The 'Swanson Marginalia'
Swanson was a close friend of Dr. Robert Anderson, the Assistant Commissioner of Police, and in his copy of Anderson's book of reminiscences, The Lighter Side of My Official Life, published in 1910, Swanson wrote pencilled notes, or annotations, which were disclosed by his descendant, James Swanson, in 1987. In these notes Swanson names a "Kosminski" (widely thought to be Aaron Kosminski) as the Polish Jew that Anderson had hinted at in his book as being a suspect. Anderson wrote that the only person to get a close look at Jack the Ripper identified him "the moment he was confronted with him" but refused to testify. Swanson clarified this by writing -
"...because the suspect was also a Jew and also because his evidence would convict the suspect, and witness would be the means of murderer being hanged which he did not wish to be left on his mind...And after this identification which suspect knew, no other murder of this kind took place in London...after the suspect had been identified at the Seaside Home where he had been sent by us with great difficulty in order to subject him to identification, and he knew he was identified. On suspect's return to his brother's house in Whitechapel he was watched by police (City CID) by day & night. In a very short time the suspect with his hands tied behind his back, he was sent to Stepney Workhouse and then to Colney Hatch and died shortly afterwards - Kosminski was the suspect - DSS"
While it is true that Kosminski lived with his brother in Whitechapel, and that he was an inmate at Colney Hatch, he in fact did not die shortly after being transferred there, as Swanson states; in fact, Kosminski died in 1919, and therefore was still alive when Swanson wrote his annotations. Nor is it likely that an identified and homicidal criminal would have been simply and quietly released into his brother's care. Also, by stating that after Kosminski's identification as the Whitechapel Murderer "no other murder of this kind took place in London" Swanson overlooks the series of Ripper-like killings that took place after Kosminski's incarceration, including that of Frances Coles in February 1891, only six days after Kosminski had been admitted to Colney Hatch.
The identity of the Jewish witness is considerably doubtful. As far as is known, there were only two, Joseph Lawende and Israel Schwartz. Joseph Lawende saw a man and a woman together near Mitre Square, Aldgate, a few minutes before the fourth victim Catharine Eddowes was found there but told Swanson that he was doubtful if he would recognise the man if he saw him again. Israel Schwartz saw the third victim Elizabeth Stride attacked at the place where fifteen minutes later her body was found. Stride's assailant - when he saw Schwartz approaching him and recognised him as a Jew - sent him on his way with the popular anti-Semitic taunt of those times "Lipski". Israel Lipski was a Jewish murderer who had been hanged in 1887 and hostile Gentiles had taken to insulting Jews by shouting his name at them. Stride's attacker was obviously an anti-Semitic Gentile and therefore not Kosminski.
"Kosminski" is also mentioned in Sir Melville Macnaghten's Memoranda in a list of three individuals who were suspected of being the Ripper. Macnaghten, however, thought that Montague Druitt was more likely to be the killer, and he did not mention anything about any alleged identification of Kosminski that was withdrawn by a witness. That was strange because Macnaghten was an Assistant Chief Constable in the Criminal Investigation Department and Anderson was in charge of that department. Kosminski was sent to Colney Hatch Asylum, via the Mile End Old Town asylum, in February 1891, and we may suppose that the identification at the "seaside home" took place a little earlier, perhaps in January of that year. Macnaghten went to Scotland Yard in 1889 and so would have been there when the identification took place. Quite obviously he was not told about it and, if Anderson was confident that Kosminski had been the Ripper, he would have thought that there was no reason for Macnaghten to compile his memoranda, speculating about the Ripper's identity. Of the three men suspected at the time of the murders, Magnaghten thought Druitt was the most likely but in 1972, two years before she died, she told her friend Michael Thornton that in nominating Druitt her father was "only following the official line. The truth could make the throne totter." Thornton reported this in the Sunday Express in 1992.
Read more about this topic: Donald Swanson