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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Archive through January 25, 2001
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Suspects: Specific Suspects:
Contemporary Suspects [ 1888 - 1910 ]:
Chapman, George (a.k.a. Severin Klosowski):
Archive through January 25, 2001
Author: Neal Glass
Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 07:18 pm |        | Jim, lest I do the same with you as I did with Wolf let me take it button by button. So there will be messages spaced out as I take it in little by little. Wolf jumped on me and said that I was coming strictly from feelings and no facts, nothing. And I'm supposed to take that lying down? And then I calm down and try to get reasonable again and you come at me with how he's this sweet logical character and what could he have ever said to have gotten my back up?
I'm not finished, but that's one point where someone reacts. You would react. Anyone would. So don't give me that there was nothing to react to. There was plenty.
I don't care for the attitude. You wouldn't either, and don't tell me you would.
No one likes that from anybody.
How would you like it if I said you were coming only from feelings and had no basis in anything you had said about something? I had some things to say about Fido that were not devoid of any basis.
I was insulted, and I reacted. Sue me.
Nobody likes to feel disapproved of. And I am not going to sit and be put in my place. All right?
It can't be done.
But having responded to that part of your message, we'll move on to whatever else you might be saying, okay?
I'm really trying to keep my cool here.
So give me that much. |
Author: Neal Glass
Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 07:35 pm | | Secondly we will come to the Zodical Killer analogy. And, no, Jim, I have not read the rest of it yet. It is a very hostile in-your-face letter, so I am just taking it one thing at a time and taking deep breaths.
I can remember talking to you and telling you there were problems with treating Klosowski as the Ripper, particularly that the psychological profile was daunting. At that time you were rather encouraging. So this new line that I am a rabid true believing Klosowki person is not entirely accurate.
I am going with Sugden about his being the most likely of what we have in the current line-up, the least implausible and all that.
Do you see how calm I'm being right now? Could we all settle down and relax a little? Wasn't there a call for peace or was I just imagining that?
Klosowski is far more plausible than the others, which touches on controversies to do with the Macnuaghten list. I have not finished your message so I am not sure you are going to take up arms with that and just completely abandon reality, but if you do, hey, more power to you.
You go to your church. I'll go to mine.
Do I think you're the Zodiac killer? Well, at the risk of making a joke, I can't count you out.
If it is my offense at Wolf that has you riled, then we just won't even discuss Carrie Brown because I shelved that in my response to him. I have simply put it off for another time. It played no big role in what I was saying to him. He raised some points that I did not jump on one way or another.
Obviously you want to hear my thoughts on it, and I will get down to that when I get down to that.
Stay tuned.
You can't prove Klosowski wasn't there, Jim. And what's more, you know you can't. You can't rule out that he was there one way or another, and neither can Sugden, which is why he leaves it open.
Are you trying to close the door?
If you are, your position is not the adult view.
Furthermore, in light of Klosowski's character and future misdeeds and the fact that the bodies stopped popping up in Whitechapel after he left, it gives pause to anyone reasonable to wonder if there isn't something there, which is a far cry from accusing Jim DePalma of being the Zodiac killer because he was in the right place at the right time.
Who's being illogical?
This is not about honest disagreement, Jim. This is about disapproving of my tone and of my daring to call this essay what it is.
I am not keeping my place, and you don't approve.
So that's the end of it about the Zodiac.
Next issue . . . |
Author: Neal Glass
Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 07:44 pm | | I am certainly basing my belief that the suspect was not a Jew because he called Schwartz a "Lipski". That you do have absolutely right. It does not belong in the rubbish heap. What belongs in the rubbish heap is Fido's essay based on the statements of anti-semitic bureaucrat. At this point--and I feel it coming--I am just waiting for you to defend the List.
At the risk of getting just a little testy with you, the idea that you have some insight into nineteenth century Jewish immigrants living in the East End in 1888 and can say with confidence that they often called each other by ethnic slurs is just making things up as you go to needle the person you're arguing with. To be called a "Lipski" meant the person was a poisoner, a dirty Jew, a real slime.
It is far more likely that a non-Jewish person would hurl that at the witness. And for you to tell me that the person who was seen minutes before the woman was killed and was then later seen in the vicinity of Mitre Square is not the killer is just being precious.
Say something sensible. Anything! |
Author: Neal Glass
Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 07:50 pm | | Moving right along, there's the list. You mention the list. And you do not fail me here. You do not defend it. Wolf does.
You're talking sense, Jim. Admit it.
Admit it. We are not so very apart on this one crucial question. I have a problem with the list. You say others have a problem with the list?
Okay, everybody, can we agree the list has problems?
Are we going to negotiate a truce or what?
Yes, Jim, just a few days ago you and I were getting along. And someday that may well happen again. And why?
Because you admit the list has problems.
And if you admit the list has problems you are not a witch-hunter. You are not a McCarthy type. You are an intelligent and critically minded person curious about the facts and how one might interpret the facts, okay?
My remarks about McCarthy are for those who have no problem at all with the List.
Wolf seems to have no problem at all.
People who don't are being parochial. |
Author: Neal Glass
Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 07:59 pm | | Well, upon reading the end of the letter it is very insulting, so I am glad I just took it in little by little. There are many novels on historical subjects that are responsible and cool. But the big difference in researching some other historical subject other than the Ripper is that the sources are not so weird.
There's a lot of frustration in this for me. I vented on Fido because it was a very bad essay. You don't seem to disagree about that.
As for pontificating, I was pontificating at a very pontificating sort of essay.
Now, I hope you'll do me the courtesy of addressing what I am saying rather than taking issue with who I am and your serious disapproval of who I am.
Your disapproval doesn't interest me.
I mean obviously it isn't shutting me up.
Take it easy, Neal |
Author: Neal Glass
Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 08:57 pm | | And for the record I only called Wolf parochial, not everyone on these boards.
Nor am I going to hold your tirade against you, Jim. If I was having a tirade it's past. Go ahead and have yours.
But for those reading in, let's concede that 'David Cohen & the Polish Jew Conspiracy' is a bad essay. And let's concede that the Macnaughten list has always had problems, which is something Fido has been unwilling to acknowledge as far as I know. Donald Rumbelow had problems with it insofar as it accused Druitt whom he felt had no real evidence weighing against him.
The List has problems.
Peace, love & flowers, Neal |
Author: Jim DiPalma
Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 09:18 pm | | Hi All,
>Jim, lest I do the same with you as I did with Wolf let me take it button by button. Wolf jumped on me and said that I was coming strictly from feelings and no facts, nothing. And I'm supposed to take that lying down? And then I calm down and try to get reasonable again and you come at me with how he's this sweet logical character and what could he have ever said to have gotten my back up?
>much huffing and puffing snipped
Neal, I'm going to make one public pass at this. I will not respond further in public, in the interest of keeping the signal-to-noise ratio on the boards high. If you wish to continue, please send private email.
Now, if you're quite finished with the hyperbole, I would point out that my comments regarding Wolf's post related to his placing the Macnaghten memorandum in its proper context as an internal memo, not intended for public consumption. I further stated that I did not see anything that he had written that could be construed as a defense of the memorandum's contents. Implicit in that statement was a request for clarification, which was apparently too subtle for you to grasp. Very well, I'll make the request explicitly. In the paragraph from Wolf's post, which you further quoted, what is it, exactly, that you regard as a defense of the memo's contents, and why do you feel that constitutes parochialism?
Please note that I made no comment whatsoever on Wolf's character - I've never met the gentleman. Kindly refrain from arguing points I never tried to make. Also, kindly refrain from elaborate descriptions of your respitory patterns - they are tiresome and not at all relevant.
>Secondly we will come to the Zodical Killer analogy.
And yet, we did not. You treated us to a lengthy diatribe on, again, your respitory patterns, Klosowski's psychological profile, your adherence to Sugden, digressed further to Klosowski's plausibility as the Ripper as it relates to Macnaghten's memorandum, and rounded the home turn with a completely irrelevant comment about your church-going proclivities.
At no time did you address the question I asked, so I'll ask again. Based on the relative merit of the circumstantial cases for me as the Zodiac killer, and Klosowski as the killer of Brown, do you accept that I am the Zodiac killer, or do you admit that you have no evidence whatsoever that Klosowski killed Brown?? Please answer the question this time.
>Do I think you're the Zodiac killer? Well, at the risk of making a joke, I can't count you out.
Once again, far off the mark. The point is, you've convicted Chapman solely on the basis on your personal belief. I've presented you with a stronger circumstantial case that, according to this exact same standard of non-evidence to which you cling so dearly, proves that I must be the Zodiac killer. You are still avoiding the question.
>If it is my offense at Wolf that has you riled
Wolf is an old hand on these boards, perfectly capable of taking care of himself. He hardly needs my help.
>You can't prove Klosowski wasn't there, Jim.
Neal, anyone with even the slightest grounding in formal logic knows that it is logically impossible for anyone to prove a negative. Thanks for establishing your credentials on that point. And, just for the record, I never stated that Klosowski was not present in America prior to Carrie Brown's murder - I said it was an unproven point. See Neal, I left it open, too, just like Mr. Sugden.
>And what's more, you know you can't. You can't rule out that he was there one way or another, and neither can Sugden, which is why he leaves it open.
Well, could it be that Mr. Sugden *does* understand formal logic, and thus avoided the trap that you did not? Or, could it be that his vast experience as a historian and scholar prevents him from making written claims that he cannot substantiate? For someone who claims to read Sugden so religiously, you certainly do not seemed to have learned much from him.
>Furthermore, in light of Klosowski's character and future misdeeds and the fact that the bodies stopped popping up in Whitechapel after he left, it gives pause to anyone reasonable to wonder if there isn't something there, which is a far cry from accusing Jim DePalma of being the Zodiac killer because he was in the right place at the right time.
>Who's being illogical?
I'm afraid it's still you. Prior misdeeds are inadmissable. You must prove that Klosowski killed Brown on the merits of that case alone. I'm still waiting for you to produce even the slighest shred of evidence on that point.
>This is not about honest disagreement, Jim. This is about disapproving of my tone
Actually, it's about both. I honestly disagree with your analysis of most of the case, because it is mostly based on rampant speculation and personal belief with little supporting evidence provided. I disapprove of your tone, because it has been nothing but arrogant and disrespectful of the opinions of others in the short time that you have been here. I do hope that clarifies my position.
>So that's the end of it about the Zodiac.
No, you still have not answered the question, Neal.
>I am certainly basing my belief that the suspect was not a Jew because he called Schwartz a "Lipski". That you do have absolutely right. It does not belong in the rubbish heap. What belongs in the rubbish heap is Fido's essay based on the statements of
Please stick to the point. We were discussing the use of the term "Lipski", no need for you to have yet another go at poor Mr. Fido.
>At the risk of getting just a little testy with you,
You're in the entertainment business, so I'll grant you're a bit slow on the uptake, but in case you haven't noticed we passed "a little testy" quite some time ago.
>the idea that you have some insight into nineteenth century Jewish immigrants living in the East End in 1888 and can say with confidence that they often called each other by ethnic slurs
I never claimed any such knowledge. Insight into the habits of 19th century Jewish immigrants is not necessary to defeat your argument. In order for your argument to stand, ie, that the man who attacked Stride was obviously not a Jew, you must be prepared to prove that no person has ever used an ethnic slur to address or refer to a person of the same ethnicity. That is the only way that your argument that the use of the term "Lipski" absolutely proves Stride's attacker was not Jewish can possibly stand. Since we've all learned by now that it's impossible to prove a negative, your argument is fallacious on its face. Next, please.
Sorry for trouble everyone,
Jim |
Author: Neal Glass
Wednesday, 05 April 2000 - 10:27 pm | | Well, no need for e-mail. Anyone can see that I have tried to get the tone back to a civil level, and Jim isn't going for it, which is Jim's choice. And considering his own tone, I bid him farewell and wish him a good day.
I also sincerely apologize, not so much to Jim, but to anyone going over these love notes, as I did not think a little controversy would create so much fear and loathing. I really didn't.
Jim talks like somebody else. We used to have civil conversations, and now it's this.
I didn't like Fido's essay. I was very frustrated with it and with a lot of the books. But I did not insult anyone personally on this board until people started in on me. Beyond that, I don't feel the Macnaughten list is without problems. And, yes, I'm posting things on the Chapman board that favor a view that Chapman could have been the Ripper, which is being treated by some as an act of sheer idiocy.
It has to have been my tone that has everyone going. But I really am trying to tone the tone down. Okay? I mean it seems to me I am. I'm not even angry at the disrespect from Jim because it seems to me he is convinced that I have no respect for him, which is not where I am at with this.
Apparently I've just done something to him that is unforgiveable and there's no patching it up.
But I've seen this business of putting people in their place on these boards before I made myself a presence here. And it just really doesn't work on me. Stick & stones and all that.
But if people reading this are just livid and horrified that I would tear down Fido, then I guess it is like someone having said something against Jesus in a church setting, and if it is really this personal and serious and if it really inspires outright sarcasm & hatred in someone, then I have to step back and say I really didn't mean to do that to anyone.
I did not mean to put anyone through that.
If we could sort this out in a civil way and maybe get back to a discussion about Klosowski, I think that's more what this message board was set up to do.
But I do need to hear from people to know if a certain tone is so imflamatory that someone feels completely in their rights to talk the way Jim is talking to me. Someone did mention it, and I did do my best to make things cool.
I'm frankly astonished.
Neal |
Author: Neal Glass
Thursday, 06 April 2000 - 04:53 pm | | Ah, it's a new day. I wake up and see there's no hate mail. Good sign. No mail at all in fact. Hmm. But I did receive a neighborly e-mail message from Stewart Evans, the author 'Jack the Ripper, the First American Serial Killer' and 'The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper'.
The e-mail was about several things, all very friendly. Unlike a lot of the bullies who have wagged their fingers at me on this board and who think they know every little thing about the Ripper case, Stewart Evans actually does know just about every little thing.
I have a lot of respect for Stewart. We had a lively discussion earlier on the Druitt board. He straightened me out about something, and it's been friendly ever since.
What he has to say about the recent flap is no one's business, and I won't get into it. But I will repeat here what I wrote this morning. My reliance on Sugden is not something I have ever been comfortable with in my Ripper sojourn. A writer of period pieces always tries to draw from more than one source. I have said it on this board and will repeat myself again when I say that it is a point of despair for me that Sugden is beginning to seem like the only person whose general overview of the history can be trusted. It does invite a narrow orthodoxy that crosses the grain of my own nature.
I like making up my own mind about things, not following some catechism about something.
I have always been this way.
That is why I am encouraged and heartened by Stewart's interest in my search for the truth. This is someone who has all the primary sources at his disposal and may over time provide me with the balance that I do so obviously need if I am to give this subject the kind of objectivity it requires, an objectivity that is usually so sorely lacking in the main body of the literature.
With time and patience, I hope to come to conclusions that respect the facts even as it allows for the kind of speculation that always goes into treating an unsolved murder in a work of fiction.
Anyone who wants to join me in this quest is welcome to do so on this board or on any other.
It's true that I don't have any use for witch hunters or their sympathizers. Very true. But with respect and courtesy we can all get along and stimulate the right kinds of discussions in the right spirit.
Happy hunting to one & all, Neal |
Author: Neal Glass
Thursday, 06 April 2000 - 09:43 pm | | Oh, and that crack about "witch hunters & their sympathizers" was meant with irony and a smile. Nor is there any truth to the rumour that there is a secret list of Ripperologist witch hunters on file with the F.B.I. The Bureau simply wanted to know if the person who admitted he had been in California during the Zodiac killings had confessed yet or not. I told them no. They nodded. And that was the end of it.
At least as far as I know that was the end of it.
But there is no list!
I think.
Neal |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Friday, 07 April 2000 - 02:16 am | | I thought that I had better post here as Neal has mentioned my name and I would not want it misconstrued and for others to think that I was taking sides.
Both Jim and Wolf are old friends and correspondents of mine and I would certainly not take sides against them, or anyone else, without letting them know what I thought and it was a valid point.
I pointed out to Neal that we are all entitled to our opinion and that authors have to expect critical comment if they have the temerity to publish their views. I also pointed out to Neal that I agree with a lot of what he says and applaud his desire to get to the facts. I also pointed out that I feel that Chapman/Klosowski makes a very unlikely 'Ripper.'
Martin well knows that I do not agree with his odd Kosminski/Kaminsky/Cohen theory which I find very convoluted, contrived and unconvincing, as do other authors of my acquaintance. However, it is very difficult, as you have all seen, for an author to post here without getting 'grilled' and, on occasion, sniped at.
So I am not 'taking sides' in any debate, and as both Jim and Wolf know I admire their own deep knowledge of the case and their own desire for the facts and to dismiss all the nonsense.
Being a free posting area, with free speech, and free countries, everyone is entitled to their say, and to their response. And everyone does that in their own style. The old maxim 'if you don't like the heat get out of the kitchen' applies here, as anywhere else, and I have heeded it myself in the past.
So, I applaud you all, Wolf, Jim, and Neal, when your common goal is to establish the truth and to give honest opinion. Rest assured I will not take sides in that, I will only help if I am able to. |
Author: Wolf Vanderlinden
Friday, 07 April 2000 - 05:01 am | | (I'm sorry, C-MD, looks like there will be no peace on the boards.) Claymore.
Neal, I have read and re-read my post and for the life of me I cannot see what I said that merited such an over the top, sputtering stream of invective, illogic and fuzzy thinking. It must have been very, very late indeed!
First off, let me try and explain, very slowly, that there is a standard of what constitutes as evidence on these boards. It's not my doing neither is it the work of "The Cult" which you seem to think exists (some might see that as paranoia). When you make puzzling statements about the Ripper murders, we want to know were you got these rather bizarre ideas and when you tell us that you've now changed your mind on something that you were convinced of only hours earlier, well, your wasting our time. Especially if, when we call you on it, you start foaming at the mouth and refuse to give straight answers, (because you read it in Sugden is not an acceptable answer I'm afraid.)
Statements like, "If there was not a plurality of Ripper-like slaying in New York, there was one that was played up that way in the papers, which puts Abberline in the ballpark" or, "But what Abberline did know of him felt right." Ballpark figures, or what feels right are perhaps acceptable in your world of fiction but they don't cut it here. That is one basic thing about these boards that you just don't get, we want and expect some sort of proof. This is patently obvious to even the most casual board reader and contributor, back up your arguments with facts or people are gonna start asking questions.
"This gives animpressionthat Klosowski simply could not have committed the murders, and this in turn gives animpressionthat Abberline was so out of the loop that, well, we can turn to Anderson." You tell us that this is a bad thing and yet most of your own posts are full of this vague, self righteousness. Fido is wrong because he won't give you all the facts? Well, where does that leave the rest of us after reading your wondering posts?
Let me give everyone some examples of your thoroughness, if not your honesty.
You wrote:, "Equally misleading is his comment that Klosowski was not living in Whitechapel at the times of the murders. Even in the Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper itself, the book in which Fido's essay appears, the authors Maxim Jakubowski and Nathan Braund report that Klosowski was of course in Whitechapel during the murders. Sugden treats it as a fact when he sites Klosowski as the most likely suspect."
Oh really? I have read and re-read the pages on Chapman in The Mammoth Book, and can find no reference by the authors that Chapman was in Whitechapel in 1888. Please provide a page reference for this, (the authors seem to be dead set against Chapman as a viable suspect so they must be part of the cult as well).
As for Sugden, he states:, "Chapman's movements in the East End are central to any consideration of the claim that he was Jack the Ripper...We next find him running a hairdresser's shop of his own at 126 Cable Street, St. George's-in-the-East. He is listed at this address in the Post Office London Directory of 1889 so he was probably living there in the Autumn of 1888 when the Ripper murders occurred.", Close by, but not Whitechapel. So basically you are giving us the impression that Jakubowski and Braund support your view, and the impression that Sugden is also. Waite a second, isn't that an attempt at misleading people?
And what of your slavish obedience to the word of "Sugden". According to you he is the all seeing, all knowing "One". "you're not scoffing me, you're dismissing Sugden. He's the one who pointed me to Klosowski in the first place." you thunder from your pulpit. Well, I totally agree with you on that. And what does Sugden say about Chapman?
"George Chapman could have been Jack the Ripper. We have uncovered nothing to eliminate him from our inquiry. And he fits the evidence better than any other police suspect. But that does not make him a strong suspect. It is obvious that neither Abberline nor his colleagues were able to establish any tangible link between Chapman and the murders, and coincidences and opportunity, medical qualifications, appearance, social circumstances and character, however intriguing, inevitably fail to persuade by themselves." Wise words indeed.
Secondly, let me re-post what I said about the Macnaghten Memoranda.
"One quick note about Sir Melville Macnaghten and his list. Sir Melville was giving notes, probably to the Home Secretary, about an article in The Sun newspaper, (Feb. 13th, 1894) in which Thomas Cutbush was named as Jack the Ripper. Macnaghten States:, ‘I may mention the cases of three men, any one of whom would have been more liable than Cutbush to have committed this series of murders...' he was not giving the world the identity of Jack the Ripper, but merely refuting the news article. No need to attack a man for writing something that you or I were never meant to know existed, let alone read.
That is all I said about the Macnaghten Memoranda. Nothing more. What right minded person would see anything sinister in what I had written?
You, however, seem to be under the false impression that Macnaghten's list of three possible suspects is somehow some secret master list, a list with some diabolical meaning attached to it. One that displays the incompetence of Sir Melville Macnaghten and one so worthless that it doesn't include someone like Tumblety on it.
"If the research of Stewart Evans has any relevance, then the list is incomplete, which would seem to indicate that the person who put it together was not just inaccurate in his facts but never had anything resembling a complete understanding of the overall investigation in the first place."
What I did was to try and calmly point out to you that this was not the case. It was designed to aid the Home Secretary answer questions in Parliament. Questions that arose from a newspaper article about Thomas Cutbush. It was not a definitive listing of police suspects, nor was it even a listing of the top three suspects. This is a fact. Not only do you fail to understand this, but you refuse to try and understand it. And what response did this elicit?
"having provoked a hard core Macnaghten List person like Wolf with his mad Jews and harmless suicidal special pleader...", "I am going to take Wolf's miserable list and the Witch Hunting Jew-Baiting Mentality...", "This list of yours, this sacred relic...", "That you defend the Macnaghten list speaks for itself. There's nothing there. Standing by it is at best parochial. The end of your message is just a lot of babble about a meaningless newspaper article. You're rambling and not even making very much sense."
Considering what I had written, do you even realize how this red faced, apoplectic attack makes you look?
You carry this bizarre attitude even further with your defense of Simon Owen.
"As far as your snide personal judgments about me or about Simon, I have to laugh. Simon is a good guy. I think everyone likes him. If he wants to go off and running on things, he does so honestly, which is more than I can say for you.", "Simon is supportive and he certainly doesn't babble. So where you get off saying things about the guy is just for shaking my head about. I have never spoken to a person on this board the way you are speaking to me and never spoken about a person the way you so casually speak about Simon. My attack was against an essay, an idea, not against any person present, not any personal jab one way or another.", "Why even bring Simon up? What has he to do with this? The more I think about it, the more I think you should apologize to him."
Wow, I must have cruelly and viscously slandered Mr. Owen's good name to deserve all that. Those who have not read my post must really be wondering what in the Hell had this guy said? Well, this:,
"Like Simon Owen, you have the conviction of the newly converted, not a bad thing but one that should be reined in while you are just starting to study the Whitechapel murders."
Now is it just me or does anybody else think that your response goes light years beyond the bounds of overreaction?
Finally, you bring up McCarthyism and yet your attitude seems to be that if you're not openly against the Macnaghten Memoranda, or Martin Fido or Robert Anderson (or anyone else Neal Glass wants to add), then you must be for it. That, is the essence of McCarthyism. The fact that you fail to realize this makes we further wonder about what little objectivity you seem to have. Dare to question Neal's point of view and you must be rooted out and attacked. My opinion, love it or leave it.
What is it that has upset you in such an over the top manner? Apparently, the one thing in common with Anderson, Macnaghten and Fido.
"He knew everything? He knew exactly who the Ripper was? And if we just find his mad Jew, well, then we'll have him, by Jove?!", "Anderson just wanted a mad Jew...", "Obviously Fido's search for a mad Jew and Anderson's belief in a mad Jew flies in the face of what Schwartz had to say...", "So Fido went looking for his mad Jew and could not find Anderson's mad Jew so he settled on another mad Jew and he is probably not the same mad Jew that Anderson was talking about." ?, "having provoked a hard core Macnaghten List person like Wolf with his mad Jews...", "And yet here on the weight of this list one Ripper crowd accuses Druitt and another much smaller crowd (maybe a one man crowd?) led by Fido accuses someone of the crimes simply because the person was a Jewish mental patient and, uh, because Anderson wouldn't mean that particular Jewish mental patient over there..."
"Arrogant or not, I am going to take Wolf's miserable list and the Witch Hunting Jew-Baiting Mentality and do with it in print (beyond this board and beyond this audience) and do with it what should have been done with it a long time ago. Nothing I saying ends here. This board is for chewing things over and getting my bearings. There are going to be people a year from now who will read Wolf's last message who will view what he is saying in a way I'm even sure he understands. He just doesn't get it. He doesn't see how a larger public would respond to "evidence" drawn up from this piece of paper from somebody who didn't know what he was talking about. He has lost sight of how morally offensive this is to anyone on the outside looking in. Going after Jews because somebody's name is on a list!
What does anyone think that sounds like?"
"I would say that objecting to this Witch Hunt is for getting passionate about", and losing all objectivity, and all proportion to what I had written or intended to mean. McCarthyism? You're the one who sees enemies under every bed.
Wolf. |
Author: Simon Owen
Friday, 07 April 2000 - 05:12 am | | | Keep calm Neal ! |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Friday, 07 April 2000 - 07:11 am | | I am sitting here wearing my flak jacket and steel helmet. I am not getting involved in any arguments but I would like to put the candidacy of George Chapman (Severin Klosowski) into its proper context.
First, Chapman (I will stick with this name as it's easier to type) has had his name bandied about as a possible 'Ripper' suspect, on and off, since 1903. He falls within the same category as the long list of suspects which includes William Waddell (1888), William Henry Bury (1889), Mary Eleanor Pearcey (1890), Thomas Neill Cream (1892/3), Frederick Bayley Deeming (1892) et al, all of whose names have been associated with the 'Ripper.' They only ever came into the frame because they were celebrated murder cases in the right period of time.
Chapman was not a suspect in 1888, nor even just after. His name was not associated with the Whitechapel murders until 1903 after his arrest for poisoning. And it is the very nature of the offences he committed that makes him less likely to have been the 'Ripper' rather than more likely. Abberline had never heard of him prior to his name appearing in the newspapers after his arrest in 1902.
The points listed by Abberline as making him believe in Chapman's guilt are flawed and based on patently false information. A case of Abberline believing all he was reading in the papers, you would have thought that an ex-policeman would know better! They included claims such as "at the time of the first two murders he was occupying a lodging in George Yard, Whitechapel Road" - he wasn't, "The man who was 'wanted' in connection with the Whitechapel murders always wore a 'P. and O.' cap" - incorrect, "he went to New Jersey City soon after the Whitechapel atrocities ceased" - he didn't, "soon after the murders ceased in London crimes of a similar character were committed in America" - they weren't, "the first series of murders was the work of an expert surgeon" - it wasn't, "the attempt to murder her [his wife] with a long knife while in America" - he didn't, "He closely questioned the Polish woman, Lucy Baderski, about Chapman's nightly habits at the time of the murders" - she did not meet Chapman until 1889, and so it goes on.
The candidacy of Chapman was further reinforced by the inclusion of a large section on this theory in The Trial of George Chapman, by H.L. Adam, Hodge April 1930, which was based on equally false theorising. After this the very inventive Donald McCormick exacerbated the situation with his Dr. Dutton inventions.
It has been a long-held idea of crime author Jonathan Goodman that, "Of those named, I think the least unlikely is George Chapman." It is an idea that Phil Sugden built upon in his 1994 book.
However, there is no way that Phil Sugden thinks that Chapman was the 'Ripper.' In fact, his book was to have originally contained no preferred suspect, thus making it more objective. It is my (educated) belief that the only reason that Chapman appears in Phil's book in this guise is that his publishers wanted him to at least come up with a preferred suspect. And Phil reluctantly agreed. To a degree all authors are at the behest of their publishers who tend to be more commercially minded (and rightly so in their case), than are the authors.
Again, I repeat, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that George Chapman was the 'Ripper' and all theories must, ultimately, lack all proof of exactly what they claim. It all takes us back to my old argument, if you access primary source material you avoid all the tendentious, biased, subjective, coloured, call it what you will, arguments of writers with a particular axe to grind.
I'm now on my way down into my bunker. |
Author: Neal Glass
Friday, 07 April 2000 - 02:06 pm | | We're not at war, Stewart. And let's put to rest the idea that I am dogmatically attached to "Chapman" as a suspect. I have an enthusiasm for the possibility. I do think it is plausible and that, while your own perspective on this is well considered, it is not unanswerable.
People who are reading this exchange have to understand that Stewart and I are virtual friends, the same as I am virtual friends with a number of people on these boards.
And so long as someone wants to put a case against the idea of "Chapman" being the Ripper and so long as I have such a great interest in it, it is naturally incumbent upon me to discuss what might be said in disfavor of the notion in a polite and respectful and coitus manner as befits a thinking adult.
I do, however, retire to my own bunker to prepare my reply to Stewart's message because the vultures do smell blood as they swarm about.
And, yes, Simon, I am quite calm, deadly calm.
So beware . . .
Just kidding,
Neal
P.S. Will everyone please note that the discussion between me and Stewart Evans is not about 'David Cohen & the Polish Jew Theory' or the merits of the Macnaughten list. And anyone who knows my history with Stewart on this board knows it is always as constructive and civilized as it is sometimes spirited.
I like to think he knows I am completely serious about getting as close to the truth of things as is humanly possibly for someone at the mercy of secondary materials. I also like to think he understands how frustrating someone in a hurry to know everything will get when it is about Jack the Ripper.
And I think he accepts that it is not against the law to react to an essay.
Incidentally if I say anything more about the David Cohen/Macnaughten list controversy at all, and I am not sure I will, I will do so on the David Cohen Board, which (the last time I checked) has never been used--a fact that probably speaks for itself. |
Author: Neal Glass
Friday, 07 April 2000 - 03:34 pm | | I will refer to Stewart in the third person because this message is for anyone intelligent who takes an interest in "Chapman", Severin Klosowski, as someone who might have possibly been responsible for some or all the women murdered during his time in London in the 1880s and 1890s.
My first lively and positive exchange with Stewart Evans concerned an old article in the People's Journal. I conceded his point only after he had shown me a newspaper article that was the object of controversy. I did not bow to his logic because he was Stewart Evans and because he knows more than I do (or, for that matter, more than anyone else on these boards). I came into agreement with Stewart simply because I read the article in controversy and realized that it was inadmissible as a piece of real information. He was kind enough to e-mail it to me. I read it for myself and realized that my secondary source, which was old and very out of date, had simply got it wrong.
That same standard of persuasion holds firm in this second exchange. I will not retreat just because Stewart has his own suspect. I am not done reading Stewart's books, so I don't really have an opinion about where he is going with the Littlechild letter. But I have in the reading of other books thus far came to the conclusion that Severin Klosowski could have killed some or most or maybe even all of the women in London during his stay there.
That last possibility is very remote, I'll grant.
Plausibility does not mean I have talked myself into the idea that he is really Jack the Ripper. Much has been made of the fact that I will not listen to reason on the subject of "Chapman". My position simply rests on plausibility, not sweeping conviction that I have the Ripper at last. Yes, Neal Glass has solved the crime of the ages after reading Sugden's book! Nuts! The poor mad fool lost it! And you saw it right on these boards! Perfectly mad!
"Crackers" as the British put it.
The discussion is only about whether or not the figure of Klosowski is a plausible candidate for the job as the Real Jack.
None of us knows whether Phil Sugden was nudged to leave the door open to a suspect who was the "most likely" or the "least implausible" or whatever. It is not out of the question. But that is, after all, for Phil Sugden to say. And for all I know I'm going to wake up in the morning and Sugden will be on this board trying to talk sense into me.
If he does, I look forward to it!
But until then we'll leave that point alone. I have a long background in literature and know only too well where talks about what the author "really" meant go.
So let's keep it where it sits. I read Sugden's book, became intrigued by the possibility that Klosowski might appear to be a plausible candidate.
Publicly Stewart has stated in his earlier book, 'Jack the Ripper, an American Serial Killer' the following:
"Phil Sugden, in his recent invaluable study of the Whitechapel murders, proposed that Klosowski is a plausible Ripper suspect. Sugden does not seriously advance him as a the murderer, but the mere fact that he rates him higher than Druitt, Ostrog and Kosminski--'the least unlikely of an unlikely bunch'--does warrant further investigation."
Now, we do have the author of that sentence with us at the moment, and so he can enlighten us as to what he "really" meant when he said this. Without getting confrontational, I will have to hold any author to what they say in print. This is not to attack Stewart or to suggest he is dishonest in the things he says in public. I have not said that. Nor have I reads the whole of his contribution to Ripper studies. The book I quoted is old. He may have changed his mind. Myself, I have changed my mind on these boards only to get jumped on for a position I no longer feel very strongly about. That is not the case with the Klosowski question, but it is the case with other opinions I have played with off and on.
So it is for Stewart to clarify what he meant.
Incidentally I also remind any author reading this that if people did not go to secondary sources, then there would be no call for writers who write secondary sources. To say someone dependent on them will never get a the truth is a devastating remark to hear from the author of a secondary resource on the subject.
Now, I have a lot more to say about this and will say it, but I suggest to Stewart that he take up this message here first, address himself to it when he has the time and inclination to do so.
In my own experience when someone overloads me with objections or questions I tend not to give their position its due. It's just a lot of reading, particularly when it is contrary and mean-spirited, which is certainly not the intended tone of this message here.
But part of my sweeping tone in the past about certain issues has been my frustration with authors who do make statements that they may not really mean or which are true in so far as they go (but no farther). I am in my rights to sound off on this here and there. The subject of the Ripper is just barely a normal subject of historical study. And it seems to me it is only just barely because an academic like Sugden finally give treated it like an actual historical study for the first time in over a hundred years.
So anyway we have Stewart Evans here. He can clarify what he means when he says something. However, in the light of what he has said in his earlier book (and actually what he says on the same page as the remark just quoted), I conclude that Stewart is simply saying that of all the unlikely suspects this one suspect, Klosowski, deserves more attention than the rest, if only to better debunk him. Presently that is my understanding of what Stewart has said. In his book he allows that Klosowski deserves at least that much investigation.
And I concur. Stewart may fight me tooth and nail over agreeing with him. But I stand firm in my agreement. If he comes after me about agreeing with him, he won't be the first. I agree in part with at least two people who openly revile me on these pages.
There are even moments when Wolf is saying something valid.
And if, as it turns out, Stewart has changed his mind about what he said in his earlier book, then may I at least remind him that he once saw it this way and that other reasonable people might also be led to such an opinion from the reading of certain books?
As for the respectability of looking into Klosowski as a suspect, it is not just Sugden's book that allows for it, even though Sugden's is the most influential that I know of. Recently, as most of you have no doubt surmised, I have been looking at 'The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper'. In it, and I have pointed this out before, Jakubowski and Braund go down the list of objections to Klosowski as Ripper, ending by saying, "These objections are not unanswerable with hypothesis, but they remain stumbling blocks."
". . . without hypothesis". It does need that, doesn't it? I am working on it because it's just very stimulating playing around with what sort of hypothesis might make things fit and answer the usual objections to Klosowski as a plausible candidate for the Ripper.
I have said before that this sort of thing is not done in a day.
What is done in a day is answering Stewart's message, which is a good message. I appreciate him bringing focus to a discussion that was otherwise going to veer off into such a clash of personalities as has probably rarely been seen on these boards.
So I invited Stewart to answer what I have said here first before going on to the rest of what I have to say. It helps me to read long messages in installments.
Whatever.
But this is my first reply to what Stewart has said. He's busy, and if he takes his time, that's fine with me.
I now retire to my bunker to form my second reply, which will have to do with Stewart's reply about Abberline. This actually ventures into ground that Wolf touched on in a previous message.
With respect and highest regard, Neal |
Author: Neal Glass
Friday, 07 April 2000 - 03:40 pm | | P.S. I have thought better of getting into Abberline and the rest of it until Stewart gets around to replying to what I have said so far. It is not right to take up his time like this. When he is inclined to address my last message, fine. After he's done, I'll move on to the other issues he has raised.
We don't have to do this all at once.
We all have lives we're leading.
Oh, and I will no longer answer messages that are just rude and mean-spirited and insulting. Anyone interested in the points raised in an insulting letter is free to take those points up in a message that is civil. It is not as if the bullies are not saying anything.
They are just not putting it the way I care to bother with.
It's a bore.
Later, Neal |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Friday, 07 April 2000 - 05:55 pm | | Is it safe to come out yet? Oh, hi Neal.
First off Neal, would you mind dropping the 'u' out of your spelling of Macnaghten's name? :-)
My approach to this subject is totally objective, I was reading and researching it for over 30 years before I ever 'discovered' Tumblety, and he was ex-Chief Inspector Littlechild's named suspect, not mine! And I think he probably knew more than we will ever know, so I must bow to his superior knowledge. That is just to explain that, despite the fact that I regard him as an excellent contemporary suspect, I am not permanently beating the Tumblety drum. I have said all this before, I work with facts not fantasy, and my approach is always open and objective.
My quote that you have given merely means that when a writer/researcher of Phil Sugden's stature suggests that a certain person is a plausible suspect then he must be looked at. I would probably have otherwise not even mentioned him in my book.
My point regarding secondary versus primary sources has been misunderstood. Of course we all initially gain our interest via secondary sources and we read for enjoyment (at least I do). My point is, however, that if anyone wishes to become embroiled in deep and contentious debate on boards such as these you should really be quoting from primary source material, otherwise you may be falsely arguing someone else's opinions (and not facts), or downright errors. I think that I proved this point with my entry on the Stephen White piece.
I do not expect anyone to bow to my opinion or interpretation of anything, unless I prove my point factually. However, as I have said before, any opinion I do give will be both honest and informed. It is pointless to argue that "Severin Klosowski could have killed some or most or maybe even all of the women in London [?] during his stay there." You can say that about thousands of other eligible males who were there at the same time also. It means nothing and is supported by no evidence whatsoever (he wasn't even a contemporary suspect). And, as I have shown, Phil was far from being the first to mention Chapman's name as a suspect.
When I say that I have an "educated belief..." believe me, it is educated, and is more than mere guesswork when I say that is why Chapman appeared in the book as a favoured suspect. (I was being a bit too circumspect I guess). Believe me when I say that Phil would prefer it to have no 'preferred suspect' at all in his book.
Again you misquote me, or imply as much, when you say "To say someone dependent on them [secondary sources] will never get a[t] the truth is a devastating remark to hear from the author of a secondary source on the subject." What I did say, in fact, is that "...if you access primary source material you avoid all the tendentious, biased, subjective, coloured, call it what you will, arguments of writers with a particular axe to grind." That is true, it holds true, and I stick by it. Sadly it is particularly true in the field of 'Ripper' writing. Or would you believe all you read in books on the Royal/Masonic conspiracy, the 'diary' hoax, the mad 'hidden messages' anagrams, etc., etc.? I know of no error-free 'Ripper' book whatsoever. And I have identified most of the errors in the leading 'reference works' on the subject. If you want to argue the finer points, get your facts straight first. Sorry if you are devastated Neal, it's a tough life.
But, that having been said, what is productive about constructive argument is the fact that it usually produces new thinking, new ideas, and the truth, or the best guess at it.
Unfortunately The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper has more than its fair share of errors and madcap reasoning. So, again I warn, tread carefully.
Yes I am busy, but I really do want to see everyone adopt a sensible and objective approach if they wish to further research. You may still have your own ideas, preferences, and lines of enquiry, and there is nothing wrong with that. I am willing to help anyone where I can, but I will not get involved in pointless debate. Most of the ideas that get bandied about here, I bandied about myself - anything up to 30 years ago.
Finally, as to the Littlechild letter, it is genuine, it is a primary source document written by a very senior officer who was at Scotland Yard from 1883-1893, it is important and it is raw research material for anyone to access and use in whatever way they wish. I have written my book on Tumblety. I have now moved on to an even deeper level of study, and I am involved in many other projects. I wish you well with yours. |
Author: Neal Glass
Friday, 07 April 2000 - 07:40 pm | | Thank you, Stewart.
I did not misquote you.
I quoted you verbatim.
I simply said what you said and wondered if in the light of other things you said that there might not be devastating undertones. I am not sure if your mention of the Littlechild letter isn't for everyone else's benefit or mine. I have never questioned the authenticity of the document. Nor have I ever questioned its historical importance, irregardless of whoever Jack the Ripper was.
You've clarified some things here: Without Sugden's comments on Klosowski you yourself would not have felt his name worth mentioning.
Fine.
But Sugden did make those comments.
Take it on faith he didn't really mean it?
The Mammoth Book is not free of error?
Okay. Do you see me pouncing or getting weird?
Am I not being very pleasant right now?
I always turn the other cheek with you, and so far two cheeks have sufficed.
Let's hope it stays that way.
Perhaps you think I have an axe to grind? My only real axe is the very point you have raised. It is very hard to get to the bottom of this from secondary sources.
Did I learn something from the Steve White exchange? Yes, I did.
It was an important moment.
But what I learned was not to shutup when an idea occurs to me. And the idea that someone on a message board can't bandy about with thoughts and random opinions is, well, questionable.
It really is.
I do have this right, Stewart. I can think out loud and reflect out loud and provoke response and consider the feedback. Others are free to react. When it gets tiresome I am free to ignore their reaction.
They are free to ignore me. You are free to ignore me. But you haven't.
Thank you for not ignoring me.
But, Stewart, I have the moral right to do talk, especially when it is in connection to an essay that I found deeply offensive.
Why does this escape everyone?
Why is it so elusive?
I was morally and rationally offended by 'David Cohen & the Polish Jew Theory'. Klowsoski did come up. The comments presented by Fido did not adequately address themselves to the question of Klosowski. But obviously my offense at the essay itself went beyond this.
I do not have to ask anyone's permission to be openly offended about something like this.
No one is rushing to defend that essay. The one attempt has faltered at best.
It was all in connection to that. That is the history.
That is the context.
If you respect my context, then I am happy to respect yours.
This is not over yet. But I don't expect you to be waiting on what I have to say about Abberline. When it is convenient for you to go over it, then please do so.
I'm am busy too.
I welcome your comments. I always welcome your comments.
Have I ever given you any other impression?
Thank you for listening, Neal
P.S. Please keep in mind that you are the one who chose to go to the board with this.
I did draw you out. I admit it.
But the choice was yours. |
Author: Neal Glass
Friday, 07 April 2000 - 08:06 pm | | P.S. Anytime you want a time-out from this, let me know by e-mail. I just wanted you here to pull out of all the name-calling and nonsense with the children and to bring the talk up to a higher plane where it's just about what is possible, what is conceivable.
It was never more sinister than that.
I value you as a contact and would not want it to end badly between us, unless it's about telling me to shutup.
That's the only thing.
Honest, Neal |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Friday, 07 April 2000 - 08:21 pm | | Neal,
This is one of the reasons I don't usually get into long debates on these boards. It ends up becoming a circular argument and no one gets anywhere.
I still insist that you have taken my quote regarding primary/secondary sources out of context. You did not quote me verbatim.
In my time I should think I have heard every argument and theory there is for and against Chapman, and most of the other 'suspects' too. Yes, Phil Sugden made those comments, and I have told you why. When we wrote our book I did not want to mention any other suspects at as it is an old formula that has been done to death. However, our publisher insisted that we did, so we did. Chapman was included for the reason I have given, and no other reason.
I fail to understand your 'turn the other cheek' remark, have I slapped them? I hope not, but fear not anyway for this is to be my last post on these boards for some time to come.
Yes it is very hard to 'get to the bottom of this from secondary sources.' It is also very hard to get to the bottom of it from primary sources, in fact it is probably impossible to get to the bottom of it period.
You can bandy about whatever thoughts and random opinions you wish, I didn't say you can't. In fact you again misquote or misunderstand me again here. But don't expect me to 'bandy about' with you when you do it.
So think out loud, reflect out loud, provoke response, and consider the feed back. But don't expect any from me any more. As you say, "others are free to react. When it gets tiresome I am free to ignore their reaction."
Regarding the essay which you found "deeply offensive," fine that is your opinion and as you know I don't agree with that particular essay myself either.
Lastly, thank you for the kind comments you have made about me, and I was pleased to assist with your query on the Stephen White piece. Your desire to get it into the right context impressed me, hence my contact with you.
Again, the best of luck with your project and now I choose to leave the boards. That is my choice. |
Author: Neal Glass
Saturday, 08 April 2000 - 03:52 am | | I thoroughly understand Stewart's response and wish him the best of luck as well. And I too leave this board with this here. It's for people to check out who are open to the Klosowski issue. I'll certainly peek at any responses to it. But I cannot say I will dwell too much on the mean remarks.
And best of luck to one and all.
INSPECTOR ABBERLINE
Before I begin about Abberline, I want to mention that I said in passing that Klosowski lived in "London". I meant by that what any American would mean, that it is all one big urban region to us with a west side and an east. We might call it the London area, the same as we say the San Francisco Bay area. And generally we would not take seriously that East London is not London. We would say an East Ender is a Londoner.
I did not mean Klosowski lived in Hyde Park Gate!
Please forgive the length of my final address. It could not be helped. This cannot be broken up. It has to be read as a whole reply.
Inspector Frederick George Abberline, yes. For those of you reading this who are new to the subject, Abberline had been an East End detective for twenty-five years, I believe. In 1888 he was very involved in the Ripper case for Scotland Yard. He had just entered the "Yard". Abberline knew more about the case than anyone reading this post, more than Stewart or any of his highly informed colleagues. Sugden could not rate him more highly: "There was no more authoritative voice on the Whitechapel murders than that of Abberline. Indeed, it is even possible, as Donald Rumbelow has suggested, that the file on these crimes was officially closed in 1892 because that was the year when Abberline, the investigating officer, retired." Sugden breaks with other writers who have felt the need to disparage Abberline's insights and his knowledge of the case.
But if Stewart's interpretation of certain documents proves correct, Abberline seems not to have known of the search for someone named Tumblety. Abberline was not actually in charge of the case. That went over to a gentleman named Swanson. It is not beyond the pale that Abberline just wasn't in on the Tumblety end of the investigation. And it is also possible that he did know and simply did not give it very much importance over the years, believing that it had simply come to nothing. From what I understand he did mention Montague Druitt (without giving a name) to the newspaper reporter who interviewed him about his impression of "George Chapman", A.K.A. Severin Klosowski.
Stewart can correct me on how much or how little he thinks Abberline knew about Tumblety. I don't pretend to know that much about this side of things as yet. But I do know from what I have read myself at my end that Abberline says nothing that is documented about an American suspect. There is a letter from Littlechild that establishes that there was such a suspect, so none of this is in dispute. But as far as I myself know, Abberline never had anything to say about it.
I only know of what Abberline said in the 1903 "Chapman" interview by way of books and some of what Wolf mentioned and now what Stewart himself has sited in his message. It would be very nice to have a copy of the article. I have a copy of Howells & Skinner on the way from England and can hardly wait to get into it.
It will be most helpful.
But something significant hit me when Stewart mentioned Abberline was not at all bothered by the fact that the article reported that the Ripper always wore a "P. & O." cap. Stewart's point was that the Ripper did not always wear a "P. & O." cap.
But Inspector Abberline was not bothered by this mention of a cap in the article. It did not turn him away from the article at all. In fact the way Stewart seems to be putting it, Abberline must have really been taken in by this story. But if we really think about this it is simply incredible to contemplate, unbelievable, that Abberline could have possibly been taken in by it.
It is out of the question.
I step back quizzically, innocently, and ask myself why was Abberline not bothered by the mention of the cap in the article, this generalization. Surely he knew the Ripper did not ALWAYS wear a peaked cap.
Abberline is the most condescended individual in this case, the East End inspector who had what one writer describes as a "profound knowledge" of Whitechapel itself. But in the same breath the same writer (and apparently others) prefer those who were higher up the ladder than Abberline when they are trying to come to any conclusions about the case. Actually one writer prefers Macnaghten who was not even there. That is how much confidence this writer has had in Abberline whose knowledge he says was so "profound". This writer also prefers Anderson who was gone about the first month of the murder series. It is always Abberline who gets patted on the head in this, always Abberline who knows less than Macnaghten (who probably knew next to nothing).
But Stewart isn't mentioning Macnaghten except to correct my misspelling of his name. He hasn't mentioned Anderson either. There are none of the usual comparisons and contrasts, and obviously it is not up to him to explain why Abberline was not put off by so fundamental a detail.
Or is it?
It seems to me not unreasonable that Abberline was not put off by this aspect of the article because he himself put great store in the description put forth by a man named Israel Schwartz. That's my hunch. I know for a fact that Stewart does not feel the Stride killing was even related to the case. But it seems sensible to me that Abberline thought it was very related, just as majority opinion on the matter to this day holds that it was relevant. Schwartz witnessed an altercation between Stride and two men in the location where she was found murdered. This was about a man in a peaked cap whose description certainly in no way contradicts "Chapman's" general appearance. We are told in some sources that "Chapman" did not really change very much in his physical appearance over the years. He had always more or less looked the same as he had when he was younger, even as he may have always looked older for his age way back when.
There were two other witnesses that same fateful night who saw someone who might be construed to match the same description. But I won't belabor it. Most people reading this know about all this. They know it involved a "P.& O." cap.
Personally I am not yet entirely convinced that Stewart is wrong to count out Stride. But I will certainly play devil's advocate here because I do believe that the legitimacy of viewing Klosowski with suspicion is simply not without any foundation whatsoever.
It depends entirely on how we interpret the facts.
Stewart interprets the facts his way. Abberline obviously interpreted them his own way. I am not sure Abberline believed that the Ripper always wore a cap. But he recalled a cap being described certainly. My guess, and it is a safe guess, is that Abberline really was thinking of the night of the so called double event, the only time he believed that the killer was seen just prior to leaving a dead body in the street. This would have been central to anyone who believed that the man Schwartz saw was the killer.
That is not to say the man that Schwartz saw was in fact the killer. It is only to say that Abberline probably believed so. A cap was involved. A man who matched Klosowski was involved. Let's say Abberline saw Klosowski's picture in the papers. Here they had found a serial killer, a poisoner, who did not look unlike the man described so long ago who did in fact wear a "P. & O" cap.
We all have our own view. But I honestly believe that Abberline had his view based on the impression of the eyewitness accounts of a certain night. This colored his own judgement on the matter itself.
Seen in that light, Abberline is not confused.
He simply disagrees with Stewart Evans.
Onto the now famous unreliable newspaper report . Many untrue facts were reported upon which Abberline was basing his opinion that "Chapman" was indeed the Ripper. Wolf brought this out as well. The newspaper account had errors. Abberline read an article about "Chapman" and felt that this brute could well be Jack the Ripper at last. We don't know if he kept to the idea down the years, only that he had some enthusiasm for the notion when he went public about it with the Pall Mall Gazette. In fact from my own reading Abberline said later in life that Scotland Yard was nowhere nearer knowing who had committed the murders than it had been in 1888.
But for a time he had some enthusiasm for the idea of it having been "Chapman". So how significant are the errors in the newspaper account? And please understand that I can only go on what Stewart has enumerated. If there are more errors to be listed, then anyone is free to list them on this board in the interest of sound discourse on the subject.
But these are the errors that Stewart mentioned:
(1) Untrue Statement Number One: At the time of the first two murders "Chapman" was living at George Yard, Whitechapel Road. Personally I would love to know where Klosowski was really living. I don't know where he was living. It is reported in several books that he was indeed at George Yard. I would appreciate it if Stewart or someone could help me out on this. How did George Yard get objectively ruled out of this? Who determined this? But even as I ask this and even though it is of historical interest to me, it does not seem to me a compelling detail. Sugden places Klosowski in Whitechapel by his job in 1888. Klosowski worked in the neighborhood. The documentation seems to me perfectly sound. Severin Klosowski was around. And if he never lived at George Yard, so what?
(2) Another error that Stewart mentions is Abberline's belief that as soon as Klosowski went to New Jersey Ripper-styled murders began happening over there. Since there was no plurality of serial murders in America, it's true to say that this is an error--as far as it goes. And the one murder that has been mentioned for the longest time, that of Carrie Brown, did not occur in New Jersey, but in nearby New York. So that is an error to. But there was a murder, wasn't there? And it was not far from Jersey. We cannot exactly pinpoint the time of Klosowski's arrival in the states. That has been pointed out to me. But we do know the month was April, and we know that Brown was murdered in April of that year. We may never know for certain if this murder isn't the basis for the error that Abberline accepted as truth. But it is certainly interesting, isn't it? And if Klosowski actually was there in time for the murder, then the only controversy from there depends on how strict one is about what constitutes a "Ripper-styled" murder. If I understand Stewart's view of it, a true Ripper murder has to match the so called "canonical" murders (minus Stride), and so it is very true when he says that there was no "Ripper styled" murders (or murder). To his way of thinking there is no relation here, no parallel. That is his interpretation. This is also why he can say with assurance that the murders did not stop after Klosowski left England. He means the canonical murders stopped much earlier. He does not recognize McKenzie or Cole as true Ripper victims. Others are not so strict in how they view these killings. And by that view Carrie Brown is not necessarily so radically alien to what had been going on in the East End. She was strangled, but she was not strangled with the killer's bare hands. Still she was strangled. And she was mutilated, but we have no details, no specifics. And that works both ways. We can't say anything definite for it, but we cannot say anything definite against it. Like so much else going on with this case, depending on how we look at something, we just don't know anything one way or another. I know that Stewart seems to think he knows. But then Abberline thought for a time that he knew too. My only point is simply that Abberline's instincts were not necessarily so utterly afoul of reality when he had that feeling about this. If I have been informed adequately as to its content, there are errors in the newspaper account, yes. But I am not altogether sure how vastly and overwhelmingly compelling those errors ever really were overall. It depends entirely on how we look at it.
(3) Another error is this business of Klosowski trying to murder one of his women, a common law wife, with a knife. Wolf brought this up. But while it is true that Klosowski never even menaced Lucy Baderski with a knife. He did tell her that he was planning on killing her with it. She found it under his pillow. A story like that gets exaggerated in the press, but it is not as if it had no basis whatever. And I have previously quoted from Sugden about the physical brutality which Klosowski was constantly indulging in toward his women. Is Sugden simply completely misinformed on this area of Klosowski's private life and character? I doubt it. We must accept that Klosowski was obviously someone who was violent with his women. Whether it was about a mind game with a knife or simply beating someone up, he was an ape. So seen in that context, I have to wonder how important it is that the papers should exaggerate one specific situation (which they did) when other women would attest to what life with this man was really like. Yes, he had a knife. Yes, he displayed violence to his women. He was not strictly the quiet calculating poisoner some of the books make him out to be.
(4) Finally we come to an "error" about what Lucy Baderski had to say about Klosowski's habits. This is discussed as an "error" because Baderski did not become involved with Klosowski until after the Whitechapel murders. All this "error" amounts to is little. It is about something Baderski happened to say about Klosowski being out at all hours of the night when she was living with him. Irrelevant? Perhaps if we have some animosity to the idea that Klosowski could have been the world's first serial killer, anything we might say about the possibility is simply irrelevant. But one's animosity to an idea is not an argument. Any prosecuting attorney would come forward with someone like Baderski to attest to her husband's nightly habits. If the accused was this way when he was living with her, then maybe he was this way in 1888. A prosecutor would use this to influence a jury. It doesn't determine the case the prosecutor is making, but he would not treat it as irrelevant. I have discussed this with a lawyer friend who assures me that it would enter into a case against someone like this if the defendant were up for these kinds of murders. It does enter into it. And how honest is it to even bring that up as an "error"?--an "error" that shows us Abberline did not have his facts straight, so naturally his judgement could not be sound?
I hope that in having outlined these qualifications I have stimulated thought in those who are open to the idea that I am trying to lend some credence to, simply that someone like Klosowski would look good to someone like Abberline for reasons that are (1) not purely subjective, (2) do no necessarily reflect a lapse in judgement, and (3) which need not be dismissed simply because of errors in a newspaper account, meaning errors that were so false that he was going on information that was just completely from outer space.
Whether Stewart responds or not, I am gratified that I have the maximum number of folks looking at what I have said. I apologize for being such a showboat in my attempts to get your attention. I realize it has been for some of you a very bitter experience, far more bitter than I had anticipated. For that I again apologize. Things really did get out of hand.
And let me say that I am not totally committed to Klosowski as the Ripper. As I sit here it is for mulling over some more. There are really more problems than Stewart mentioned. But since he mentioned only the easy problems, I have done my best to show how it could be viewed another way. And the more critical he is of it, then he must realize others will use the same standards on the suspect that his own work points to. There can be no double standard, and whether the police may have been tracking another man does not mean they were tracking the right man. It doesn't necessarily follow, especially when we consider that three of their other suspects seem to have had absolutely nothing to do with anything at all.
As for everyone else, I have gotten under the skin of some of you. I do this. But I never meant anyone here any serious disrespect. I simply don't know any of you well enough to entertain any really serious disrespect. I mean this particularly with NickDanger. I've gone through the archives. Nick is obviously a nice sort. Wolf is no diplomat, but I did not have to react to him as sharply as I did so late at night with my mind on so many other things. Actually Wolf raised valid points that are easier for me kick around now that I am not reacting to his attitude. As for the "Zodiac Killer", well, there's one in every bunch, and I'm only glad he doesn't know where I live! But seriously I'll give him his due. Even this person apologized to the other people on the board for going on and on the way he did, which is a lot coming from a retired serial killer!
Now, whether I popularize the idea of Klosowski as the Ripper or not, it is coming. There will be novels and movies. It will play itself out. Other story-tellers will stumble on the same trail I have. Frankly the Duke of Clarence is used up, so they will go to this. Cynical.
It will just happen someday. And whether anyone likes it or not when that day comes serious students of the Ripper will have to do more than fume. You will have to calmly and patiently address yourself to what I have said. You will be dealing with new people coming in who will want to know more about this side of this. You will have to be polite and open and rational about it. Many of the pat arguments that dismiss "Chapman" will not go over so well as they do now by people who are simply complacent in their belief that he could not have been the one. You'll have to do a little better than what I have seen.
But it has been a real experience for me being here.
Thank you and so long, Neal |
Author: Keith Skinner
Tuesday, 11 April 2000 - 05:51 am | | On behalf of Martin Fido may I make the following remarks to clarify an apparent misconception.
I am not sure why, but Neal Glass seems to have the impression that Martin failed to find Kosminski. It was, in fact Martin who first discovered Aaron Kosminsky in the Colney Hatch Admissions and Discharge Book, four months after submitting his manuscript, but rejected him in favour of David Cohen. Kosminsky was then picked up and discussed by Paul Begg in The Uncensored Facts - and Paul then pushed on Martin Kosminsky, I know, because I did a lot of that research for Paul! Phil Sugden then elaborated on Aaron Kosminsky in The Complete History.
This is neither an attack on, nor a criticism of, what Neal has written - neither is it a defence of what Martin has published. It is just a point of information for Neal to correct what appears to be a misunderstanding. |
Author: Simon Owen
Tuesday, 11 April 2000 - 08:39 am | | Hi Keith , thanks for taking the time to post a message. Welcome to the boards ! Sadly it seems that Neal has gone from us , but he did raise some interesting points while he was here : I wonder if I can query you about one of them. It relates to Montague Druitt , subject of your earlier book with Martin Howells. Apparently , Prince Eddy went to a shooting party on December 17th 1888 , hosted by Lord Wimborne. And Lord Wimborne invited Montague Druitt and his mother , despite the fact that the former was dead and the latter insane although I'm not saying Wimborne knew these facts , to the impromptu ball which was arranged for the Royal visitor. Can you tell us who else was on the guest list for this ball ? Keith , much discussion has taken place on the Montague Druitt board recently about whether Montague was a viable suspect : if you have the time , please read it and tell us what you think of our conclusions ; is there anything you can add ? Thanks ! For myself , I am researching personally around the Sickert version of the Ripper events and I wish to contact Melvyn Fairclough personally to ask him several important questions on his research and about ' The Ripper and the Royals '. Do you have an address where I can contact Melvyn ? If you have any information that is helpful please e-mail me at a65565@tcat.ac.uk , where I can be reached. Thanks again ! |
Author: Chris Gaunt
Saturday, 15 April 2000 - 07:15 pm | | ok, can anyone take the rubbish away from the stuff in the films and tell me the facts ... ?
chris@rottenweb.madasafish.com |
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 04 June 2000 - 11:40 am | | Hi all:
I recently received from R. Michael Gordon the chapter by chapter synopsis for his upcoming book, "Alias - Jack the Ripper" in which he proposes that convicted poisoner George Chapman (Severin Klosowski) was Jack the Ripper. As you may know, Klosowski borrowed the name "Chapman" from a woman named Chapman with whom he lived in 1893 after his return from the United States. He met her in Haddin's hairdresser shop at 5 West Green Road, Tottenham, where he worked as an assistant, and they thereafter lived together for about a year. According to Philip Sugden ("The Complete History of Jack the Ripper," revised paperback edition, p. 443), "Her name was Annie Chapman (not to be confused with the Ripper victim of the same name). . ." Now, in the plot outline, for "Alias - Jack the Ripper," R. Michael Gordon asserts, "When he resurfaced [after abandoning his previous companion Lucy Baderski] he is living with Annie Georgina Chapman the daughter of Ripper victim Annie Chapman!" Could any credence be put in Gordon's claim? As discussed on these boards before, Gordon also claims that Klosowski was living in George Yard at the time of the murder of Martha Tabram on August 7, 1888, at which time, as evidenced by the entry in the Post Office Directory of 1889, material for which would have been gathered in late 1888, Klosowski appears to have been living at 126 Cable Street, St. George's-in-the-East (Sugden, p. 441). I would think that Gordon is similarly mistaken in his contention that the Annie Chapman with whom Klosowski lived could have been victim Annie Chapman's daughter. Comments anyone?
Chris George, Editor, Ripper Notes
http://www.casebook-productions.org/rn.htm |
Author: Simon Owen
Sunday, 04 June 2000 - 03:29 pm | | Annie's daughter Emily died in 1882 , but she had another daughter and had at least one sister too. Is anyone able to access the 1871 census to find the name of Annie's daughter ?
The 1861 census would probably reveal the names of her sisters. |
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 04 June 2000 - 05:06 pm | | Hi, Simon:
Thanks. I now see that Annie and John Chapman's second daughter was Annie Georgina, born in 1873 (Sugden, p. 77). Could this be the same "Annie Georgina Chapman" that R. Michael Gordon is claims was "the daughter of Ripper victim Annie Chapman!" Incidentally, the exclamation mark is Mr. Gordon's. I know no further information on Gordon's source for his claim other than what is in the plot outline for his book. We might note that this second daughter of victim Annie Chapman would have been aged twenty in 1893 when Gordon asserts that Severin Klosowski (George Chapman) lived with her. According to Sugden (p. 77), the daughter Annie Georgina was said in 1888 to be travelling with a performing troup or circus in France.
Chris George |
Author: David M. Radka
Monday, 05 June 2000 - 01:22 pm | | Good Morning All,
Perhaps it might be fit to remind everyone here of certain matters concerning Mr. Gordon's book which we haven't touched on for awhile, now that it appears that publication release is imanent.
To my knowledge, I am the only person who posts here who has actually read the entire book. Perhaps there are only a handful of people anywhere who have read it. Mr. Gordon mailed me his manuscript for a 60-day review eight months or so ago, which I much appreciate, and I briefly reviewed it here--a bit too "sketchily" reviewed in Mr. Harris' opinion. I sent more detailed comments to the editor with return of the manuscript.
Basically, the purpose of the book is to collect the massive circumstantial evidence against Klosowski, and make the world's first coherent presentation of it. While the book doesn't prove the case, as would be expected, it should be recognized that release of a document of this nature may cause a sensation in Ripperology --perhaps equal to the release of the Stephen Knight material.
In other words, a sea change in Ripperology may well be coming up soon. A huge influx of new posters here is possible. A switch of interest to Chapman from other suspects is likely. Band-width problems. New design of this web site possible. Mr. Gordon receiving questions here. A whole new wave of public interest in the case, resulting in all kinds of Ripper materials selling very well. That kind of things.
Mr. Gordon basically lays the whole deal on the table, and lets the chips fall where they may. He considered the dialogue of this web site in structuring the work. Many subjects discussed here appear, and, to me, even the personalities of some of our posters seem to pop up here and there in the text. If you are the believer-type, you might well feel yourself being swept up in a rapture. Word to the wise. I can well imagine what Mr. Harris is going to make of this release.
David |
Author: David M. Radka
Monday, 05 June 2000 - 01:28 pm | | Good Morning All,
Perhaps it might be fit to remind everyone here of certain matters concerning Mr. Gordon's book which we haven't touched on for awhile, now that it appears that publication release is imanent.
To my knowledge, I am the only person who posts here who has actually read the entire book. Perhaps there are only a handful of people anywhere who have read it. Mr. Gordon mailed me his manuscript for a 60-day review eight months or so ago, which I much appreciate, and I briefly favorably reviewed it here--a bit too "sketchily" reviewed in Mr. Harris' opinion. I sent more detailed comments to the editor with return of the manuscript.
Basically, the purpose of the book is to collect the massive circumstantial evidence against Klosowski, and make the world's first coherent presentation of it. While the book doesn't prove the case, as would be expected, it should be recognized that release of a document of this nature may cause a sensation in Ripperology --perhaps equal to the release of the Stephen Knight material.
In other words, a sea change in Ripperology may well be coming up soon. A huge influx of new posters here is possible. A switch of interest to Chapman from other suspects is likely. Band-width problems. New design of this web site possible. Mr. Gordon receiving questions here. A whole new wave of public interest in the case, resulting in all kinds of Ripper materials selling very well. That kind of things.
Mr. Gordon basically lays the whole deal on the table, and lets the chips fall where they may. He considered the dialogue of this web site in structuring the work. Many subjects discussed here appear, and, to me, even the personalities of some of our posters seem to pop up here and there in the text. I consider it a mandatory study for all serious Ripperologists. However, if you are the believer-type, you might feel yourself being swept up in a rapture. Word to the wise. I can well imagine what Mr. Harris is going to make of this release.
David |
Author: David M. Radka
Monday, 05 June 2000 - 01:33 pm | | Please note--the SECOND posting is the correct, edited one--please disregard the first. I pressed the wrong button!
David |
Author: Neal Glass
Monday, 05 June 2000 - 01:41 pm | | I have received a letter from Phillip Sugden dated May 26, 2000, which addresses itself to issues raised by Stewart Evans on April 7 on this board. I will summarize the issues raised on that date for those new to this board and then summarize Mr. Sugden's remarks about it.
On April 7, 2000, Stewart Evans posted several messages on the George Chapman board, implying that Philip Sugden was bowing to commercial pressure from his publisher in his handling of the Chapman issue in his book, The Complete History of Jack the Ripper. Stewart was discussing the treatment of the subject of Chapman by various authors and mentioned Jonathan Goodman who was the first to say, "Of those named, I think the least unlikely is George Chapman." Stewart commented that this was something Mr. Sugden built upon in his 1994 book. And in his next paragraph, Stewart remarked:
"However, there is no way that Phil Sugden thinks that Chapman was the 'Ripper'. In fact, his book was to have originally contained no preferred suspect, thus making it more objective. It is my (educated) belief that the only reason that Chapman appears in Phil's book in this guise is that his publishers wanted him to at least come up with a preferred suspect. And Phil reluctantly agreed. To a degree all authors are at the behest of their publishers who tend to be more commercially minded (and rightly so in their case), than are the authors."
In his second message that day Stewart returned to this aspect of his talk and stated:
"When I say that I have an "educated belief . . . " believe me, it is educated, and is more than mere guesswork when I say that is why Chapman appeared in the book (The Complete History of Jack the Ripper) as a favoured suspect. (I was being a bit too circumspect I guess). Believe me when I say that Phil would prefer it to have no 'preferred suspect' at all in his book.
This matter kept coming up because I had confronted Stewart with a quote from his Jack the Ripper, the First American Serial Killer where he says that the question of Chapman merited further investigation even though as yet there is no real evidence against him. Stewart pretty much disowned the quote and said that he was merely deferring to Sugden whom he felt had been himself reluctant to give much import to the case against Chapman. He added to this in his third message by saying:
"In my time I should think I have heard every argument and theory there is for and against Chapman, and most of the other 'suspects' too. Yes, Phil Sugden made those comments, and I have told you why. When we wrote our book I did not want to mention any other suspects as it is an old formula that has been done to death. However, our publisher insisted that we did, so we did. Chapman was included for the reason I have given, and no other reason."
Two months ago I wrote Mr. Sugden about this matter, and I have only just now received his 3 page reply. I will only air the highlights here. First off, however, I don’t think anyone can make of Mr. Sugden's book that he has a 'preferred suspect'. He never says he does. Saying someone is the least unlikely of an unlikely line-up or the least implausible of an implausible bunch hardly constitutes 'favoring' a suspect. It was never my impression from The Complete History of Jack the Ripper that there is any preference. And Mr. Sugden confirms that in no uncertain terms in his letter to me. In my own letter I simply put it to him this way: Is he of a mind that Severin Klosowski is the least implausible of an implausible bunch or simply an impossible suspect? His exact words in reply to this reads as follows:
"Coming to your last question: is Chapman an impossible suspect? Well, he is a weak suspect. How can he be anything else? There is no hard evidence against him and you cannot accuse anyone of anything unless you have pretty good evidence to back you up. But impossible, no. Chapman fits the little we know about the murderer better, in my view, than any of the other suspects, so he cannot be ruled categorically out of the inquiry. There is no hard evidence to implicate anyone in the Ripper crimes. The police not only failed to catch the murderer, they failed even to produce a credible suspect. The irony is that had they solved the case we probably wouldn't be discussing it now. Above all, it is the secret of the killer's identity that intrigues writers and film-makers. Legend feeds on the gaps in history. And you will not find a better illustration of that truth than the case of JTR."
As for the suggestion that there was any commercial consideration surrounding the Chapman chapter of his book, Philip Sugden assures me categorically that there is not one jot of truth in it. He feels there is not a half-decent case to made against any of those accused by senior officers on the case. This includes Chapman. Mr. Sugden further told me that he is not dependent upon a writing income and does not write on commission. He says no one who puts in as much into a book as he does compromises his work by allowing a publisher to tell him what to write. To the contrary, he says that he found in Nick Robinson a publisher who shared his vision. Before working with Mr. Robinson, Mr. Sugden parted company with a top literary agent and a good London publisher precisely because they thought his manuscript was not commercial enough and wanted to make certain changes. Mr. Sugden stands by every conclusion he made in his Chapman chapter. In closing he states:
"Furthermore, the Chapman conclusions were embodied in the typescript of The Complete History before it was seen by any agent or publisher. They were set out in the typescript I sent to Nick Robinson on 8 December 1993, at which time, not having read it, he knew nothing of what it contained."
Mr. Sugden feels that any suggestion that there was commercial pressure coloring the manner or content of his work does as little justice to himself as it does to Mr. Robinson. He states:
"At our first meeting, on the following 7 January, the question as to whether my inability to endorse a suspect might damage sales came up. To my immense relief Nick understood my position perfectly and vigorously upheld it. "This is an objective record of events," he told me, "and in a book like this the lack of a suspect is more a strength than a weakness. I don't want people just to think of you as 'the Chapman bloke'."
Regards, Neal |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 05 June 2000 - 02:48 pm | | Greetings Neal and David:
Neal, thank you so much for transmitting to us Philip Sugden's reaction to the idea that he had been forced by his publisher to include the material about George Chapman (Severin Klosowski) to make his book more salable. It is good to know that was not the case. From my own understanding of the way the publishing world works, I can understand why Stewart Evans may have felt this was the scenario. Good to know that it was not and that Sugden published the book he set out to put before the public.
David, I have no doubt that R. Michael Gordon's upcoming book "Alias - Jack the Ripper" will make some waves but I should doubt that it will be blockbuster that you appear to think, particularly if it is poorly researched. Why do I make the latter comment? Well it would appear that Mr. Gordon is rather naive in his approach to the problem of Klosowski and the Ripper murders if he believes, for example, that Klosowski lived in George Yard at the time of the Tabram murder, going counter to evidence that he was not. I also think that he has a rather slapdash approach, saying for example, in his plot outline, that when Klosowski went to the United States, "he was just passing through New York City on his way to New Jersey when he stopped off at the East River Motel [sic] to murder Carrie Brown known to her friends as 'Old Shakespeare.'" In addition to the murder of Carrie Brown on the night of April 23-24, 1891, Gordon attributes to Klosowski the American murders of Elizabeth Senior (January 31, 1892) and Mary Anderson (June 7, 1892) before his return to London. Sugden (p. 465) says that on April 5, 1891, Klosowski was still living at Tewkesbury Buildings, Whitechapel, so it may be stretching things to think that he was in New York City less than three weeks later murdering Carrie Brown in the "motel."
Klosowski may be the likeliest of a bad crop of suspects but his claim to the mantle of Jack the Ripper will not be much advanced by a poorly researched book. He is appealing to me because he was at least a card-carrying murderer who can be proven to have lived in Whitechapel at the time. It is also curious to note how many times he moved his address, and one does have to wonder why? Gordon appears to indicate that these moves, beginning with his move from Warsaw to London, were predicated by the fact that "deaths [began] to occur around him." Is he right?
Chris George |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 05 June 2000 - 09:44 pm | | Hi all:
I should have said that Klosowski was present in the East End of London at the time of the murders, rather than in Whitechapel. If Sugden is right, during the Autumn of Terror, i.e., the latter part of 1888, Klosowski appears to have been living at 126 Cable Street, St. George's-in-the-East (Sugden, p. 441). Close enough to Whitechapel for him to have committed the murders.
Chris George |
Author: Christopher-Michael DiGrazia
Tuesday, 06 June 2000 - 09:49 am | | As well, Chris, I find the contention that Chapman
was intimate with the daughter of canonical victim
Annie Chapman to be a bit "too good to be true."
Surely, were Klosowski's Annie and Hanbury
Street's Annie mother and daughter, I think it
highly unlikely such a connection would be missed
by the police trying to trace Klosowski's
antecedents to the Ripper killings or by the
ever-watchful Gentlemen of the Press.
As Mr Radka tells us he has read the manuscript,
perhaps he would be good enough to tell us what
(if any) sources or proofs Mr Gordon gives for
this potentially shattering revelation? Or are we
expected to wait until the book is published
before we can see whether the claim has any
support?
CMD |
Author: David M. Radka
Tuesday, 06 June 2000 - 12:11 pm | | C-M,
I had to return the manuscript and don't have it in front of me to give you citations. (It cost me about $8 to mail it back to California!) Suffice to say Mr. G has a great many of them, and some that haven't been seen before, especially concerning Klosowski's early life in Europe. The book basically provides a detailed chronological vita of Klosowski, showing step-by-step the development of a serial killer who had practical medical knowledge. Then it places him astonishingly close to the Whitechapel murders. It is a circumstantial treatment, and may be compelling to those people who like such kind of accounts of things.
I am a booster of the book insofar as Klosowski is a legimate suspect, and it contains valuable historical information. Doubtless there will be some who criticize the conclusions Mr. G reaches at various points.
David |
Author: Christopher T George
Tuesday, 06 June 2000 - 12:50 pm | | Hi David and CM:
While I should of course reserve my judgement until I see R. Michael Gordon's full and finally published book, I continue to have trepidation about it from all that he has said and from what I have read in his plot outline, which, as I mentioned, he was good enough to share with me. Unlike you, David, I have not had the advantage of reading the whole manuscript. I do think though that it does not bode well that you say, "It is a circumstantial treatment, and may be compelling to those people who like such kind of accounts of things." Sugden's account of Chapman, admittedly only a part of his "Complete History," is also to some extent circumstantial but I count a researcher such as Mr. Sugden a careful assayer of the truth. I am not sure the same can be said of Mr. Gordon, again going from what he himself has said about his theories about Klosowski. It sounds to me as if we will be getting a book-length treatment of Severin Klosowski (George Chapman) but without the telling data that will allow us to begin to believe that this suspect was indeed Jack the Ripper. Particularly if his book contains misinformation, Mr. Gordon's "Alias - Jack the Ripper" will not prove much of an advance over the chapter that Hargrave Lee Adam wrote seventy years ago (1930) in "The Trial of George Chapman" in the Notable British Trials series. That chapter by Adam, "Chapman and Jack-the-Ripper," similarly contained faulty information.
Chris George |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Wednesday, 24 January 2001 - 04:13 pm | | In view of the fact that R. Michael Gordon's book has now been published for some time I am surprised to see that no discussion appears to have been generated.
As we know, Klosowski is not a new suspect and the old idea that Macnaghten's and Anderson's Polish Jew may have been a confusion of the names Kosminski/Klosowski has been around for many years. However, he is always a candidate worth discussing and I would have thought that the publication of this new book would be a time for such discussion. Has anyone read this new book? |
Author: Trevor James Loos
Wednesday, 24 January 2001 - 08:15 pm | | To all,
David Cohen. Still know one will look at him. It's funny and ironic.
Raider T |
Author: Christopher T George
Thursday, 25 January 2001 - 08:57 am | | Hi, Stewart:
I am waiting to receive a review copy of R. Michael Gordon's book. At the present time, I know nothing more about it other than what I gleaned from the chapter-by-chapter plot summary, which was sent to me by Mr. Gordon and his agent, and the comments of David Radka who read Gordon's proofs pre-publication. I am as curious about the book as you are. I will be glad to post my comments on the book here when I have had a chance to read it.
All the best
Chris George
Co-Editor
Ripper Notes |
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