season rail pass found on Druitt's water-logged corpse but not that he was not a doctor?

Aaron Kosminski was incarcerated in Feb 1891. Mac had been on the Force since June 1889. Is it really that credible that he mistook an event which happned whilst he was there, for something which happened when he was not? (I am cribbing from a post by R J Palmer on the other site).

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi Jonathon

I've been following this thread closely but didnt want to double up on pionts raised by Chris and Paul.

However the one thing I'm really having trouble getting my head around is your claim that the Swanson Marginalia is Swanson writing disbelievingly about Andersons claim in 'tLsoMOL'.

This is a piece of writing I'm very familiar with and I simply dont understand that given its wording and context it can be interpreted as such..

I must admit this claim took me back and re-reading.

However I still dont understand what your saying?

How can you reach this conclusion?

"...because the suspect was also a Jew and also because his 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...And after this identification which suspect knew, no other murder of this kind took place in London...after the suspect had been identified at the Seaside Home where he had been sent by us with great difficulty in order to subject him to identification, and he knew he was identified. On suspect's return to his brother's house in Whitechapel he was watched by police (City CID) by day & night. In a very short time the suspect with his hands tied behind his back, he was sent to Stepney Workhouse and then to Colney Hatch and died shortly afterwards - Kosminski was the suspect - DSS"[5]

Also does this not also fit the claims made independantly by both Cox and Sagar?

Yours Jeff

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

To Jeff

First let's be clear that this is not Evans and Rumbelow's position.

It is purely my own theory, not conclusion, as an adendum to theirs.

My reason is thematic.

There is both an arrogance and a desperation to this tale which I do not associate with Swason, but which I do with his former boss having read Anderson's entire memoir.

Plus, Swanson ends it so flatly, for me, with the mere: 'suspect'.

Really?

A 'suspect' who knew he had been identified and caught. Who melodramatcially knew that the jig was up?!

A lot of Anderson's anecdotes read like this, to me.

That 'Kosminski' is satisfyingly deceased is for me an Anderson default position. It is not just an error -- it is a self-serving error.

The person who wrote Mr. and Mrs. Andersons' joint biography claimed that the Polish Jew suspect was long deceased.

The other clincher -- for me -- is that a fading memory has to do something with the impertinent 'Jack the Seaman', who was a Gentile not a Jew (but becomes a Polish Jew in Sims' piece of 1907) yet seen by a Jew.

The 'sea...' element has to be explainedand elminated, so to speak, by something else.

The 'Sea ... side Home' is substituted, though not deceitfully, just mistakenly.

The Swanson Marginalia is, for me, a tale which supposedly happened in late 1888, early 1889. That there were no other murders of this type is very much the Mac paradigm as disseminated in 1898 by Griffiths.

Whereas Swanson had investigated the Coles murder, and interviewed Sadler as a potential fiend -- long after Kosminski's supposed incarceration, and a short while after his real one.

I think the events of 1891 have been telescoped into 1888, the Seaside Home not exisitng until 1890 is also a fragment of real memory -- that 'Kosminski' was not known until 1891 after he was 'safely caged'. Anderon's fading memory got this sort-of right in the magazine vrsion, confronted after he was incarcerated (K was sectioned and then Sadler was confronted).

I would have expected that if this is Swanson's tale he would have shared the Ripper's name with members of his family, or friends. Or,that he would have published a letter to the 'Jewish Chronicle' to back up his boss whom he liked and revered.

So far as I know he did neither.

This suggests to me that Swanson queried Anderson about his revelation, and then made a note about it in Anderson's book because there was no way he was going to recall such a mishmash of a tale.

The fact is, that we have no public record of Swanson backing Anderson's Polish Jew claims. We do have Macnaggten refuting them, by implication, in his memoirs. We have Henry Smith doing much the same thin, even more directly. But Mac is the more important source as we know he knew about 'Kosminski' -- may have even found him.

That 'Kosminski' has no first name in th Mac Report(s) and in the Marginalia is very telling detail I think. A story which was known only at the top and only verbally amongst the chiefs, finally filtered down to Swanson in retirement.

And what a tale it was ...?

Swanson recorded it, but I doubt he agreed with it for the basic reason that he knew that, having been there, it had never happened.