Robert Louis Stevenson

[Phil H]

I think you'll find that there are many variations, jsantos.

I myself no longer believe in Sir MM's 5 (the canonical five, if you will). I think, Nichols, Chapman and eddowes are almost certainly the same hand. On Stride and Kelly I think separate killers (and not JtR) were responsible. I would add McKenzie in, but link Tabram and Smith as victims of a "group". There may have been earlier murders, or attempts by Jack, who had probably to learn his "trade" somehow.

By the way you have still to answer my questions about RLS - where is any corroboration from other sources of your claims, and where was he (evidence please) between August and end November 1888 - I do not believe that his whereabouts are unknown.

Otherwise I will continue to denounce your theory as unsubstantiated, practically* libellous - as you have written it -nonsense.

*I am well aware that in the Uk you cannot libel the dead - but you are ruining a marvellous reputation with your wholly unfounded claims.

Phil

[jsantos]

Mr. Phil between August and November of 1888 Robert was on the ship travelling for Samoa. This is the fact that everyone knows.
First of all I just wrote my theory.
Second I said my opinion, if my opinion is not taken seriously is not defamation.
And finally if I`m writing something that I shouldn`t I suggest that it`s removed from the site.
Mr. Phil all your reviews about Jack case are based on what? Is your opinion or you lived at the time of the crimes?

P.S.
If I have a website and if I let someone else write on this site something "illegal" I delete immediately what that person wrote.

[jsantos]

There are hundreds of suspects but perhaps none was Jack the Ripper.
But they all were and continue to be targets of defamation...

[TomTomKent]

Mr. Phil between August and November of 1888 Robert was on the ship travelling for Samoa. This is the fact that everyone knows.

Then as Phil has repeatedly stated you will have to supply evidence this is not true if you want your idea to be considered viable.

[Phil H]

jsantos

I see JtR suspects in a number of categories:

1) There are those suspected during the investigations (Pizer, Issenschmidt etc)

2) Then there are those mentioned close to the time - Kosminski; Druitt, Ostrog, for instance (the MM memorandum);

3) Those who emerged from the writings of contemporaries but were only uncovered by researchers later - Tumblety (from Littlechild) is a good example.

I would consider all these valid subjects for study and debate/discussion without reservation or apology. Good historical practice.

4) There are then suspects connected to the JtR murders who are discussed as potential suspects: Le Grand has emerged recently, but Kidney, Barnett, Fleming, Hutchinson, Cross/Lechmere would all be examples.

I also perceive these as unquestionably open for debate/discussion as there is nothing abitrary about their inclusion as possible suspects. Their connection to the murders (albeit sometimes tangentially) is well-established.

5) We now turn to suspects who have been associated with the crimes either by others in the past who knew them (Sickert is an example);

6) or were mentioned as generic types (the insane medical student) and named candidates have been suggested for discussion.

7) Debate about statements made by police officers and others at the time - "a hot potato"; "highest in the land" etc - which has given rise to discussion of HRH the Duke of Clarence, Gull etc.

Note that in none of 5, 6 or 7 are names simply plucked from thin air. In most cases they have been entirely exhonerated.

The final category is:

8) Names picked from thin air with no known connection to the crimes except a modern author or student's whim - Lewis Carroll, Dr Barnardo and RLS would be prime examples. Clarence might be put in this category given the way he emerged into "Ripperology".

I see this practice as puerile and pointless and contrary to your statements "mud" does stick. (The reputation and character of Prince Eddy/Clarence will be forever contaminated by his JtR connection even though the claim is and always was rubbish. He may be more high-profile than your unsubstantiated claims about RLS, but that is only because you have not -yet - thankfully published a book on the subject.)

The claims are almost always in defience of previous scholarly thinking, the evidence, the known whereabouts of the individual at the time, and common sense. The supporting reasoning is almost always based on the suppositional - anagrams, asserting that the individual wrote certain things - JK STephen -without proof; some forced motive - a strange assortment of royal anniversaries (again Stephen) and such like.

None of this is in accord with historical method, academic practice or even common sense. hence my objection to your proposal which i refuse even to think of as a "theory".

I recognise that "suspects" could be categorised in various ways, and I have certainly not mentioned every name possible, but I trust I have made my point.

Phil

[jsantos]

"The reputation and character of Prince Eddy/Clarence will be forever contaminated by his JtR connection..."
Is funny... Only because he was a prince.
And Walter Sickert, James Maybrick, Lewis Carroll, Aaron Kosminski, Michael Ostrog, and a thousand more? Why you not write that they also saw his reputation contaminated?
Just because you hear the first time another name, in this case RLS, is no reason to be worse than other cases. I don`t need to write a book to explain what I think...

[Debra A]

4) There are then suspects connected to the JtR murders who are discussed as potential suspects: Le Grand has emerged recently, but Kidney, Barnett, Fleming, Hutchinson, Cross/Lechmere would all be examples.

I also perceive these as unquestionably open for debate/discussion as there is nothing abitrary about their inclusion as possible suspects. Their connection to the murders (albeit sometimes tangentially) is well-established.

As I mentioned to Phil earlier in a private message; Le Grand is in a different category to suspects such as Barnett, Fleming, Hutchinson, etc. as suspicion was attached to Le Grand in connection with the murders in 1892, (and perhaps 1889) in an article in The Belfast News-Letter Monday, March 28, 1892, in which Le Grand is not named but is obviously the subject:

"..The fact is they [Scotland Yard] consider, rightly or wrongly, that they have the author of the Whitechapel tragedies now under lock and key at Portland Prsion, undergoing a sentence of twenty years penal servitude.He is a Beligian, and was tried and sentenced some six months ago for attempts to obtain money from ladies by threats of violence..."

At the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, London, on 16th November 1891 Charles Grande was convicted for sending letter demanding money with menaces and sentenced to 20 years penal servitude.

I would say that Le Grand may even be in a unique category? Someone who had suspicion attached to him shortly after the murders and can also be shown to have been in Whitechapel at the time of the murders, even involved in investigating one of them.

Sorry to disrupt the thread, I was only going to make a quick post!
This was just for the benefit of anyone else who was unaware of the contemporary suspicion attached to Le Grand.

[TomTomKent]

You have indeeds Phil. My own tendancy is that regardless of how recently a suspect is nominated it must fit provable facts first before asking if the suspect matches assumed traits we want to apply to Jack. The only facts we have are the dates and forensic details of the murders. These have been neglectesd by Jsantos.

For any suspect to be viable they must be placed in whitechappel on the dates of the crimes we consider Jacks. Saying "i don't think he was in Samoa" is not enough. We have to place him in London, in the district.

Further we have to have a valid reason for assuming he was involved instead of just an observer or witness. Writing fiction is not a good enough reason. Fitting the description of individuals witnessed, or of those being actively sought by the police, or being dragged to a mental hospital for violence towards women are more convincing reasons.

Remember a lot of people travelled to and took an interest in the area of the crimes. Given his interest was known RLS being in the area would not equate to him being a suspect. We have better reasons to explain his presence and no validation for suspicion.

Last of all we get to the flavour stuff. The "evidence" this entire theory is based on. Any argument that Jack wrote this letter, or showed signs of education, or could be assumed to be rich, or anything not contained in physical evidence is flavour guff used to dramatise the affair, but academically is worthless. It is based entirely on fancy, proves nothing, and is intendedto suggest that somebody is probably the kind of person Jackwas, because that person was probably Jack. Circularlogic with no foundationof evidence.

[Phil H]

I am grateful to Debra A for the correction - am no expert on Le Grand.

Phil

jsantos - I give you the befit of the doubt in your failure either to answer questions or to take the point of my posts - I put it down to a language difference.

However,

And Walter Sickert, James Maybrick, Lewis Carroll, Aaron Kosminski, Michael Ostrog, and a thousand more? Why you not write that they also saw his reputation contaminated?

Because their names (excluding Carroll) were not picked from the air by anyone.

Sickert himself expressed a sustained interest in the Whitechapel murders (and others) and the possibility that he was himself the Ripper was raised by those who knew him. Thus "Ripperologists did not "conjure" him as a suspect.

Maybrick's name emerged as a result of the "Diary", which inevitably gave rise to discussion of its authenticity and Maybrick's likelihood as JtR. The difference here, forgery or not, is the Diary.

There is NO reason to suggest Carroll asJtR and I think I have consistently condemned his being discussed. (The fact that you quote his name back to me suggests you do not read or do not comprhend my posts.

Kosminski and Ostrog were named by Sir Melville Macnaghten in his memorandum (known since the 60s) and thus are almost contemporary suspects - hence reasonable candidates for discussion and debate. MM may well have had material unknown and unavailable to us to support his contentions, but much of the discussion is about the memorandum is about MM's reasons for including the names. Indeed, one could argue that, in the absence of any new information, Druitt and Ostrog have been practically exhonerated!

BUT this reasoning was made explicit in my last post - did you not read it at all?l

Just because you hear the first time another name, in this case RLS, is no reason to be worse than other cases. I don`t need to write a book to explain what I think...

But you do need to cite both a reasoned case for naming RLS as a suspect - saying that ONE story he wrote might be interesting in the JtR context is not, in my humble opinion such a reasoned case. And you cannot reasonably dismiss evidence known to you that RLS was known to be elsewhere at the times involved. If you think that RLS's hitherto known whereabouts are not true, then logically you have to cite evidence to support your claim.

Finally, no one before you has named RLS as a JtR suspect - it is thus incumbent upon you to show why you believe it reasonable to propose him - and reliance on the one story is insufficient, it would be a circular argument. RLS is dead and cannot defend himself. In all honour you should avoid besmirching his memory and reputation unless you have the strongest grounds for doing so. I have suggested in previous posts what some of those grounds might be, but you consistently ignore them.

Phil

[jsantos]

"Maybrick's name emerged as a result of the "Diary", which inevitably gave rise to discussion of its authenticity and Maybrick's likelihood as JtR. The difference here, forgery or not, is the Diary."

Are you kidding... The Maybrick diary is more than a defamation! Is not an assumption but an invention!

"Sickert himself expressed a sustained interest in the Whitechapel murders..."

So... Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper? He said he was Jack or he was interested in Ripper case?

I said... "...Aaron Kosminski, Michael Ostrog, and a thousand more?"
I was not referring particularly to these names...

"Finally, no one before you has named RLS as a JtR suspect - it is thus incumbent upon you to show why you believe it reasonable to propose him - and reliance on the one story is insufficient, it would be a circular argument. RLS is dead and cannot defend himself. In all honour you should avoid besmirching his memory and reputation unless you have the strongest grounds for doing so. I have suggested in previous posts what some of those grounds might be, but you consistently ignore them."

I wrote the RLS words from his books "The Ebb-Tide" & "Dr Jekyll & Mr hyde", I did not invent any words. I just mentioned
the RLS words relating them with the Jack story and I published here. You have every right to disagree with the relationship I did.

[Phil H]

jsantos

You have made an accusation about RLS without evidence, corroboration or anything else to sustain it and in defiance of the known facts (his whereabouts). Your only basis for what you say is a short story RLS wrote. Author's deal with imagination, with placing themselves in the shoes of others' - it does not mean (unless you have something to support the contention) that they have ever done what they describe.

On that basis you could accuse any author of having done what they write about. Would you have dared say what you did had RLS been a living author?

You seem not to understand my words, when you write in response to something I said:

So... Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper? He said he was Jack or he was interested in Ripper case?

I made no claims in regard to Sickert, but if you look back to quite old works on the JtR case you will see his name mentioned in connection with his fascination with the crimes and was mwentioned as a possible suspect by people like Florence Pashley -long before Ms Cornwell picked him up as her preferred suspect. But my intent was to show that in comparison to your proposals in regard to RLS, Sickert has been discussed as a suspect for decades and that there is thus a logic and a basis for discussion of him.

I said... "...Aaron Kosminski, Michael Ostrog, and a thousand more?"

But only Ostrog and Kosminski were mentioned by MM and thus are linked (with Druitt indeed) while "a thousand more" are NOT! Are there a "thousand more" names associated with being the Ripper? Hundreds perhaps, but exaggeration of this sort further diminishes your already threadbare credibility.

You have every right to disagree with the relationship I did.

And I fully intend to continue to do so.

Phil

[TomTomKent]

RLS wrote fiction. You santos invented the presumption that the fiction makes RLS a suspect. There are no reasonable grounds for this presumption. The Maybrick diary may well be a fabrication, but it was also a reason. Something you have not supplied. Saying there are other rubbish theories is a not a reason to validate yours.

Do you actually have anything other than subjective interpretation of fiction? Anything that might be called a "fact" based upon "evidence"?

[Phil H]

I am withdrawing from this thread.

I think I have said enough to make my views clear and - having re-read yesterday's posts - fear I am getting unduly strident. I would also not want to be thought of as "harrassing" jsantos in any way.

It is, of course, up to him what he believes, but I hope that what has been said in this thread will indicate to him that he needs more supporting evidence (indeed ANY) supporting evidence if he wishes to convince others.

Phil

[TomTomKent]

I don't think you have to worry Phil. You are making objective arguments against the theory, not the person. I assume you do this for the same reasons as the rest of us, out of academic interest. The holes in theories have to be highlighted, or the subscribers wont know what evidence is required to validate the theory.

[Phil H]

Thanks, Tom.

But it is easy to get carried away in the heat (and frustrations!) of debate, even to overstate one's point. I felt that was what was happening here (in my posts). A proposal such as jsantos' is hardly worth getting too heated about.

I am also very conscious of the fact that while jsantos' English is very good, it is clearly not his first language. The barrier to communication may well, therefore be linguistic rather than intellectual or factual. It also occurs to me that I have no idea of jsantos' age, which might be a consideration.

I hardly think that RLS as a suspect will gain legs, after all.

Phil

Will someone please let me know if, after all that, jsantos produces overwhelming evidence that RLS was actually an alias used by Le Grand and that he was indeed the Ripper. Nothing would surprise me any more.