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  • How strong is the argument that Mac was deceitful?

    I have been asked to move this material to the appropriate thread.

    It outlines a number of examples of Sir Melville Macnaghten being a sly player of a game regarding Druitt's identity.

    That this was forced upon him by circumstances, as the fiend was long dead, and yet his identity had nearly leaked once in Dorset and could so again.

    Hence Mac's bobbing and weaving over twenty years, to make the Yard look super-efficient about the alleged hunt for the 'Drowned Doctor' (this is Jack Littlechild's real message to Sims in 1913; you are being played for a sucker, sir!)

    The conventional wisdom argues that this is all wrong.

    That Mac was simply mistaken as he worked from a poor memory. That he seems to have known almost nothing about the real Druitt.

    No 'bobbing' and 'weaving' at all?

    Yet this notion of Mac's faulty memory comes ... from Mac?! From this smoothie's memoir's preface (in which he cheekily juxtaposes Jack the Ripper with championship cricket) as his excuse for any errors -- His Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card.

    All other contemporaneous sources describe Mac's memory as extraordinary, and extraordinarily accurate.

    Plus, you hardly need a marvelous memory to recall such basic details about your preferred Ripper suspect, such as his having been a barrister rather than a doctor.

    Mac, the 'honourable schoolboy' prankster and overgrown Old Etonian, is being deceitful -- as usual.

    Here are ten examples:

    1. He claims in 'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper' (1914) to be writing entirely from memory.

    In fact, it is obvious he is adapting 'Aberconway' right in front of him.

    Furthermore, he dumps Druitt as a 'Tumbletyesque' middle-aged doctor being hunted by police in 1888, and completely dumps the camouflage suspects, 'Kosminski' and Michael Ostrog, whom he had created (I think Druitt's hapless sidekicks were nothing more than self-amused japes by the Old Etonian; the former because he masturbated like there was no tomorrow, and the latter because he dared to defile Eton with his thievery)

    2. In 1913 Mac claimed to the press, and an aghast H. L. Adam, that he had destroyed all documents pertaining to the un-named Druitt.

    But not only was Druitt's name still on file, Mac had not even burnt his own personal copy of the same document which he had been flashing around to cronies for years (I think he said this lie to reassure the surviving Druitts). Even his daughter conceded in 1959 that her father was harmlessly fibbing.

    3. Mac misled Sims into believing that Griffiths had seen a definitive Home Office Report, seen by the Home Sec. Neither claim was true. This was so Sims could swat away Abberline's off-hand rejection of the 'Drowned Doctor'.

    4. Both versions of his slippery report give the impression that Druitt was being hunted before he killed himself, or came to police attention very soon after. This was how Major Griffiths and George Sims understood it and disseminated the tale to the public.

    Primary sources show this to be impossible, and Macnaghten himself came clean that it was not true in his memoirs.

    5. From 1902 Sims began writing of the clincher detail against the 'Drowned Doctor' now revealed to have not practiced as a surgeon for many years. That he had been incarcerated in an asylum, 'twice', after being diagnosed as a homicidal harlot hater. That it was the state's fault for letting him out.

    In his memoirs Macnaghten again conceded what we know from primary sources -- Druitt had never been institutionalized (but may have feared going like mother; eg. ending up in a madhouse for what he had done).

    6. After a woman, Elizabeth Camp, was murdered on a train in 1897, somebody at Scotland Yard told a reporter that her likely killer immediately drowned himself in the Thames.

    Sound familiar?

    It is like a dry-run for the Griffiths' revelation about the Ripper as 'Drowned Doctor' the following year.

    7. From 1903, Sims began writing that the doctor's body bobbed up within, or even less than a month after the Kelly murder.

    Yet in 'Aberconway' and the official version, Mac wrote that the date was the 31st of December. Of course the new Sims' version is more satisfying, and removes the three weeks that Druitt was alive. It makes the barrister's true identity even more unrecoverable. It is also cognition on Mac's part that the timeline needed crunching for public consumption.

    8. Griffiths and/or Mac changed the Druitt family of 'Aberconway' into 'friends' presumably to make the tale even more libel-proof.

    Sims never claimed to see the 'Home Office Report'. He just adds the detail about the frantic friends trying to find the missing, unemployed doctor.

    Therefore, Sims was misled by Mac, as this was actually the fiend's brother.

    9. Research by the brilliant and meticulous Debra Arif shows that Cutbush and Cutbush are probably not uncle and nephew -- not related at all!?

    Therefore Macnaghten is either Constable Magoo, or a deft Whitehall player.

    That he is preparing a scurrilous -- and spurious -- motive for Inspector Race to the Liberal Home Sec.

    eg. That the un-named Race's 'outing' of the un-named Thomas Cutbush to 'The Sun', is motivated by nothing more than malice; that he feels such 'sour grapes' towards a retired colleague, one who does, tragically, have a lunatic relative -- who non-fatally 'jobbed' a few women -- that he has tried to manufacture a police cover-up of Jack the Ripper, the bloody swine!

    In fact, it is all made-up by Macnaghten (and never actually sent to that Dept. of State).

    10. 'Said to be a doctor ...' literally means that from information received this minor suspect might have been a physician, or might not. He might have been from a 'good family', or he might not. He might have disappeared right after the Kelly murder, or he might not. He might have been 'upwards of a month' a rotting corpse in the Thames, or he might not.

    eg. We never checked because he was so minor a suspect, yet -- and here's the circle Mac is awkwardly trying to square -- his own family definitely 'believed' in his guilt, not might have believed. And he was, not might have been, 'sexually insane'; that he took erotic pleasure from violence against women, specifically whores.

    Might have been a doctor, but then again he might not have been -- and guess what, he wasn't.

    Mac is not 'wrong' in that document about Druitt, though I do not think anybody 'said' to him that the suspect was a physician either.

    It's another excuse, a bureaucratic dodge, prepared in case the whole 'son of a surgeon' story comes spilling out of Dorset (as it nearly did in 1891) and a Liberal govt. looks askance at Tory police chiefs about a dead Ripper who turns out to come from a Tory family, and who was first stumbled upon by a loose-lipped Tory backbencher.

    And who, embarrassingly (though not to Mac personally) was never on police radar.

  • #2
    the MP

    Hello Jonathan. Lovely thread and strong arguments, as usual. There is little doubt in my mind that Mac is manipulating the flow of information.

    There was one question I have been meaning to ask you. It is this. Do you think it possible that the bulk of Mac's information came from Farqy? Until recently, I had not grasped the key role that Henry Farquharson played in Tory apologetics. What if the Tory government wished to avoid ALL possible stray implications (even if they were unjustified) and so chose a convenient suicide as a scapegoat? Could Mac have fallen for such a story and come to have believed it?

    Cheers,
    LC

    Comment


    • #3
      To answer Jonathan's headline question - that he was mistaken is known.

      WHY he was so - accidental or deliberate, is (failing other sources or evidence emerging) I believe a matter of judgement and thus subjective.

      I have always seen five possible reasons for Macnaghten's errors:

      1) faulty memory. He was writing as exactly as he stated but mistated facts. I see nothing that negates this view except interpretation;

      2) he was covering up Cutbush's police relation and chose some names at "random" knowing they could not very well be challenged;

      3) he was deliberately obscuring the identity of Druitt and muddying the waters for personal reasons/to protect the family;

      4) office politics played some sort of part in his thinking, hence he promotes his suspect Druitt above Anderson's Kosminski;

      5) higher political reasons - Fenian or other (he may have been under higher direction on this).

      But all are a matter of opinion and, without additional information, I don't see how a choice can be made in any definitive way.

      Phil

      Comment


      • #4
        To Phil H

        His memoirs, which go against the expected bias by conceding that the un-named Druitt was a posthumous suspect. They also do not bother with the fusion with Tumblety.

        Plus, Mac knew that brother William was searching for Montie which means he originally knew that Druitt was a young barrister who drowned himself three weeks after Kelly.

        To Lynn

        Yes, maybe the whole thing came only from Farquy, who made it all up.

        On the other hand, Sims is the mythical amplification and deflection of the real story.

        He has the fiend's 'friends' meeting with the 'authorities' even before the 'doctor' is fished out of the Thames.

        The more likely truth is, therefore, that Mac, the 'man of action' and a hands-on administrator obsessed with this case, used the Old Boy Net to go from the MP to the family, or a family member, and could have been held back from doing so.

        This is the truth which lies behind Sims' shilling shocker.

        The Ripper 'mystery' was solved in 1891, or so Mac believed.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Jonathan H View Post
          Plus, Mac knew that brother William was searching for Montie which means he originally knew that Druitt was a young barrister who drowned himself three weeks after Kelly.
          I'm not sure that this is true. We have George R Sims slightly jazzed-up statement that the drowned doctor's friends were looking for him when his body was found in the Thames, and we have Macnaghten claiming that from private information he had little doubt that Druitt's family suspected he was the Ripper.

          All Macnaghten's private information need have said was that Druitt's family were searching for him at the time his body was found. The construction that they were looking for him because that thought he was Jack the Ripper could have been the construction Macnaghten placed on that information, or which Sims put on it. It need not have been the reason. And there is no inherent reason that Macnaghten should have known more than that.

          Or am I missing something crucial?

          Comment


          • #6
            I think MM was walking a fine line. He wanted it known he knew who JtR was but didnt wish to make the suspect publically identifiable. We all have this need to brag, most of us dont deal in official secrets though.


            MM was part gossipy fishwife, part high level bureaucrat.

            Comment


            • #7
              jason_c,

              I think that that is less than generous to Sir Melville.

              We don't know that.

              MM had a clear reason to write what he did - the basis of defensive lines to take in regard to allegations about Cutbush in the Sun newspaper.

              He got most of his points right in general terms (Druitt WAS a member of the professional classes, just a lawyer rather than a doctor; his age was out by an exact 10 years etc). As Macnaghten admitted that he tended to rely on memory not paper records, this would be understandable.

              Anything beyond that is supposition. It may be permissable, even proper supposition, but that is what it is.

              Calling dead people names does no harm to them and simply rebounds on the one who writes it.

              Macbaghten was a senior, long-serving, dedicated and highly-regarded public servant. It surely does us no credit to bad-mouth men like him when we live in a society very different and are not exposed to the same pressures, culture or requirements.

              I don't disagree with what you say, just the mode of saying it.

              Phil

              Comment


              • #8
                To Paul B

                With all due respect, yes, I think you are missing it.

                I do not mean that William already knew Montie was the fiend when he was looking for him. Not at all.

                But that Mac knowing that William was looking for him must come from data beyond the Moulson Report, even if it it is just the press.

                Therefore Mac originally knew that Druitt was a young barrister who killed himself around about Dec 1st 1888 (eg. 'six months before I joined the Force' on June 1st 1889)

                Sims is a Mac source by proxy.

                Every detail in Sims turns out to be a mythical amplification or deflection by Mac about the real Druitt.

                - he was found with a train ticket and he becomes an idle lover of the buses and the trains.
                - a couple of checks and he becomes fabulously wealthy.
                - sacked for a few days from the lesser of his two jobs and he becomes totally unemployed for years.
                - his mother sectioned become himself sectioned for years and years.
                - a surgeon's son he becomes a Dr Jekyllish surgeon himself.
                - he took three weeks to kill himself after killing Kelly and whose body turned up on Dec 31st 1888, becomes a 'shrieking, raving fiend' who drowns himself the same morning as killing Kelly (at Chiswick?!)

                Therefore, we can see that the report of brother William at the inquest, of trying to locate his missing sibling, becomes frantic 'friends' who already know that their pal has been diagnosed as a homicidal harlot hater.

                They contact police even before his body is fished from the river, though the super-efficient police were already fast-closing upon this chief suspect.

                All myth.

                I argue that the truth was that it was Macnaghten privately moving on from the loose-lipped MP, and interviewing brother William, or a Druitt, over two years later.

                Mac was hands-on, an action man and very discreet. But the story had almost leaked once in Dorset, and could do so again.

                What was he to do ...?

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Phil H View Post
                  jason_c,

                  I think that that is less than generous to Sir Melville.

                  We don't know that.

                  MM had a clear reason to write what he did - the basis of defensive lines to take in regard to allegations about Cutbush in the Sun newspaper.

                  He got most of his points right in general terms (Druitt WAS a member of the professional classes, just a lawyer rather than a doctor; his age was out by an exact 10 years etc). As Macnaghten admitted that he tended to rely on memory not paper records, this would be understandable.

                  Anything beyond that is supposition. It may be permissable, even proper supposition, but that is what it is.

                  Calling dead people names does no harm to them and simply rebounds on the one who writes it.

                  Macbaghten was a senior, long-serving, dedicated and highly-regarded public servant. It surely does us no credit to bad-mouth men like him when we live in a society very different and are not exposed to the same pressures, culture or requirements.

                  I don't disagree with what you say, just the mode of saying it.

                  Phil
                  Phil

                  I was being a bit tongue in cheek in my description of him. I was trying to give MM a human side rather than see him as a conspiracy orientated individual giving out drip fed information as part of a cunning plan.

                  I do have admiration for him, he was rather a pro-active in frontline policing.

                  And I was talking of his info given to Sims etc rather than his offical memorandum.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Jonathan H View Post
                    To Paul B

                    With all due respect, yes, I think you are missing it.

                    I do not mean that William already knew Montie was the fiend when he was looking for him. Not at all.

                    But that Mac knowing that William was looking for him must come from data beyond the Moulson Report, even if it it is just the press.

                    Therefore Mac originally knew that Druitt was a young barrister who killed himself around about Dec 1st 1888 (eg. 'six months before I joined the Force' on June 1st 1889)
                    I'm not suggesting that William knew anything about anything. Accepting for the sake of argument that Macnaghten was Sims' source, we know that Macnaghten received private information concerning the young doctor's family, so it may be that this private information stated that the young doctor’s family were looking for him when his body was pulled from the Thames. Therefore, why does this mean that Macnaghten looked beyond that private information and must have known Druitt was a barrister?

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Because Druitt was not a young doctor.

                      And in Sims, he is not even young either.

                      The argument you had put so incisively -- and is a big influence on my thinking in 'The Facts' -- is that Mac must have at least had access to P.C. Moulson's Report (which by the way would have told him that the body was found at Chiswick! And he was supposed to have taken his life the same morning as eviscerating Kelly? Quite a hike!) on the recovery of the body and the contents of its pockets.

                      Eg. the season rail pass.

                      That's quite something.

                      A chief of police who remembers that tiny, titchy detail about a train ticket -- but cannot find out or recall the correct age, vocation, or timing of the man's suicide.

                      I don't buy that, based on all the other sources about Macnaghten.

                      The discovery of the Old Etonian MP who knew the Druitts showed that it as extremely unlikely that Mac did not hace access to correct biog. information.

                      And the knowledge of the brother trying to find Montie could not be in Moulson's Report.

                      It can only come from, at the least, information about the inquest, and at the most from a Druitt -- if not William himself.

                      Either way you would have to know that Druitt was a young barrister who killed himself three weeks after the Kelly murder.

                      Even if you sat down with Farquharson for just ten minutes, say in a gentleman club, you would have the gist of Druitt's biog.

                      And the doctor aspect is very plastic, take note.

                      In the official version of his Report he might be a doctor, and perhaps might not be?

                      By 1902, Sims is broadcasting that the 'doctor' had not wroked as a physician for years and years due to mental illness.

                      He is the Drowned Unemployed Doctor. No patients, no operations, no hospital, and no income from this vocation (no problem -- he's rich).

                      Hardly a doctor at all is he?

                      In his memoirs Mac pointedly debunked that element of the mythos, as he did that he was a doctor either.

                      So, if the Ripper was not sectioned, and not an invalid, then what did he do...?

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Jonathan H View Post
                        And the knowledge of the brother trying to find Montie could not be in Moulson's Report.

                        It can only come from, at the least, information about the inquest, and at the most from a Druitt -- if not William himself.
                        Er, you're not addressing my point, Jonathan.

                        Macnaghten wrote, "from private information I have little doubt but that his own family believed him to have been the murderer."

                        The fact that William was looking for Druitt when his body was foundcould have been or otherwise been included in the "private information". If so, the fact that a brother was looking for him need not mean that Macnaghten knew Druitt was a barrister. Whatever that "private information" was, it did not include that information.

                        And yes, the official version does indeed say "said to be...", which suggests that Macnaghten didn't know what Druitt's family thought or what occupation Druitt had or what the social status of the family was.

                        I'm solidly with you all the way in your desire to rehabilitate Macnaghten as a source, and I totally agree that what he wrote about Druitt hasn't been subjected the the sort of close analysis it needs. And there is definitely something very odd about a man who was sufficiently interested in the Ripper crimes to keep victim photos in his desk drawer, but who apparently could not be bothered to establish everything he could about the man he was persuaded was the murderer.

                        But the point has been made over and over that the police were well able to handle sensitive information (even today the Special Branch is didn't know
                        attempting to withhold the names of long-dead informers) and there is absolutely no reason I can think of why Macnaghten couldn't have been as open and frank about Druitt as he wanted to be, or even have omitted his name altogether. If Macnaghten knew that Druitt was a barrister/teacher, he'd have said so. He really would. That's why the real mystery about Druitt is why Macnaghten was persuaded of his guilt, yet apparently knew so little about him.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Agree

                          Originally posted by PaulB View Post
                          ...
                          ...
                          Macnaghten wrote, "from private information I have little doubt but that his own family believed him to have been the murderer."
                          The fact that William was looking for Druitt when his body was foundcould have been or otherwise been included in the "private information". If so, the fact that a brother was looking for him need not mean that Macnaghten knew Druitt was a barrister. Whatever that "private information" was, it did not include that information.
                          And yes, the official version does indeed say "said to be...", which suggests that Macnaghten didn't know what Druitt's family thought or what occupation Druitt had or what the social status of the family was.
                          I'm solidly with you all the way in your desire to rehabilitate Macnaghten as a source, and I totally agree that what he wrote about Druitt hasn't been subjected the the sort of close analysis it needs. And there is definitely something very odd about a man who was sufficiently interested in the Ripper crimes to keep victim photos in his desk drawer, but who apparently could not be bothered to establish everything he could about the man he was persuaded was the murderer.
                          But the point has been made over and over that the police were well able to handle sensitive information (even today the Special Branch is didn't know
                          attempting to withhold the names of long-dead informers) and there is absolutely no reason I can think of why Macnaghten couldn't have been as open and frank about Druitt as he wanted to be, or even have omitted his name altogether. If Macnaghten knew that Druitt was a barrister/teacher, he'd have said so. He really would. That's why the real mystery about Druitt is why Macnaghten was persuaded of his guilt, yet apparently knew so little about him.
                          I would agree with all of that Paul.

                          From what I can make of all this I think there are other factors to bear in mind. First I doubt that Macnaghten would have ever dreamt that his writings would ever be subjected to the informed scrutiny and analysis that they are today. If he had then I am sure he would have been more careful in checking his facts. I do believe that he was a bit careless and cavalier with his writing in view of this.

                          As regards his book, and his claim on retiring that he would never write such a volume, I think there is another consideration and that is that the subject of 'Jack the Ripper' was guaranteed to stir up reader interest and sell books. A point not lost on his publisher.

                          To what degree any of this is reflected in his words I really don't know.
                          SPE

                          Treat me gently I'm a newbie.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Obviously I respect your opinion more than I can say, and it gives me no pleasure to say that we fundamentally disagree.

                            I asked exactly that question: how could Mac be so hands-on, and yet know so little that was accurate?

                            How ...?

                            Answer: he didn't.

                            I think he knew it all, and from the family -- directly.

                            Mac even knew that Sims, when younger and thinner, did bear a resemblance to Druitt. Meaning he had seen a picture of the dead Montie, for how could you stop him from not getting his hands on a pic of the fiend??

                            for all we know he kept a pic of Druitt in that drawer too, in his Cricket whites?

                            Sims writes in 1917 how inappropriate it would be for the police to point to a dead man and say here is the fiend, 'for the dead cannot defend themselves.'

                            No, they can't, but their identity can be obscured to the point where they don't have to.

                            Consider, for a moment, the alternative.

                            Macnaghten briefs Sims about the whole story, and all the details are completely real and literal. With the dead Druitt traceable to the jackal press?!

                            That means the surviving Druitts would be potentially exposed to the ruination of their name, at least amongst their circles.

                            And how unfairly exposed.

                            For their Montie would never have his day in court. How can you call him Jack the Ripper if it will never tested by due press? Perhaps he would have been sectioned anyhow, and not have been found fit to stand trial?!

                            It would be cruel, and callous.

                            Yet Macnaghten comes across in all the sources as discreet, and compassionate -- and also sly and secretive.

                            Yet here he supposedly is, in the Edwardian years, feeding more and more indiscreet info. to Sims to publish about 'Dr Druitt'.

                            And so ... just by an incredible stroke of luck for all concerned, the details are all wrong, completely wrong, and the real Montie remained unrecoverable.

                            In fact, even more unrecoverable than in Griffiths -- God how lucky! -- who at least had the date of his body's recovery correct (though not the correct date of when he vanished) unlike Sims after 1903, who has it happen about November 3rd 1888, eg. 'less than a month'.

                            But what about the the drowned doctor's family? Oh that's right -- he doesn't have any.

                            But what about the man's friends? Oh that's right -- they already knew, like the super-efficient police who were so on-the-ball that they did not need the pals to tell them.

                            But what about the man's patients? Oh, that's right -- he has not practiced in so many years that nobody has to be traumatized that their G.P. or surgeon was the fiend.

                            I guess, PaulB, where we disagree is this:

                            There is just no way, for me, that Macnaghten would not have at the very least checked out all the 1889 media he could find on Druitt once he had spoken to the indiscreet MP, even if he just spoke to his fellow Old Etonian, Henry Farquharson, who knew Druitt was a 'son of a surgeon'.

                            Mac would still have checked out the newspaper reports, and found the article covering the inquest, for that is how he may have known about the brother searching for his missing sibling.

                            To know that, is to know all the rest at least about Druitt's real vocation(s), his age, and the timing of his death.

                            More likely Mac spoke to the Druitts, or a Druitt as Sims gives us a glimpse of it in mythical form: the 'friends' in contact with the 'authorities'.

                            The theory that somehow Macnaghten picked up incorrect information, and never realized it was incorrect by doing minimal checking, is I think completely mistaken.

                            More than mistaken, it was rendered redundant by the identification of the MP by Spalleck in 2008; as a person who knew the Druitts and who knew Macnaghten -- and all of them Anglican Tories, two of them officers of state.

                            All he needed was M. J. Druitts correct name, and we know he had that.

                            And there is no way Mac would have embarrassed a 'good family', fellow Anglican Gentiles, via literary cronies -- by handing them the literal details.

                            We can actually see Griffiths changing 'family' into 'friends' just to make sure that the middle-aged 'doctor' was even more obscured -- or Mac did that by reading the report to him and the Major never even knew it was not accurate. just as neither Grffiths nor Sims knew that the official version of the so-called 'Home Office Report' has Druitt as next to nothing -- who might be a doctor and then again might not.

                            And there was no way that Mac was going to be deceitful under his own knighted name. So, in his memoirs, out goes the Dr Jekyllish features, and that he was an asylum veteran, and that he was a suspect being efficiently hunted whilst he was alive in 1888.

                            To an American newspaper in 1913, Macnaghten admitted that the devastating information about the un-named Druitt had come to him, posthumously, and that the suspect 'the world believed' to be the Ripper was not, and nor would he ever reveal why he was keeping it all a secret.

                            What secret?

                            Hadn't he been disseminating the Ripper's true identity, for fifteen years, from behind the scenes? Isn't the 'Drowned Doctor' the gospel truth as he knows it? (not according to his memoirs the following years that's for darned sure)

                            How can you be both discreet and indiscreet?

                            How did Mac 'cut that knot his own way', as Fred Wensley put it about a 'very great gentleman' he both adored and admired.

                            By clothing the truth in deflective lies; by 'substantial truth in fictitious form'.

                            Was it ever really credible that Mac could get the train ticket right -- and brother William searching for his troubled sibling -- and be completely and so conveniently wrong about the absolute basics?

                            I no longer think so since reading his memoirs, since reading Sims, and since the MP was identified.

                            That's what I believe, rightly or wrongly.

                            One last thing.

                            I think that Macnaghten was profoundly moved, if that is the right way of putting it, by Druitt being a champion cricketer, for Mac loved cricket, and also a part-time teacher at a public boys school, for Mac loved Eton, and so he created a semi-fictionalised Druitt who could never be traced back to the Valentine School -- and not have it ruined by the shame of having hired Jack the Ripper to teach Homer and Ovid.

                            I think Mac hints at knowing that Druitt played cricket in the jokey preface of Days of My Years'.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              deceitful?

                              Isnt it likely that Druitt,together with Kosminski and Ostrog were contemporary official police suspects pre-dating Macnaughtons involvement.True there is no mention of Druitt before MMs missive,but does that really mean anything much?

                              Comment

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