|
 |
 |
|
|
|
** 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 June 19, 2000
Casebook Message Boards: Police Officials: General Discussion:
Policemen... What did they know?:
Policemen: What did they know? Part 3:
Archive through June 19, 2000
Author: D. Radka
Wednesday, 17 March 1999 - 01:58 pm |        | Ashling,
Since you are on the subject, may I ask you a question about the City Police? Who were the Commissioner and the Assistant Commissioner from 1888 through 1890?
Any help you can give would be much appreciated.
David |
Author: Ashling
Thursday, 18 March 1999 - 08:08 am | | Hi y'all!
DAVID: I'm glad for the chance to help out, even in a small way. I've benefitted so much from reading these posts.
The City Police Commissioner was James Fraser. It's possible the post of Assistant Commissioner was vacant or non-existent. If any more details turn up later, I'll let you know. For now:
p. 179 in paperback version of Sugden's Complete History of JtR: "In 1888, as now, the City of London had its own police force, responsible to the corporation. Its Commissioner, Sir James Fraser was on leave at the end of September and, in any case, ripe for retirement. So the search for the Mitre Square killer was directed by Major (later Lieutenant Colonel Sir) Henry Smith, the Acting Comissioner,and Inspector James McWilliam, head of the City Detective Department.
At Metro, the Assistant Commissioner was head of the Detective Dept. - at City - McWilliam, an Inspector headed the CID, so maybe City didn't have an Assistant Commissioner.
Fraser is also mentioned in Tully's Prisoner 1167. I don't yet have the A-Z by Beggs, et al, but I'm reasonably sure it holds useful info on this topic.
I probably phrased my earlier post poorly - I'm not asking anyone to dig up the names of the Metro officers for me ... Just need to know if I have the titles ranked in the proper order.
Stewart, Help please? Anyone?
Take care,
Ashling |
Author: kaspar
Tuesday, 27 July 1999 - 11:24 pm | | I don't know whether this has been asked and
answered before.
Qouting the Scotland Yard version of the
Macnaghten memoranda:
Cutbush was the nephew of the late
Supt. Exec..
The memoranda is said to have been written in
Feb 1894,
Superintendent Cutbush is said to have committed
suicide in 1896.
Does anybody know of an explanation for this
contradiction?
kaspar |
Author: Christopher George
Wednesday, 28 July 1999 - 11:08 am | | Hi, Kaspar:
You bring up a good point. I do not know when Superintendent Charles Henry Cutbush left his position at Scotland Yard, but I would suggest that the "late" refers to him no longer being Executive Superintendent, Scotland Yard (in charge of Supplies and Pay) rather than him being dead. According to the Jack the Ripper A to Z, Superintendent Cutbush had, prior to shooting himself in 1896, suffered "some years of depression, severe headaches and mild paranoid delusions, apparently resulting from a blow to the head." I would infer from this, if the authors of A to Z are correct, that he had been gone from Scotland Yard for some years so Macnaghten was referrring to him in February 1894 as the late Executive Superintendent for this reason.
Chris George |
Author: Scott Nelson
Wednesday, 14 June 2000 - 04:17 pm | | Hi Martin,
I'd like to ask you a question about the so-called "Metropolitan Police Area of Search". This appears to be based on Swanson's Home Office report of 19 October, 1888 and defined very specific street boundaries to conduct the house-to-house search. You and several other authors ponder why so much of the Whitechapel District was left out of the search (Pizer's, Kosminsky's, Kaminsky's addresses, Brener St, etc.). I asked another researcher about this dilema. They said earlier police inquiries had probably eliminated many of these areas outside the specific search area. Have you any further ideas on the timing and space changes of the search? |
Author: Jon Smyth
Wednesday, 14 June 2000 - 10:55 pm | | Ashling / David
Don Rumbelow would be ideal to answer the Assitant/Acting Commissioner question for the City Police.
I have skimmed through the A-Z & also Don's 'I spy blue', a summary of the history of the City Police from Elizebeth I to Victoria, and I see no mention of such a position as assistant Commish.
I do see the term 'acting' used, not only as we see Acting Commish, but also Acting Inspector.
It would appear on the face of it that a permanent position of Assistant Commish was not required. But only in the absence of the City Commissioner would someone be called in to be Acting Commissioner for the City.
While James Frazer was Commissioner, Smith's permanent role was Chief Superintendent. Smith became Commissioner permanently in 1890.
Regards, Jon |
Author: Martin Fido
Thursday, 15 June 2000 - 08:41 pm | | Ashling - I've only just seen your original
questions about police ranks. Keith's and my
Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard will be
coming out in paperback soon, and gives some
detailed answers. (If you're in England and have
time to search bookshops, the more fully
illustrated hardback can be picked up for £9 in
some places).
The Met in 1888 had a Commissioner, 3 Asst
Commissioners (A, B and C: AC Executive , AC for
Administration and Supplies, and AC Crime i/c CID,
the last being Anderson). Chief Constables were a
rank introduced to lie between the gentry brought
in as Commissioners and ACs, and the
Superintendents who rose from the ranks. Chief
Constables' powers and responsibilities varied and
fluctuated somewhat at different times. They were
either overlords of 4 groups of Divisions known as
Districts (now 5 known as Areas) or deputies to
the Assistant Commissioners. It was hoped in 1887
that some outstanding superintendents might be
promoted to Chief Constable, thus mixing some
'ranker' officers with the gentry appointed to the
top posts. One was so promoted in the original
creation of District Chief Constables. Williamson
was promoted to Ch Const (CID) in 1890 (but
succeeded by Macnaghten who was brought in by
Monro as Asst Ch Const, and very much of the
civilian gentry class). After that, no more
'rankers' reached Ch Const until James Oliver in
1918. F.P.Wensley (Ch Const from 1925, and seen by
many as the greatest Scotland Yard detective of
all time) was the first ranker from the CID to
reach Ch Const since Williamson: the CID Ch Const
rank had fallen into abeyance and was revived
especially for Wensley.
Superintendents - originally the superior
officers overseeing each Division - were the
highest rank of 'ordinary' police officers. Arnold
was Supt of H division in 1888, but absent on
leave during the first part of the Ripper murder
scare. Inspectors were originally in charge of
stations and sections. A rather mathematical
scheme originally proposed each Division
containing a divisional station house and four
sections; each section having its own inspector
and being divided into eight beats which were
patrolled by eight constables under the oversight
of a section sergeant. A ninth constable remained
in the section house/station as 'reserve officer'
to field messages. Population changes and
practical local needs soon untidied up this neat
organisation.
The inspector who concerns you most was the
Local Inspector, or head of the Divisional CID.
Detective officers were placed in the Divisions
from 1869, and their numbers increased
substantially after Howard Vincent took over the
discredited Detective Branch and transformed it
into the Criminal Investigation department in
1878. The Detective Branch founded in 1842 was
based in Scotland Yard (CO or Commissioner's
Office), rather than attached to the lettered
Divisions), and a headquarters group of CO
detectives, headed by Williamson, was still the
core of the CID. Swanson and Moore were both CO
officers, and Abberline had recently been
transferred to CO (a promotion) and succeeded by
Reid as Local Inspector for H Division.
Nick Connell and Stewart Evans' 'The Man Who
Hunted Jack the Ripper' contains the best picture
of normal detective work in the East End at that
time, and Nick, I believe, has a lot more
seriously fascinating historical material on Reid
which, tragically, had to be sacrificed because of
the publisher's preference for the 'sexier'
material of rehashing the Ripper.
The City police, as you rightly deduce, had
three Superintendents controlling executive,
supplies and CID, and corresponding to the Met's
three Assistant Commissioners. It did also,
however, have an Assistant Commissioner, Major
Smith. But his role was effectively that of deputy
Commissioner (a role the Met had effectively
abolished for the time being when it increased its
upper echelon from one to two and then three
Assistant Commissioners, all with specialised
responsibilities).
Just to make confusion worse confounded, Chief
Constable was the title provincial forces usually
gave to their overall head: the gentlemanly
equivalent of the London forces' Commissioners.
The 'golden age' detective fiction writers give an
intresting insight into the class-related ranking
of the police. Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers
expect Chief Constables and Assistant
Commissioners to be gentlemen, often knights, and
social acquaintances of their posh civilian
detectives. They don't seem aware that there were
any ACs exept the AC Crime. And, indeed, Sir
Norman Kendall, AC C in the 1940s, was a member of
their crime writers club and (criminally!) picked
a street door lock for them once when they were
locked out of their clubroom. But Margery
Allingham traces Supt Oates's rise to Assistant
Commissioner, and Ngaio Marsh saw Alleyne
promoted: early and unusual cases of fictional
Scotland Yard detectives being treated as
something better than dim-witted foils for the
brilliant outsiders. Actually it wasn't until 1960
that a 'ranker' officer rose to Commissioner, and
at that Sir Joseph Simpson was an old public
schoolboy and an alumnus of Commissioner Lord
Trenchard's short-lived and deeply unpopular
Police College for public schoolboys and a few
hand-picked high-flying coppers. (Inventory to
include dinner jacket and patent leather shoes!)
And it was only after Simpson that it became
normal for Assistant Commissioners to be promoted
from the ranks of professional policemen, and not
drawn in from the outside (senior officers in the
army, navy and air force being much favoured, and
lawyers getting an occasional look in).
Major Smith was an oddball. Trained as an
accountant in Scotland and worked for his living
until his father died, whereupon he seems to have
spent his patrimony as a 'gentleman of leisure',
living it up in the Haymarket 'night houses'
(quasi-brothels with a rather low erotic charge
and a lot of bad conversation and bad champagne).
he was not a Major in the regular army, but a
half-pay officer in the militia - roughly
equivalent to th territorials or the National
Guard. When he ran out of money he tried to get
appointed as a chief constable somewhere, but
failed. Advised that the City police Asst Com wd
be retiring very soon, and the Commissioner was
approaching superannuation, he made the
sacrificial move of joining the police as a lowly
superintendent: something so infra dig that he
entitled his memoirs 'From Constable to
Commissioner'. The anticipated retirments and his
promtions from inside happened as he had hoped, so
he didn;t have to mix with the hoi polloi for too
long! But like Macnaghten (who, however, didn't
much care for him) he struck outsiders as being
very approachable, and he was paternalistically
concerned for the men under his command.
Hope this is all of some help.
With all good wishes,
Martin Fido |
Author: Ashling
Friday, 16 June 2000 - 04:26 am | | JON: Thanks for bringing this topic up again, all of a sudden it's just raining information! Appreciate the suggestion also, but I thought Rumbelow had wearied of JtR chatter. Maybe I can unearth a juicy tidbit about Waterloo to trade him??
(P.S.--I didn't go anywhere, just having to work more and research less.)
MARTIN: Bless you. I had almost despaired of completing my chain of command chart. Might take a week to absorb all this lovely info, then I'll probably have a question or three--if you have the time. You have no idea how helpful this is going to be ... Combining Stewart's always generous info with yours, I'll finally wend through the maze of which cop knew what when and thereby reach my own conclusions on who knew as much as they claimed/boasted and whose statements to take with a grain of salt. I enjoyed Wensley's autobio, but I've only read excerpts of Major Smith's so far.
I've read bits of yours & Keith's O.E. of S.Y. on the Scotland Yard web site, so I know it's an interesting and informative book. And of course, my Ripper library now contains an A-Z and Stewart's first book, the Lodger. Just as soon as I muster the courage to sell all 80 of my Agatha Christie books, I'll have the funds to add the latest round of JtR tomes to my shelves.
But there's still one mystery unanswered. I've wondered about the division of labor on creating the A-Z--thinking perhaps Keith did the lion's share of research and you did most of the actual writing, and Paul did some of both. Then you go prove me wrong by flashing your detective skills in my face. You've only been on my side of the pond a short while, and yet you've already discovered the authors' names in my (several) bookcases devoted to mysteries AND unearthed the fact that one of my college literature classes was the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. ;-)
Thanks,
Ashling / Janice |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 16 June 2000 - 12:38 pm | | Ashling - apologies for one omission and one
reliance on an unreliable secondary source in my
info on police.
Forgot to say look carefully at Acting Supt
West in the A-Z, as he's the man who stood in for
Arnold when the murders started.
And in saying the City police had an Asst
Commissioner as such, I was following Martin
Fido's 'The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack
the Ripper', which probably (I can't remember)
didn't go back any further for information than
the equally unreliable primary source, Major
Smith's 'From Constable to Commissioner'. I
described his role correctly, but his title was
Chief Superintendent, and it may or may not be
true that there was another Ch Supt in situ when
he joined the force. (Cf the first effective Asst
or Deputy Commissioner in the Met, Capt William
Hay, whose title was Inspecting Superintendent
when his post was created in 1850).
As for the creation of the A-Z: Paul Begg had
the idea and sold it to the publishers. (Keith and
I have lots of ideas, but I at least couldn't sell
shoes to Ismelda Marcos). They gave Paul too short
a deadline for him to write it all himself so he
telephoned me to ask if I would co-author. As he'd
already written 'The Scotland Yard Files' with
Keith I assumed, wrongly, the project already
embraced them both. It didn't. but Paul happily
took Keith on board.
We all brought to it research we had already
undertaken for our own individual books. Paul had
the complete Public Record Office files copied, a
mass of correspondence with experts of all kinds,
and Abberline's false start at memoirs. Keith had
superb cross-referenced files, with the most
important contemporary press reports photocopied,
a lot of documents from Scotland Yard archives,
and Monro's hand-written memoirs. I had the Black
Hole: a two-foot high pile of notes, notebooks and
transcriptions kept on a carver chair wherein
things were less permanently lost than they are
now that I have a filing cabinet in which to
misplace them.
We met regularly: first to list probable entry
titles; then to compare drafts. Initially Paul
drafted entries while I was conducting a coach
tour amusingly parodied in Sharyn McCrumb's
'Missing Susan' (which also contains a cameo of
Paul). I revised and shortened his entries. Keith
looked for any factual data we requested, and
found as much detail as he could on idividual
police officers' careers from their pension
records. Ultimately Keith, the vital peacekeeper,
urged that we drop opinion entirely if we could,
since Paul and I would argue for ever. (The
dismissive end of the Cohen entry was my draft to
end what seemed nonstop dispute, and actually
reflects my total confidence that when the dust
has died down and nobody is trying to plan their
own book or joint in 'hunt the Ripper', historians
of trivia will agree that the Cohen solution is
far and away the most likely answer to the Ripper
msyerty). And as the deadline got nearer and
nearer I wrote more of the original pieces,
instead of revising, polishing and abbreviating
Paul's drafts.
So the research comes from all three of us,
with Keith doing final polishing and updating. the
text ws drafted by Paul and me and revised by all
three of us. We fought like Kilkenny cats, and
still do at every revision. But will unite to
scratch out the eyes of anyone who attacks any one
of us individually.
With all good wishes,
Martin Fid |
Author: Ashling
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 06:36 am | | MARTIN: Thanks again! Especially for the behind the scenes view of the A-Z. I always enjoy a book more when I know a bit about the inspiration and perspiration that birthed it. I shall think of y'all henceforth as the Three Musketeers gallantly wielding fountain pens ... as the saying goes--the pen is mightier than the sword. And a pen is a lot less trouble to take along on interviews, I imagine.
I'm quite jealous of your carver chair and Paul and Keith's storage systems ... So close to all those original records and reports that I'm thousands of miles away from. I can hardly wait until Stewart's Ultimate Sourcebook shows up in the bookstores.
I'm off to work on my cop charts. Hope you have a great weekend.
Janice |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 09:26 am | | I've just been mulling over the discussion which
took place on this board last February on the
Kosminsky/Cohen question, and can now see why
whenever he attempts to represent my findings and
position fairly in my absence, Paul Begg leaves
people convinced that I'm a convoluted thinker
creating unnecessary difficulties and postulating
a quite unnecessary addition to Aaron Kosminsky.
So I'd rather like to clear away this accidental
distortion which has been created by an associate
who knows my thinking better than anyone else,
agrees with much of it, but has his own row to hoe
(as he is perfectly entitled) for the last couple
of furlongs.
He says with great confidence that Kosminski
fits ALL the data in the Swanson marginalia,
except for what he admits to be a 'real doozy' -
that Kosminski was dead. Now this is not in itself
true; it makes the marginalia sound a lot more
straightforward than they are; and it seems to
imply that nobosy else fits them. In fact, since
the marginalia contain such a real doozy, they
have to be examined very carefully before they are
relied upon as evidence. And it immediately
becomes apparent that they are telling a
remarkable story - one which I have yet to find an
experienced police officer willing to accept as
true. According to Swanson, the suspect was
positively identified in an ID conducted by the
Met, but the witness turned stroppy, so the Met
returned the most frightening and notorious
murderer the country had ever experienced back
onto the streets, allowing the City CID to
continue the watch over his movements on Met
territory, and leaving the suspect's family to
make the final decision to place him in an asylum.
When a document spins a yarn like that AND
contains one demonstrable massive error, it simply
can't be manipulated to suggest that it is strong
supporting evidence for a given suspect, with its
real doozy casually put on one side as relatively
unimportant. It has to be examined carefully.
The obvious supposition wouold be that Swanson
was a rambling geriatric who no longer knew his
arse from his elbow. Paul and I have both looked
carefully at his surviving notes and talked to his
grandson, and are satisfied that this was not the
case. He kept all his marbles. He was not given
to dubious or extravagant claims. He was truthful.
So he was writing what he believed. He actually
believed that a suspect called Kosminsky was dead.
Since he was not a fool, somebody must have been
dead. It certainly wasn't the only Kosminsky ever
to go into an asylum, though that Kosminsky
certainly was committed by a brother who lived in
Whitechapel, as Swanson's notes implied.
But was Swanson's real error in believing that
Kosminsky to be the real suspect, Anderson's
suspect? Our only evidence for the supposition is
the use of his name by two sources, one of which
(Macnaghten) is full of errors, and the other of
which, Swanson, contains one 'real doozy' and a
completely improbable story. Since Swanson's
belief that somebody died presumably rests on
knowledge that somebody really had died, isn't it
probable that the somebody was Anderson's suspect,
who is here wrongly identified as Kosminsky? There
is limited support from Abberline's assertion that
he knew all about its being said that the Ripper
was a man who died in an asylum some years before
1901, in addition to the newspaper reports that
Swanson thought the Ripper had died in an asylum
by 1895. I note that Paul has, it seems, dropped
the speculative argument he used to put forward
that Swanson and possibly others 'assumed'
Kosminsky had died when he was transferred to
Leavesden. He just leaves the 'real doozy' with
the other unexplained questions - (why was anyone
taken to a Seaside Home for ID? Who was that some
one, anyway? When did it happen in relation to the
incarceration of the identificatee and/or
Kosminsky if they were not the same person?) These
things just can't be answered in our present state
of knowledge, but they are big enough questions
that we have to be very careful how we use the
marginalia.
Looking further at what Swanson says, we note
his saying that the suspect was incarcerated 'with
his hands tied behind his back'. This is something
which cannot simply be said to fit Kosminsky
without question. He is never described as
dangerous to himself or anyone else ( both things
which had to be recorded). He was never put under
any restraint during his very long incarceration.
If his family took him to the asylum (and the
records show that his local authority wasn't
paying for his maintenance, so it is extremely
probable that they did) why would they tie him up
when nobody else ever found any reason to do so?
The causes for his incarceration are not said to
be a sudden fit of violence. He wasn't certified
simply because of the one attack on his sister,
which is reported by somebody from carter Lane in
teh City, and not his immediate family in any
case. So the restraint is yet another peculiarity
in Swanson's story if we try to apply it to what
we know about Kosminsky.
Coming back to Anderson, whom both Paul and I
agree, on what I think are the best of grounds, is
a very good witness. Paul suggests that Kosminsky
fits EVERYTHING Anderson says about his poor
Polish Jew, (and by implication suggests that no
other suspect does). Since Anderson's remarks are
lamentably sketchy, there is really only one point
on which he appears more likely to have been
describing Kosminsky than Cohen. That is the
reference to 'his people', assuming this to be the
Victorian usage meaning family or household. Since
David Cohen had no known relatives, and by
contrast Kosminsky's 'people' did in fact finally
have him incarcerated, the leaning Kosminsky-wards
is valid. It is, however, only a leaning. Major
Smith at the time thought Anderson's use of the
words 'his people' coud refer to the Polish Jewish
community as a whole. And David Cohen, whose
address is still a puzzle, may well have had a
residence where other occupants were sufficiently
close to him to be described loosely as his
'people'.
What really astonished me was to see Paul
trotting out the 'solitary vices' again. I thought
being called 'the expert on masturbation' by an
Italian newspaper had taken him off that line
years ago. Sometimes he can sound as though he has
never encountered the truism that 98% of unmarried
men masturbate and 2% are liars. I'm sure he is
familiar with the fact that certain types of
mental imbalance lead to unrestrained public
masturbation, and the Victorians, hysterically
uneasy about all sexual activity, interpreted this
result of insanity as a cause. I'd have thought he
realized that the asylum record on Aaron Kosminsky
might have been etered about almost any inmate,
and since we already know that the name Kosminsky
had got into Metropolitan minds somehow, it is
perfectly probable that the odd fact about his
diagnosis reached them at the same time.
Unfortunately, much of the argument last year
was concentrating on what I said and thought
BEFORE the Swanson marginalia were discovered,
just as the Pizer argument largely concerned
itself with what Don thought BEFORE he knew that
Pizer could not have been Anderson's suspect. In a
field where lots of people are making lots of new
discoveries all the time, those of us whose minds
have any flexibility are having to change and
revise our opinions all the time.
But knowing all we now know, let me propose a
simple test. Put Kosminsky right out of the
picture. (You notivce I have already done this
with Nathan Kaminsky. However much he encouraged
me to go on with my work in its early stages, and
whatever I may personally feel about him, he
remains a red, or at least pink herring aout whom
nothing can be said conclusively in relation to
his being a Ripper suspect). Bear in mind that
BOTH sources naming Kosminsky are honestly flawed.
Both contain serious error, and so their authors
were, for some reason or other, honestly wrong
about what they remembered or believed to be the
facts. Reduce yourself to Anderson. You are told
that the Ripper was a poor Polish Jew from the
district who went into an asylum. Repeat my work.
Recheck the asylum records. see if you can find
ANYONE who looks such a perfect candidate for the
Ripper as Davd Cohen. Ask yourself whether it
would ever cross your mind to think about
Kosminsky if his name didn't occur in two
documents which are full of errors or problems.
Ask yourself, after you've surveyed the data on
several years of Victorian lunatics, whether
anything about Kosminsky suggests the Ripper in
any way, compared with Cohen whose illness and
personality fit perfectly, as, even more
strikingly, does his time of incarceration. In a
case which seems to throw up snags at every turn,
it seems quite remarkable that the one east End
lunatic whose symptoms fit his as the Ripper
should also be the one whose incaceration fits
one of the only two clues we still have about the
Ripper: the time when the killings stopped, which
must be ascribed to some opccurrence in the
killer's life (or its termination).
Don't accept Paul's confident assertions
suggesting that my work went mysteriously haywire
at the end. Go back and check it out. And don't
accept the suggestion that nobody informed has
ever taken David Cohen and the confusion with
Kosminski seriously. American police officers,
familar with the confusions that arrive from
conficting police jurisdictions have almost
invariably found my total explanation completely
convincing. The late Bill Eckert, founder and
proprietor of the Milton Halpern Institute for
Forensic Science, and one of the most experienced
investigators of murder mysteries of our time, was
convinced that far and away the likeliest Jack the
Ripper was David Cohen, and regrettde the fact
that television producers Cosgrove-Muerer, after
listyening to Paul at length, had only allowed the
name 'Kosminsky' to go forward as the Polish
Jewish suspect's name in the Peter
Ustinov-and-panel-of- experts programme which
introduced Kosminski to the wider public. I am
convinced that had the name Cohen and the full
data been put before all of them, the panel would
have unsnimously nominated Cohen as they did
Kosminsky, and Paul would now be arguing from a
minority corner if he still wished to keep
Kosminsky's name in the debate.
Martin |
Author: Jon Smyth
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 10:24 am | | Thankyou Martin
Your clarifications are duly noted & as it turns out, required.
What is interesting is that both Paul & yourself hold Anderson & Swanson in such high esteem, as opposed to derision. And you are both reading the very same thoughts, facts & suggestions yet coming to opposite conclusions.
Many of us on the boards have taken issue with Paul's 'Kosminsky' suspect. We have our own opinions on Anderson's frame of mind, and whether he was a little vexed at 'being let down by others'. Saying "I knew who the killer was and if 'they' hadnt let me down, we'd have had him".
I think I should go back over your book again & refresh my memory as regards your suspect, Paul was pretty sure David Cohen was a dead end (figure of speach).
Regards, Jon |
Author: David M. Radka
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 12:09 pm | | Can anyone suggest how I may obtain Martin's books? I looked through Amazon.com awhile back, and believe they were not available. Thank you.
David |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 01:46 pm | | David--Some of Fido's titles are available at the Barnes & Noble site, and often at the retail stores themselves. They came out with an edition of 'The Crimes, Detection, and Death of JtR" sometime back.
RP |
Author: Joseph Triola Jr.
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 01:47 pm | | Hello Mr. Radka,
Enclosed you will find five excellent web sites for books. The best of the lot is abaa, and newyork sidewalk citysearch. These two specialize in out of print books. Good luck with your search, and good luck with writing your JtR solution essay.
http://www.1bookstreet.com/1bargainbookstreet/Bargain_Home.asp
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/index.asp?userid=1L5QNRVKHE&sourceid=
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/8051/
http://newyork.sidewalk.citysearch.com/error
http://abaa.org/ |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 02:41 pm | | Amazon.co.uk claims to have in stock:
The Krays: Unfinished Business
The World of Agatha Christie
The World of Sherlock Holmes
The world of Charles Dickens
Murder guide to London
Twentieth Century Murders
The Official Guide to Scotland Yard (with
Keith Skinner)
The Jack the Ripper A to Z (with Paul Begg
and Keith Skinner)
The Book of Medical Blunders (with Karen
Fido)
Our Family (with Karen Fido)
and the following audiobooks:
The Yorkshire Ripper
10 Rillington Place
Cults that Kill
Miscarriages of Justice
A Passion for Killing
Serial Killers
Several of the audiobooks, and the Crimes,
Detection and Death are described as 'Special
Order's (the latter being the Barnes & Noble
edition). I don't think you'll want Our Family,
which is a sort of 'do-your-own genealogy and
stick in photographs' album. And Twentieth Century
Murders is an extrapolation from The Chronicle of
Crime which itself is coming out, reprinted and
updated, later this year. My own attempts to
acquire Leonard Rebello's Lizzie Borden, Past and
Present through internet booksellers suggests that
they don't always have in stock everything that is
declared on the net.
Martin |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 03:15 pm | | Jon - the quickest, simplest, and I hope Paul
will agree, fairest way of explaining Paul's and
my divergence of paths is that we differ over how
to deal with Swanson's extraordinary story.
Paul notes that Swanson was a sane, balanced
and very experienced police officer who would have
known as clearly as anybody else that the story
seemed quite wildly improbable. Therefore it MUST
be true. Paul and I agree that Swanson wouldn't
have put his name to (or, even more significantly,
pencilled and initialled in his own margins as his
own aide memoire that wasn't intended for anyone
else's eyes) anything that he wasn't sure was
true. So Paul simply acknowledges that truth is
stranger than fiction, and accepts that this is
the best account we have of the events surrounding
the identification of Anderson's suspect.
Therefore the name Kosminsky is accepted as
covering every part of the notes, and the 'real
doozy' simply sits as an undigested and
incomprehensible error on Swanson's part.
I, on the other hand, think that Swanson's
certainty rested on a confusion of (at least) two
of the suspects under consideration 20 years
previously. (I say 'at least' because we still,
none of us, have any idea why an ID at the Seaside
home had to take place 'with difficulty' - or
when, or where it did, - at Hove after 1890 or at
one of the ad hoc seaside homes used from
1887-1889, - or whether the suspect taken there
was Cohen, Kosminsky or A.N.Other. Though I agree
with Paul, there certainly WAS such an ID at some
time, whether or not it was the one Anderson
referred to).
Since I had deduced the existence of confusion
between two suspects before any of us knew
Swanson's notes existed. I have always taken them
as confirmation rather than refutation of my
theory.
As I said above, American police officers with
experience of jurisdictional boundary disputes
between forces invariably (in my experience) find
my explanation completely convincing. But Donald
Rumbelow, with experience of the jurisdictional
competition between the City and the Met over the
past 30 years thinks there must be a simpler
explanation. (He's never proposed what it might
be, but it would be quite unfair to Paul not to
make the point).
So in the absence of conclusive evidence that
Swanson had got more facts wrong than the supposed
death of Kosminsky, Paul continues to treat the
marginalia as the crucial document against which
Anderson must be measured. I take the marginalia
to be a flawed document whose flaws we don't
understand, but some parts of which corroborate
some parts of Anderson. And if it is ever shown
that Anderson could not possibly have been
thinking of Cohen as the Ripper, I shall happily
move to the unassailable agnosticism which asserts
that the police got it wrong at the time and we'll
never get it right now.
Martin Fido |
Author: Jon Smyth
Saturday, 17 June 2000 - 07:20 pm | | Anyone interested in Martins past (out of print) books should visit bookfinder.com, they have lots of titles, including Crimes Detection & Death.
Regards, Jon |
Author: Paul Begg
Monday, 19 June 2000 - 04:43 am | | I'd like to take the opportunity afforded by Martin's post to explain my position on Kosminski. From Anderson's account we can extract seven points about the suspect: the suspect was (1) male, (2) Polish, (3) a Jew, (4) he lived in the heart of the murder district, (5) had 'people' to protect him, (6) he indulged in 'utterly unmentionable vices' and (7) he was committed to an asylum.
Aaron Kosminski was male, Polish, a Jew, he had people (a family), he lived in the heart of the district, he was committed to an asylum and - for me the real clincher - the 'utterly unmentionable vices' mentioned by Anderson corresponds with 'solitary vices' and 'self-abuse' mentioned by Sir Melville Macnaghten and Aaron Kosminski's own medical notes. And if there is any doubt that Anderson meant masturbation when he wrote of 'utterly unmentionable vices which reduced the suspect to a level lower than that of a beast, an article titled 'Masturbation' by Dr. Lawson Tait in the Medical News in July 1888 shows that Anderson was only reflecting the current moral view, for Tait wrote: 'the unfortunate children who are discovered in the practice are regarded by their discoverers as having sunk to the lowest moral depths.'
Now, I do not wish to imply that Aaron Kosminski is the only suspect who fits these details - although off hand I can't think of another suspect who does - and it may be that one hundred and one asylum inmates fit the same criteria. Curiously, though, 'David Cohen' is not one of them: his medical records state that he has no known next of kin and his arrest on 7th December 1888 was as 'a lunatic found wandering at large', which was essentially a lunatic who was incapable of looking after himself and who was not otherwise receiving due care and attention from family or friends. 'David Cohen is also not known to have engaged in any 'utterly unmentionable vices'. So, whilst Aaron Kosminski simply fits the criteria to be Anderson's suspect, 'David Cohen' has to be shoehorned to fit, with speculation about what Anderson meant by 'people' and 'unmentionable vices'.
But it is important to understand that I am not concerned with whether or not 'David Cohen' fits the criteria. What I am concerned with is whether or not Aaron Kosminski fits them and whether there is any reason thus far for supposing that Aaron Kosminski was not Anderson's suspect. So far it can be seen that Aaron Kosminski does fit the available details and I can see no reason for supposing that he wasn't the suspect.
Turning to Swanson, much of what he wrote about the suspect fits Aaron Kosminski. Two points don't. He was not sent to Stepney Workhouse but to Mile End Workhouse and he did not die soon after committal to the asylum. However, I understand that some years before Swanson wrote, the expanding Borough of Stepney had absorbed Mile End. So, when Swanson wrote, Mile End Workhouse was Stepney Workhouse. (For interests sake, 'David Cohen' was not sent to Stepney Workhouse either, but to the Whitechapel Workhouse. Whitechapel was not absorbed by Stepney until after Swanson was dead, so Swanson would not have identified Whitechapel as Stepney. To make this detail fit one once again has to shoehorn an argument such Swanson defining Stepney as anywhere east of the Aldgate Pump).
We'll return to the time of death, but otherwise Swanson's account fits Aaron Kosminski, who did have a brother to whose house he could have returned (unlike 'David Cohen' with no known next of kin) and being committed by civilians, fits Swanson's description of being taken to the Workhouse with his hands 'tied behind his back' ('Cohen' was committed by the police who would have used a more conventional form of restraint such as handcuffs or a straight-jacket). And the murders 'of this type' which according to Swanson ceased following the committal can be true of Kosminski, the Whitechapel Murders file having been closed a short time after his committal. (It's also true of Cohen, of course).
Martin has made a big thing out of the Seaside Home, so let me touch on that.
The police did send convalescent policemen to other establishments, but the Convalescent Police Seaside Home in Brighton was established for the exclusive use of policemen. The property was purchased in November 1889 and opened in March 1890. It soon became known as 'the Seaside Home' and has remained known by the shortened version of its name. Now, when Swanson wrote 'the Seaside Home' he could have meant some other establishment, but I contend that the word 'the' and the capitalisation of 'Seaside' and 'Home' indicates a specific establishment - the Home in Brighton. This is the place those words would have meant to any policeman, just as they identified the place to Donald Rumbelow when he first saw the marginalia. And I also think Swanson was otherwise sufficiently precise in the marginalia that had the identification taken place at Mrs. Figgis's boarding house at Frinton-on-Sea, Swanson would have said so. I therefore think 'the Seaside Home' clearly and unmistakably points to the Convalescent Police Seaside Home in Brighton and apart from the Cohen theory I don't know of any reason why this identification would have seriously been questioned. It is questioned because although Aaron Kosminski could have been identified there, Cohen could not.
Apart from the statement that the suspect died soon after committal, which is indeed 'a real doozy', as Martin puts it, the identification of Aaron Kosminski with the suspect referred to by both Anderson and Swanson presents no real problems. There is no other 'Kosminski' in the asylum records. Aaron Kosminski fits all the criteria to be Anderson's suspect, including the 'utterly unmentionable vices' which identify him as the 'Kosminski' of the Macnaghten memoranda. He is named as Anderson's suspect by Swanson, and apart from when he died, he fits all the details provided in the marginalia.
So, the question you have to ask yourself is whether or not the reference to when the suspect died is on its own sufficient reason for supposing that Aaron Kosminski was not Anderson's suspect?
Now, let me also make clear that in the foregoing I have shown where 'David Cohen' does not fit or is not known to fit various details. This is for the purpose of information only. Contrary to the impression this might have given, I am not balancing Kosminski against Cohen. For me Cohen is not even in the frame. What I have done is ask whether Aaron Kosminski fits the details of the suspect provided by our sources. My conclusion is that he does, therefore, pending evidence to the contrary, I think Aaron Kosminski was Anderson's suspect.
So you see, it isn't that I disagree with Martin, I just don't see any real reason why an alternative to Aaron Kosminski as Anderson's suspect has to be sought.
As far as I am aware, where I come into conflict with Martin is over the interpretation of Aaron Kosminski's medical records. Martin believes that these reveal a non-Ripper personality. In fact, he concluded that Aaron Kosminski was 'a harmless lunatic' so impossibly unlike a Ripper that nobody would ever have suspected him of being the Ripper in the first place. Martin therefore postulates that if Anderson would never have suspected Aaron Kosminski of being the Ripper, assuming that Anderson didn't lie about a Polish Jew suspect, Anderson's suspect must be in the asylum records under another name. David Cohen is the most likely candidate.
However, Martin does not say that Aaron Kosminski wasn't ever suspected. What Martin has done is to suggested that both men were suspects and that somehow they became confused with one another by the authorities. Martin has advanced a theory to show how this could have happened. Unfortunately, some people missed the distinction, assumed that Martin's 'confusion hypothesis' was how he says it did happen, and have argued against him accordingly. Such argument is in the main a waste of time. What is not a waste of time, however, is giving full and proper consideration to the possibility that confusion took place.
(To divert just briefly, the 'confusion hypothesis' allows that detail about the two men became confused, thus explaining why some of the details seem to fit Kosminski and some fit Cohen. This usefully gets rid of problems such as Cohen's lack of next of kin beinf in conflct with the sources, but it also neatly enables information to be extracted when it fits the needs of the theory and dismissed when it doesn't.)
However, the whole Kosminski/Cohen 'argument' boils down to an assessment of Aaron Kosminski's medical records, which is the only point on which Martin and I have any real disagreement. Martin contends that they reveal a person so unRipper-like that nobody would ever have seriously suspected him. I disagree. Or rather, I agree. But I point out that they are terse, bi-annual statements almost exclusively concerned with Aaron Kosminski's physical condition. They tell us next to nothing about the form his delusions took, nothing about what he said. He could have claimed on the hour every day that he was Jack the Ripper and it would not have been noted on the existing records because those records only concerned his bodily welfare. In my view the asylum records are therefore insufficient evidence on which to make any judgement of Aaron Kosminski's mental condition (especially his mental condition some years prior to suspicion having actually fallen on him in 1891).
So, apart from the death issue, I can see no reason why Aaron Kosminski was not Anderson's suspect and that point alone does not seem sufficient reason to me for introducing a suspect who has to be shoehorned into fitting some of the details and requires a rather complex (and perhaps improbable) confusion hypothesis.
What I don't do, however, is dismiss Martin's theory. I acknowledge that the medical records don't portray a likely Ripper and I recognise that there are assorted difficulties in accepting the narrative received from Anderson and Swanson. I accept that these might indicate that some sort of confusion has taken place, creating a story which doesn't altogether ring true. Some explanation for these things might be needed and the 'David Cohen' hypothesis might provide it. For me, though, it doesn't. All the 'what ifs' and 'maybees' don't alter the fact that with the exception of Martin's 'doozey', we have a named suspect who has been identified as an individual who fits all the criteria provided by our sources. Why look for a suspect elsewhere?
Turning to the genesis of the A to Z, in fact it had always been ceonceived as a joint project. Keith and I had amassed a large amount of information which neither of us had used in our respective books (stuff like career details of policeman and so forth)and we'd talked our way around a sort of Ripper encyclopedia - the Scotland Yard Files actually coming out of those talks - and over lunch with our publisher one day I happened to mention this project Keith and I had been kicking about. I called it a Ripper A to Z and the publisher virtually bought the idea there and then. That Keith and I would do it together had always been in mind and we'd planned to invite Martin to join us, but Martin phoned me before any formal invitation could be made and before we knew it we were off and running.
The alphabet was divided between us, but for the sake of contnuity it was decided that Martin would write the final draft throughout. I therefore provided Martin with long entries containing all the relevant information and Martin edited these to a manageable length. We do disagree, thank goodness, but I respect no one more highly than my colleagues on the book. It has been an honour to work with them both and from both I have learned a great deal. |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 19 June 2000 - 02:09 pm | | Warning to all sane people with busy lives:
Paul and I can go on like this for HOURS, and
since we are in agreement about much which still
bothers other people, we are often dealing with
minutiae which don't make much sense unless you've
given the details a lot of study and thought!
Now: the sort of thing to which I object is
Paul's using words like 'shoehorn,' suggesting
strained over-ingenuity, to describe my thinking.
Coupled with his immense knowledge of the case and
real intelligence, it leads the unwary or less
well-informed to think he has disproved what I am
saying. (The term 'real doozy' is one I
extrapolated from his own postings, thinking it a
very honourable way in which he drew attention to
the largest single objection to accepting
Swanson's marginalia as an accurate account of
what happened.) As Paul well knows, I never looked
at the Swanson notes and tried to make them fit my
thinking: I noted several serious problems in
them, which completely baffled me until I saw that
much was easily explained if my previous deduction
that two suspects had been confused was accepted,
and if one postulated that this occurred because
the Met and the City followed two different but
similar Jewish suspects who wound up in Colney
Hatch, and later assumed that they were one and
the same.
Paul does not mention the largest single
historical problem Swanson gives us: he
unwittingly contradicts Anderson, whose knowledge
he evidently felt he shared, (as we might expect
to be the case). In Blackwood's Magazine, Anderson
indicates that the identification took place AFTER
the suspect was caged in his asylum. If, following
Paul, one accepts that this took place in the Hove
Seaside Home and refers to Kosminsky, then
Anderson is promptly revealed as a fool who
thought that an ID two years after the event was
conclusive. When Kosminsky's two years of harmless
bread-gathering from the gutters aftr the murders
stopped are also taken into account, it becomes
quite apparent why nobody informed, as far as I
know, has ever been willing to postulate that
Aaron Kosminsky was Jack the Ripper. I noted with
amusement somebody on the boards hopefully
adapting my argument about Cohen's breakdown into
raving mania beause he was impeded from the
release from tension afforded by murders, but
regretfully have to repeat that I know of no
single case where a serial killer has been turned
into a non-violent mental case for any reason
whatever. And I believe that is saying this I have
the support of Robert Ressler and John Douglas,
the FBI profilers who made the first really
thorough examination of a large number of serial
killers.
I believe Paul has some reservations about
writing Anderson off so absolutely - and, of
course, I agree with him that our independent
studies of more that has been written by and about
Anderson than I believe anyone else has
undertaken, makes it a conclusion one would reach
very unwillngly. Nonetheless, I should be
compelled to do so were I convinced that Aaron
Kosminsky really was the man Anderson believed was
Jack the Ripper.
Perhaps you will think it odder still that I
think it very probable that if Anderson had given
us a name, it would have been Kosminsky. I think
it likely (but far from indisputable) that in
saying 'his people' Anderson meant 'family' - I
believe I am right in recalling that it was I who
ponted this usage out to Paul. I think it likely
that Anderson's reference to the 'unmentionable
vices' stemmed from the silly Victorian diagnosis
of Kosminski, and I'm sure Paul didn't measn to
suggest that I am unfamilar with the vagaries of
Victorian sexology. I think it likely that
Anderson shared the information that led Swanson
to confuse the two Jews, though evidently the two
had not compared detailed notes on their
conclusions around 1910, since Swanson
contradicted Anderson on a major point.
Though he implicitly suggests that I use the
two suspects to take evidence selectively from
Swanson, you will note that Paul does not dispute
my recollection that he takes the improbability of
Swanson's overall narrative as proof of its
reliability. I don't suggest that he is silly to
do so: I simply don't agree, and I add to the
extreme implausibility of Swanson's account the
definite errors: the alleged death of Kosminski,
and the confusion about the workhouse infirmary,
to reach my conclusion that Swanson was
remembering two or more different suspect
investigations. I also draw attention to the bases
for Paul's and my disagreement over the 'hands
tied' evidence. I note the FACT that David Cohen
was twice recorded as being under restraint, one
of these times being his transfer between the
infirmary and the asylum, and the FACT that Aaron
Kosminki was never recorded as being restrained at
any time, and my own reading of his case notes
suggests no reason why he should have been.
Bearing in mind that I had ALREADY postulated that
the two were being confused, and that Swanson was
definitely wrong in believing Kosminski to be
dead; definitely wrong or slipshod in thinking
that either Jewish suspect came through Stepney
workhouse, I am happy to offer the DEDUCTION that
the tied hands are probably a recollection of
Cohen. Paul counters with the ASSUMPTION that
Swanson would have said 'handcuffed' if the police
had brought their suspect in under restraint, and
the pure speculation for which there is no
evidence whatever except the very document under
question, that Kosminski's family restrained him
when taking him to the infirmary, and Swanson
described them accurately. As may have been noted
in connection with the Seaside Home, Paul ascribes
an extraordinary degree of accuracy to Swanson
when he wants it, despite the fact that he knows
he was dead wrong on one point and inaccurate on
another.
The dead wrongness remains, as I have said,
an unexplained, undigested lump for Paul (as,
indeed, do several of the problems inherent in
Swanson's story for me). Like it or not, the
differences between Swanson's and Anderson's
stories and Swanson's story and demonstrable fact
- let alone probability - are such that I prefer
my hypothetical explanation to the simpler
hypothesis that Swanson gave a generally accurate
account and Anderson was referring to Aaron
Kosminski.
Paul did, early in our acquaitance, ask me
what I would have done if the Colney Hatch Case
Book for 1888 covered 1892, and so I found
Kosminski straight away. I don't know for sure. I
was very strongly convinced of the argument that
Macnaghten's Kosminky must be Anderson's Polish
Jew (which we now now to be partways true: at the
very least Anderson's colleague Swanson in some
ways thought he was, even though he also thought
some things about him which appear to apply to
somebody else). Would this have led me to persuade
myself that Anderson really had suspected
Kosminski? I doubt it. I certainly couldn't ever
have persuaded myself that Kosminski was really
the Ripper, though I should have been astonished
from all I knew of him to find Anderson making
such an extravagantly over-confident error. Of
course, as Paul righly implies, it would never
have occurred to me to say, 'Maybe it's half-true.
Let me see if there's any other suitable Jewish
lunatic.' It was history's and my good luck that
I'd already simplified Anderson down, put
Macnaghten on one side, and so found the Jewish
lunatic who, unlike Kosminski, really looked
probable as Jack the Ripper. 'Half-true', on the
other hand, is exactly what really does confront
us in Swanson's memories. And by great good luck I
already had two sets of facts matching the
disparate things Swanson said about Kosminsky.
A last point in case anyone takes up the
cudgels with Paul over Aaron's delusions. Of
course there were a number of lunatics in Colney
Hatch at the time who really did think they were
Jack the Ripper: there was one man who thought he
had a flute which told him who the Ripper was, and
there was my favourite, a man who alternated
between thinking he was the Ripper and Jesus
Christ. If Aaron had said anything like that when
he came in, it would have been recorded. But it is
quite true that the regular reports concentrated
far more on physical symptoms. Still, since they
noted things like unwillingness to communicate, or
Jewish patients who stopped speaking English, I
think there might have been something recorded if
he had started showing signs of violent fantasies.
But I note the usual warning to myself to read
Paul carefully: he didn't, as I at first thought,
say they wouldn't have recorded it at all if Aaron
declared himself to be Jack the Ripper every our
on the hour - (at least, he did say that, but it
is enjoyable hyperbole). His essential point is
the correct one that inmates' delusions were noted
at the time of their arrival, and might have
differed at other times.
Please don't jump in to tell us you think
Anderson was a big-headed liar, or a phoney. We
know a lot of people think that. We think we know
the limited and often secondary sources from which
they draw the conclusion. Only tell us if you've
found something new and detrimental in primary
sources.
We do know that Littlechild thought Anderson
only 'thought he knew' who the Ripper was. We do
take that very seriously. We should welcome any
further information about Littlechild's
personality and degree of knowledge of the Ripper
case. His memoirs are regrettably unrevealing.
And if you're wise, ask Paul and me to shut up
NOW, or continue our age-old disputation in
private e-mails. (I admit I started it this time!)
Martin Fi |
|
|
|
|
