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Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 168
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 23, 2003 - 4:12 pm: |       |
Hi all
Neil, thanks for the info.
I find the situation concerning the pardon a bit puzzling here. Anderson seems to be saying that he'd concluded, while the murders were still occurring, that the Ripper was being shielded by "his people". Yet on 23 November Matthews ruled out offering a pardon in relation to any murder except that of Kelly.
It seems to me that either :
Anderson wasn't talking to Matthews
Or if he was, Matthews wasn't listening
Or Matthews believed that in the case of Kelly there was someone extra, who wasn't a family member or a co-religionist, who'd shielded the murderer, and that he was more likely to speak up than "the murderer's people".
Robert
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R.J. Palmer
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 65
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 24, 2003 - 12:41 pm: | |
For there to be confusion, there has to be the opportunity for confusion.
One can readily accept elements of the 'Leather Apron' story drifting into a policeman's mind while attempting to recall the years 1888-1891. The memory is drifting backwards, as it so often does.
But does this really work with Kaminsky/Cohen/Kosminski confusion?
If the raving maniac under restraint [Cohen] was the Ripper, the whole saga would have run its course by Oct., 1889. The 'ascertained fact' would have been established, and the Ripper, David Cohen, was gone---dead & buried from exhaustion of mania.
How then do we explain Aaron Kosminski ever entering the equation? Under what circumstance does he come under Swanson's scrutiny? Yet, clearly, Swanson is aware of a mumbling lunatic, Kosminski, kept by his brother in Whitechapel...
He must have had some connection to the case.
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Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 177
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 24, 2003 - 3:49 pm: | |
Hi all
RJ, I tend to agree with you. If the Met thought they'd caught the Ripper, surely they'd have told the City in 89 - if only to crow about it.
True they might have expected some flak from the City for pinching their witness, Lawende. But it's not as if Lawende actually lived on City territory.
Also, and maybe I'm just pouncing on a word here, but I'm a bit worried about Swanson's phrase "with his hands TIED behind his back". Shouldn't he have written "cuffed"? It makes it sound as if the men in white coats arrived to deal with Kosminski. But if Kosminski had gone berserk, wouldn't the police have got to him first? They were supposedly watching him day and night.
Robert |
Scott Nelson
Sergeant
Username: Snelson
Post Number: 13
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 24, 2003 - 6:10 pm: | |
In fairness to Martin Fido's Cohen/Kosminski "confusion" hypothesis, there may be a possible source of confusion via the name change of Aaron's married sister, Matilda. The birth certificate of her daughter in December 1888, shows that the family surname was "Lubnowski". In the April 1891 census, two months after Aaron is locked in the asylum, they are listed as "Cohen". The postal directories show that the family then used "Lubnowski-Cohen" intermittently until 1919, when Aaron died, after which they reverted to just "Lubnowski".
I'm not suggesting any kind of specific scenario by which the police could have confused Aaron Kosminski for David Cohen other than a family name change of the former. And there may be nothing more than coincidence to the name change described above. But like most everything in this case, we simply don't have enough information to say definitively if there was or was not a police connection between the two men. |
John Ruffels
Detective Sergeant
Username: Johnr
Post Number: 51
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 24, 2003 - 6:56 pm: | |
Quite early in the Ripper murders, the press questioned how he could escape so easily with all that blood..He must have lodgings close by.
Then blanket canvassing of the Whitechapel area produced several suspicious candidates,most of whom were vouched for by close relatives ("co-religionists will not give up their brothers")...
The prevailing common denominator of that area was that those with private accommodation were invariably industrious Jewish families from Eastern Europe.
Just by glancing at the convoluted discussions above it is plain to see the difficulties the police were under.
I have always found Donald McCormick's second edition of his THE IDENTITY OF JACK THE RIPPER
more laughable than the first.With his quiet insertion of Ostrog's name alongside Konovalov, Chapman and Pedachenko...
After all, Ostrog alone had over twenty aliases!!
I think I can hear Lewis Carroll saying:
"Now,THERE'S a good idea for an 'Alice In
Wonderland' story."!! |
Saddam
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, May 23, 2003 - 9:26 pm: | |
1. I believe Anderson was referring to the family of his Jewish suspect, or the Jewish community in general, or perhaps the Chief Rabbi potentially suing him for libel. The basis of the law suit would be Anderson's public blaming of a particular Jewish man for the Whitechapel murders without tangible evidence against him.
2. The point of my Cohen-Lubnowski transduction was as a possible explanation for why we Ripperologists sit around talking about how Anderson's suspect may have been either Aaron Kosminski or David Cohen. I mean to say in other words that there is ANOTHER way to explain this phenomenon in addition to the traditional confusing of names attributed to the police. The name Cohen is in fact historically connected to the name Kosminski in nineteenth-century Whitechapel. Aaron Kosminski had two sisters, Betsy and Matilda. Matilda married Morris or Maurice Lubnowski. Apparently the whole Lubnowski clan, at some point following the murder series, mysteriously began converting its name to Cohen. Census data shows "C." prefixed to many Lubnowski's of the time, the use of "Cohen-Lubnowski," and other forms. Lubnowski undergoes almost an ablation to Cohen, for reasons unknown. So here is where I get the sense of another Cohen connection to Kosminski. During the time of the identification, perhaps these families were discussing the matter or beginning to use Cohen and Lubnowski interchangeably. Somehow the police picked Cohen up from something somebody said about the Kosminski's or the Lubnowski's. Aaron's sister might have been presenting herself at the time as Matilda Kosminski Cohen-Lubnowski, or a similar form.
Scott Nelson should be consulted for his expertise in this matter.
SHTD
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Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 182
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, May 25, 2003 - 6:23 pm: | |
Hi all
Well Saddam, I certainly need to consult Scott! I'm drowning in a sea of Kosminskis and Cohens.
First though, has anyone any suggestions as to why Swanson wrote his note at all? He initialled it "DSS". That's an odd thing for someone to write in his own book. Was the note intended for posterity, with the "DSS" adding extra authenticity? Then why didn't he leave a note in a sealed envelope? Perhaps the initialling was something automatic left over from his police days.
Maybe the note was written as an aid to memory, or perhaps he was just a habitual annotator. That's why it would be interesting to know whether Swanson heavily annotated other sections of Anderson's book, or even other books.
Robert |
R.J. Palmer
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 66
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 26, 2003 - 12:13 am: | |
I offer the following, not to be tiresome, but in the spirit of healthy debate. In regards to Saddam's post:
1. Would such a libel suit be actionable if the suspect was dead? Anderson's statement in Blackwood's appeared twenty years after Cohen's death. It seems like a mark in favor of Kosminski.
2. As Byron said of Coleridge. "I wish he would explain his explanation."
I'm sorry, but I don't follow.
Even if this was the 'mechanism' for a name confusion, it doesn't explain how or why Aaron Kosminski fell into Swanson's field of vision.
Is this understood? If the theory requires Kosminski, then why bring in Cohen at all? Isn't this making things unecessarily convoluted?
Perhaps somehow the theory could work, but at present the Cohen/Kosminski conundrum comes across as a sort of elusive, metaphysical particle~wave. The theory needs to be stated in concrete terms.
For instance...
Even if I were to accept David Cohen as somehow being involved in the Whitechapel murders , what am I going to do with Kosminski, if you make him a necessary element in the theory? Is he the suspect? A different suspect? The witness? The scapegoat?
RJP |
Chris Phillips
Detective Sergeant
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 67
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 26, 2003 - 3:29 am: | |
Would such a libel suit be actionable if the suspect was dead? Anderson's statement in Blackwood's appeared twenty years after Cohen's death. It seems like a mark in favor of Kosminski.
But if I remember correctly the statement about libel is given as a reason for not identifying the Ripper suspect and/or the journalist who produced the "Dear Boss" letter.
So it could be argued that it was the journalist who was still alive, not the Ripper suspect.
Chris Phillips
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John Savage
Sergeant
Username: Johnsavage
Post Number: 40
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 26, 2003 - 7:29 am: | |
Chris
It is an established fact of English Law that dead men cannot sue for libel. With this in mind reading Anderson's remarks makes it clear (to me at least) that he could only be refering to the "pressman".
Regards,
John Savage |
R.J. Palmer
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 67
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 26, 2003 - 8:36 am: | |
I should almost be tempted to disclose the identity of the murderer and of the pressman who wrote the letter above referred to provided the publishers would accept all responsibility in view of a possible libel action."
Taken literally, Anderson's comment encompasses both the suspect & the pressmen. Kosminski is still alive in 1910. |
John Savage
Sergeant
Username: Johnsavage
Post Number: 41
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 26, 2003 - 8:58 am: | |
R.J. Palmer
A very good point, thank you. I must admit that when ever I have read that statement before I have always thought of it refering to a dead man, you have given me food for thought.
John Savage |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 184
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 26, 2003 - 10:03 am: | |
Hi all
As far as naming the murderer goes, wouldn't the publishers have taken Anderson at his word, and bankrolled him for any possible libel action? How much money would a poor Jew in an asylum have been able to win? Probably a lot less than the publishers would have made from their scoop. So if he was talking about Kosminski, would the libel have been a problem?
I suppose though that Anderson could have been talking about Kosminski, but his other reason for not naming the murderer came into play, for after mentioning the libel action he goes on to talk about the traditions of his old department suffering. Perhaps this was just Anderson's compulsive secrecy, but maybe he'd given a guarantee of non-publicity to the murderer's relatives, for their lifetime, in exchange for information they'd supplied which had helped the police to catch the murderer?
Robert |
Saddam
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, May 26, 2003 - 2:16 am: | |
"Perhaps somehow the theory could work, but at present the Cohen/Kosminski conundrum comes across as a sort of elusive, metaphysical particle~wave. The theory needs to be stated in concrete terms."
There is no way it can be made concrete without adding new information or perspective to it. No one, Fido included, can explain exactly how the name confusion happened. No sheet of paper has been found that shows "Cohen" at the top and then proceeds illicitly to "Kosminski" on the bottom. We just don't know how it happened, we only speculate that it may have.
"Even if this was the 'mechanism' for a name confusion, it doesn't explain how or why Aaron Kosminski fell into Swanson's field of vision."
Maybe he didn't. Swanson could have been given very sketchy information about the identification by Anderson. Later, Swanson could have read the McNaughten memorandum discussing "Kosminski" as a suspect. Swanson then assumes, based on the other information McNaghten gives such as the fact that the suspect was a Polish Jew, that "Kosminski" was Anderson's suspect. This is what enables him to write his marginalia the way he does. When we read the marginalia, we assume that Swanson is giving first-hand information when in fact it is various pieces cobbled together second hand.
I agree, we are talking quarks and tacions here. Until someone comes up with new information or a plausible new perspective, that's where it will stay.
With respect to the libel suit, it could have also been brought against Anderson by living people who would be assumed to have been de facto protectors of the murderer. These would be family members or friends of the suspect, or perhaps other members of the Jewish community who might have helped him avoid prosecution.
SHTD |
Saddam
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 9:14 pm: | |
Welcome back, Mr. F!!! I'm calling up this thread for you, to solicit any comments you'd wish to make. Hope we have you for a good long time!
David "Saddam" Radka |
Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 269
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 9:47 am: | |
Hi all
While researching something completely different (to quote Monty Python!!!) in the 1891 census I found the details for the Poor Jews' Shelter (as it is described in the census) at 84 Leman Street. The staff running it at the time were:
Poor Jews Shelter 1891
84 Leman Street
Head:
Samuel Shmith aged 54
Superintendent Poor Jews' Shelter
Born in Warsaw, Poland - British Subject
Wife:
Hannah Shmith aged 56
Matroness Poor Jews' Shelter
Born in Warsaw, Poland
Mother in Law
Leah Erdberg - Widow- aged 90
Living on own Means
Born in Ozokova, Russia
(All the above are listed in 1881 Census as living at 20a Arbour Square East, London)
It may be of interest to some - so Im attaching below a list of the inmates/boarders at the time of the census
Chris
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Martin Fido
Sergeant
Username: Fido
Post Number: 34
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 9:54 am: | |
That's very interesting, Chris. I'm out of reach of London's library shelves, now. But a useful piece of work that might save some time would be to check Kelly's Directory (on open shelves in the Guildhall Library) and see just when the Shelter shifted from Shadwell to Whitechapel.
All the best,
Martin F |
Martin Fido
Sergeant
Username: Fido
Post Number: 35
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 9:56 am: | |
Hi Saddam!
Thank you for calling up the thread which indeed looks fascinating. I'll study it carefully and make responss at a later date.
All the best,
Martin F |
Peter R. A. Birchwood
Sergeant
Username: Pbirchwood
Post Number: 19
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 10:31 am: | |
For those interested in Jewish/Immigration research the Poor Jews Shelter has a website at:
http://chrysalis.its.uct.ac.za/shelter/shelter.htm
It has a searchable database plus interesting links. |
R.J. Palmer
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 86
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 2:15 pm: | |
Peter--thanks. what do you make of M L Kaminsky from Hamburg? Age 32 in July, of 1898---- which would make him 22 or 23 in March of 1888. Doesn't this give him the same age, nationality (Lomzo, Poland), and occupation (boot-maker) as Nathan Kaminsky? |
Peter R. A. Birchwood
Sergeant
Username: Pbirchwood
Post Number: 20
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 25, 2003 - 4:35 am: | |
RJ: could be interesting but typically the Shelter housed very recent immigrants who were not necesarily poor but just had arrived and had nowhere arranged to stay. I'd think that ML had just got off the boat.
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Martin Fido
Sergeant
Username: Fido
Post Number: 39
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 25, 2003 - 7:11 am: | |
Furthermore, RJ, Nathan Kaminsky was already in England living in Black Lion Yard in 1888.
Peter - thanks for the lead to the website.
All the best,
Martin F |
Saddam
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 9:04 pm: | |
A question for Mr. Fido, please.
Anderson writes "And if the police here had such powers as the French Police possess, the murderer would have been brought to justice."
What could this mean if the suspect were Cohen? By what extra police powers could he have been brought to justice? He was stark raving mad when arrested, so he could not have been tried at that point no matter what police powers may have applied. Does Anderson perhaps mean that Cohen was evaluated during the house-to-house searches and found suspicious, but not arrested due to insufficient evidence against him? There is no evidence to corroborate this, however. Or could Anderson merely be throwing in a plug for a cause he mentions repeatedly, that of more coercive statutes needed to govern the London metropolis, with no particular reference to his suspect?
Thanks so much for your help, Mr. F.
David
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CB
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 3:31 am: | |
Hi everyone Inspector Abberline when asked his views on the ripper case by represenative of the Pall Mall Gazette said " You must understand that we have never believed all those stories about jack the ripper being dead or that he was a lunatic or anything of that kind." He also went on to say that the ripper murders were done by a skilled surgen. Aberline obviously thought that the ripper was alive and well in america shortly after the mary kelly murder. Abberlines words would lead me to believe he did not suspect cohen kozminski or druitt. His suspect of choice at the time 1903 was chapman. take care. CB |
Erin Sigler
Sergeant
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 39
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 27, 2003 - 2:59 pm: | |
CB, we're all aware of what Abberline said, but you must keep in mind that he was not privy to all of the information Swanson and Anderson were, and also that there is a remarkable similarity between the names "Klosowski" and "Kosminski." Perhaps the two had become confused in Abberline's mind? |
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