Accusations of a Ripper "cabal" (Moved from another thread)

[Carol]

It is all very well and good for people who have been privileged to see a copy of the Aberconway to look down and go "Oh it's not that important, there's nothing there" but you will forgive us lowly peons if we'd actually prefer to see the exact document and text for ourselves. It's this idiotic little quirk some people have about seeing a source for themselves, rather than just accepting the opinions of those on high, regarding its value and what we should think about it.

Well said, Ally! Would you like me to sign your petition about it?

Love
Carol

[Jonathan H]

To Paul

I appreciate you engaging me in a debate about this idea, as you must find it quite tiresome -- even a silly theory.

I can only quickly explain why I respectfully disagree:

Reading all the sources on Macnaghten, and by Macnaghten, shows that he did indeed have a terrific memory, and that he was too discreet, and too smooth, to endanger the Druitt relations with a profile of their member which was so specific as Sims outlined in the 1900's -- unless Mac knew it to be a semi-fictional red herring (in his memoirs he dropped most of these fictional details).

The two versions of the 'Home Office Report' are not just personal and inaccurate information being removed from one to another. In each version Druitt is completely different in status as a suspect; the family and Macnaghten, in effect, swap places as to who was certain about what (in effect, both documents are entirely personal).

In 1903 George Sims claims that Abberline is wrong -- Abberline! -- because there is a definitive document of state lodged with the Home Office. It is Sims' trump card.

It is also a lie -- the status of the document -- which a self-serving Mac never corrected.

To me it is too much of a coincidence that Macnaghten had a 'draft' in his drawer, one which would be acceptable to writers, jusst as the official version would not be (eg. no prime suspects, don't know if this Druitt was a doctor or not, no surgical knives for Ostrog, no witness for the Pole, et. al.)

Cutbush was the figleaf as to why it was written so late, supposedly 1894, and furthermore was another lie as he was not the nephew of the retired policeman of the same surname.

If this was not a lie, amongst other lies, then we are back to Mac the appalling bumbler -- which flies in the face of all the primary sources on this supposedly competent, diligent, compassionate and deft administrator.

I also argue that Mac was aware that [the un-named] 'North Country Vicar' of 1899 was going to reveal what he knew about Druitt, but as 'substantial truth in fictitious form'.

That the Vicar would have to be headed off with Mac's own semi-fictional version of the same suspect. The difference being that the tale Griffiths and Sims propagated, for Mac, made the Yard look a whole lot better than [the allegedly] dotty Vicar did -- who was crushed, dismissed and forgotten.

The clergyman had claimed that the Ripper had time to confess, after the final murder, to a priest and Sims had rudely proclaimed that this was quite impossible, as the 'raving, shrieking fiend' killed himself that same morning -- when the real Druitt, of course, had three weeks to confess and kill himself! (The Vicar's semi-fictional construct is closer to Druitt than Macnaghten-Griffiths-Sims' Drowned Doctor -- and yet we know the latter is derived from Montague Druitt.)

Yet in 1902, Sims adopted a central tenet of the Vicar's 'ludicrous' tale; that the 'doctor' had not practised as a medical man for years and years -- he had indeed been 'at one time a surgeon' but no longer.

Is there something wrong with me that seems all so, well, so obvious...?

[Ally]

It is all very well and good for people who have been privileged to see a copy of the Aberconway to look down and go "Oh it's not that important, there's nothing there" but you will forgive us lowly peons if we'd actually prefer to see the exact document and text for ourselves. It's this idiotic little quirk some people have about seeing a source for themselves, rather than just accepting the opinions of those on high, regarding its value and what we should think about it.

[PaulB]

Thanks Stewart

Obviously we disagree -- or rather just about everybody agrees with you and almost nobody agrees with me.

That 'Aberconway' is a draft is a theory, not a fact, just as it my theory that it is an 1898 backdated rewrite to suit the needs of popular writer-cronies.

I would argue that what many excellent secondary sources such as yourself do not take into account are the full writings of Sims, a Mac source-by-proxy -- in whiuch fictitious details are added to 'Aberconway' (eg. the un-named 'Kosminski' gets to work in a Polish hospital) -- nor Mac's memoirs which blunt, even reverse the trajectory of a fading, exaggerated memory. In that chapter, Macnaghten zeroed in, however obliquely, on a suspect whose name he had also committed to an official file, and to nobody else.

From my point of view, Stewart, the revelation that Mac via Griffiths (and then Sims) had turned the Druitt family into hovering friends was decisive.

Even I think yourself has speculated that this change was made to provide some cover for the family as the story was made public in 1898, and beyond.

But then why not the doctor detail too, which he pointedly did not commit himself too in the official version of the same document? And his age -- exactly ten years wrong?

And the so-called 'evidence' of the suspect's killing himself within hours of Kelly -- as a sort of tormented 'confession' of guilt.

Yet Mac gets the tiny detail of the season rail ticket correct, but major biog. details wrong?!

I don't buy it.

Mac even knows where that season ticket was from and where it was going, which was not reported in the press, except in the same 1889 article which refers to the suicided man's correct age, and correct date of drowning (though, ironically, doesn't include Montie's Christian name).

On the 'Kosminski' thread I have made a point today which I think is pertinent, devastating even, which will hopefully trigger a rigorous debate between us which I always find polite and fun and good-hearted, and I know some others do too.

Jonathan,
Whilst it is indeed a theory that the AC is a 'backdated rewrite' to suite a hypothetical requirement you have postulated for Macnaghten, it lacks support. There is no evidence that Macnaghten was telling his 'cronies' any story other than the truth as he remembered and believed it to be, there is no reason to suppose that he needed to produce a 'rewrite' or, even that if he did, that he would have bothered to re-produce the report about Cutbush rather than just some notes of his own, and the most obvious interpretation of the AV is that it is a draft. And in support of its being a draft is that it is more personal and less factual, which in my experience is the case with drafts. The finished copy is usually precised down.

[Magpie]

I squandered mine on a take-home large cod and chips, a gherkin, and two - two! - bottles of Newcastle Brown.

You know while such flagrant displays of extravagance like this may be the proverbial fingernails scraping down the proletariate soul of bolshie pinkos like Tom, for the rest of us it's a shining example of the dizzying heights to which we mere mortals may one day aspire. To grasp the gherkin of opportunity, to nibble the cod of literary achievement--nay, to sip the very nectar of success and adulation: of such gossamer threads are the dreams of ordinary Ripperologists woven. The furtile soil in which our ambitions are cultivated and the tendrils of our literary efforts burst forth.

[Jonathan H]

Thanks Stewart

Obviously we disagree -- or rather just about everybody agrees with you and almost nobody agrees with me.

That 'Aberconway' is a draft is a theory, not a fact, just as it my theory that it is an 1898 backdated rewrite to suit the needs of popular writer-cronies.

I would argue that what many excellent secondary sources such as yourself do not take into account are the full writings of Sims, a Mac source-by-proxy -- in whiuch fictitious details are added to 'Aberconway' (eg. the un-named 'Kosminski' gets to work in a Polish hospital) -- nor Mac's memoirs which blunt, even reverse the trajectory of a fading, exaggerated memory. In that chapter, Macnaghten zeroed in, however obliquely, on a suspect whose name he had also committed to an official file, and to nobody else.

From my point of view, Stewart, the revelation that Mac via Griffiths (and then Sims) had turned the Druitt family into hovering friends was decisive.

Even I think yourself has speculated that this change was made to provide some cover for the family as the story was made public in 1898, and beyond.

But then why not the doctor detail too, which he pointedly did not commit himself too in the official version of the same document? And his age -- exactly ten years wrong?

And the so-called 'evidence' of the suspect's killing himself within hours of Kelly -- as a sort of tormented 'confession' of guilt.

Yet Mac gets the tiny detail of the season rail ticket correct, but major biog. details wrong?!

I don't buy it.

Mac even knows where that season ticket was from and where it was going, which was not reported in the press, except in the same 1889 article which refers to the suicided man's correct age, and correct date of drowning (though, ironically, doesn't include Montie's Christian name).

On the 'Kosminski' thread I have made a point today which I think is pertinent, devastating even, which will hopefully trigger a rigorous debate between us which I always find polite and fun and good-hearted, and I know some others do too.

[Stewart P Evans]

Jonathan...

...
Yet Macnaghten seems to have claimed to his cronies that this document was a 'Home Office Report' or a copy of one (Sims, 1903). Whichever, it was the definitive opinion of the state about the Whitechapel murders.
But it's not?
...

Jonathan, in my humble opinion, as you know, you attach far too much importance to the exact words of articles published for popular consumption, be they in newspapers, journals or books.

Macnaghten, again in my opinion, was a bit of a sloppy writer and over confident in his own ability to remember correctly. And much of his 'inside information' on cases would be passed on to his chums in casual chats at their gentlemen's clubs.

The official version of his memorandum was filed unused (apart from being submitted for the information of the Commissioner) in 1894, and he was left with his draft notes from which he had written it.

In the intervening years he transmitted the suspect information from his notes to his friend Griffiths for his 1898 book, Mysteries of Police and Crime. It is very likely that Macnaghten had told Griffiths and Sims that the notes were the basis of a report he had submitted to the Commissioner for the information of the Home Office.

There is no evidence that any such report was transmitted to the Home Office and it is most likely that as the excitement over the Sun articles in February 1894 died down without further controversy the memorandum was filed. There is a possibility, but only that, that Bradford gave a verbal briefing to the Home Secretary based on the memorandum.

You are to be congratulated on your well thought out and argued constructs but, as you know, I do not invest Macnaghten's information with the great importance that you do. But when it's about all there is to work with...

[PaulB]

What's the big deal about the Aberconway version? As Stewart said, we already know the text of it. What I'm more curious about is all the other stuff Keith is holding back. He was on stage a few years ago and said he had info about the Maybrick Diary that was new and viable. What happened to that? I know he's getting a fat check from the A-Z, and his name is still on the cover, and the whole point of hiring him 20 years ago was to research the Ripper and provide his info for the book, so isn't it a conflict of interest that the A-Z only gets his scraps and the good stuff goes to the guy writing the fatter check, who may or may not ever make it public? Doesn't Keith put an 'expiration date' on his finds, such as 'published in 2 years or it's mine to do with as I want'?

I'm not saying he should share EVERYTHING with EVERYBODY, but he could at least have the decency to share it all with me. After all, I'm an American with lots of Yankee Dollars.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

P.S. And for the record, I'm not the only one wondering about the 'conflict of interest' thing. Pretty much EVERYONE is, they're just too British to post about it, and I'm just stupid enough to do so.

Keith is the co-author of several books, including the A to Z, and wasn't 'hired' to do the research, but you are certainly right about the fat cheques received from the publisher of the book. We often discuss how to spend it all. I squandered mine on a take-home large cod and chips, a gherkin, and two - two! - bottles of Newcastle Brown. As for the unreleased information Keith's got, between you and me, his spare bedroom is full of bundles of papers tied up with string, piled high from floor to ceiling and covered with dust. It's all carefully card indexed, but the dog knocked it over and Keith hasn't got round to sorting it yet. The police believe Lord Lucan is hiding in there amid the piles, but they're afraid to go in an find out. And whilst you have the Yankee dollar, Martin has the incriminating photos, so the new stuff goes to him first. There isn't any conflict of interest. Keith's interest is in paying his mortgage. No conflict there at all.

[Jonathan H]

To Tom

I argue that the 'big deal' of the 'Aberconway' Version is that this is the document whose contents were propagated to the public from 1898. It claimed there was no 'Jack the Ripepr' mystery, it could just never be proved in court as the murderer had taken his own life.

It is a key artifact of the mystery inside the mystery.

I would very much like to see and examine all of it, every single word, but only when Mr Skinner is comfortable with publishing it.

Consider that George Sims was never corrected by pal Macnaghten (by 1903, the Assistant Commissioner) in claiming, over and over again, that the 'Drowned Doctor' was the one and only Ripper.

Because, partly, of 'Aberconway'.

The document's alleged importance helped push aside -- perhaps quite inaccurately -- the competing police claims of the Edwardian Era: that 'Jack' was totally unknown, or that he was a convicted wife-murderer, or that he was a local, lunatic, Slavic Jew, or that he was a violent sailor convicted of nearly killing a harlot in Whitechapel.

Ahh, but all of those 'suspects' lived on beyond the 'awful glut' in Miller's Ct. and thus could not be the fiend because no human mind could remain functional for a single day after that mind-blasting charnel house.

Hence this was the clincher 'evidence' against the so-called Drowned Doctor (and obviously being a medico that takes care of the murderer's undoubted 'anatomical' skill).

It is by a police chief who, arguably, also claimed to have solved the mystery as much as Anderson. That's certainly how a Tory, Major Griffiths, and a Liberal, Sims understood it from Mac, and never pulled back from this opinion up to 1917.

The police chief himself, from the safety of retirement, confirmed this certainty, rightly or wrongly, in 1913 and in his subsequent memoirs of 1914.

Yet Macnaghten seems to have claimed to his cronies that this document was a 'Home Office Report' or a copy of one (Sims, 1903). Whichever, it was the definitive opinion of the state about the Whitechapel murders.

But it's not?

It's not even an accurate reproduction of the alternate version prepared for the Home Office, but never sent, in which nobody ever saw the murderer and there are no prime suspects, just a trio of lunatic nonentities who are, nevertheless, better than Cutbush because they were off the scene after the Kelly murder not off the streets until as late as 1891 (the English might-be-a-doctor-and-then-again-might-not-be maybe killed himself the same morning, the Jewish masturbator was incarcerated within four months, and the Russian medico also institutionalized, though its unclear how long after the Kelly murder).

Of course, 'Kosminksi' is really Aaron Kosminski who was also not off the streets until 1891!

This Thomas Cutbush was the tragic nephew of a retired and respected policeman -- and that's not true either?!

'Aberconway' established, behind-the-scenes, Macnaghten's personal agreement with the state's judgment -- in fact it's just his opinion among officials -- that Druitt was, quite different from the official version, the best bet of a trio of now strong 'police' suspects who were, at the very least, extremely dangerous and suspicious characters -- even the Gentile gent.

Yet each of them has been fictionalized?

eg. Definitely a real life Henry Jekyll, or definitely all women, or definitely carries surgical knives, and maybe seen by a reliable beat cop, and so on.

But Druitt was not a doctor and did not kill himself the same morning as the final atrocity. By Mac's own definition the real Montague Druitt rules himself out as the Ripper by the timing of his topping himself in the Thames?!

What's going on here?

An affable, yet obsessive, wannabe 'Sherlock' who pushed a load of fiction onto the public because he hated his superior, or was it because he knew Druitt was a young Tory barrister and he wanted the family, the Conservative Party and the Yard's battered reputation protected, or was it because he wanted Dr. Francis Tumblety the genuine -- and genuinely embarrassing -- prime suspect of 1888 buried and forgotten (though Jack Littlechild remembered), or was it because, as majority opinion still steadfastly asserts, Mac hopelessly over-rated his memory and just ... goofed? Again and again ...!

Every time a bit more of the whole 'Aberconway' version is made known, publicly or privately, it arguably adds to buttressing a contingent solution to the mystery inside the mystery.

For example, the date for Druitt's body's retrieval is Dec 31st, not 'Dec 3rd' as Cullen and Farson did not notice the faded, second digit. When Sims began moving the date of the body's recovery -- to about Dec 3rd -- is that because Macnaghten also made the same mistake as later writers, or was he choosing to further obscure the real Druitt?

For example, Macnaghten seems to have told at least Sims that this document was a definitive document of state. It actually ends calling itself a 'memo', arguably a much lesser designation, and the reason why his daughter called it a 'memorandum' -- or at other times just: 'my father's notes'. What a huge comedown from what Mac's cronies thought they were privy to, but she had it in her hands and perhaps they, literally, never did?

For example, as in the official version there is no mention, whatsoever, of the Goulston St. graffiti. Yet in his 1914 memoirs this becomes 'the only clue' left behind by the murderer, no ifs or buts. Why did this important claim not appear in the 'Home Office Report', or draft 'memorandum', or in the official version archived in Scotland Yard's files. Is is because both versions admit no errors by the Yard -- eg. that Druitt was an entirely posthumous suspect who became known to Macnaghten alone via 'secret information' originating from within the non-suspect's family -- and therefore he was not going to draw attention to Warren's controversial action in destroying allegedly the only clue left behind by the real murderer? Or, is this another salvo in his gentlemanly cold war with Anderson; to consolidate the claim that the murderer was most certainly not Jewish?

[Tom_Wescott]

Keith Skinner stole my lunch money

What's the big deal about the Aberconway version? As Stewart said, we already know the text of it. What I'm more curious about is all the other stuff Keith is holding back. He was on stage a few years ago and said he had info about the Maybrick Diary that was new and viable. What happened to that? I know he's getting a fat check from the A-Z, and his name is still on the cover, and the whole point of hiring him 20 years ago was to research the Ripper and provide his info for the book, so isn't it a conflict of interest that the A-Z only gets his scraps and the good stuff goes to the guy writing the fatter check, who may or may not ever make it public? Doesn't Keith put an 'expiration date' on his finds, such as 'published in 2 years or it's mine to do with as I want'?

I'm not saying he should share EVERYTHING with EVERYBODY, but he could at least have the decency to share it all with me. After all, I'm an American with lots of Yankee Dollars.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

P.S. And for the record, I'm not the only one wondering about the 'conflict of interest' thing. Pretty much EVERYONE is, they're just too British to post about it, and I'm just stupid enough to do so.

[Tom_Wescott]

Tom,

That is spot on. Excellent summing up.

No problem. With all the endless speculation about you, I thought it was time you be put in your proper historical perspective.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Monty]

Tom,

That is spot on. Excellent summing up.

Trevor,

Where are your co accusers? I can't see them. They deserted the ship?

Again, has you evidence of a cabal/cartel/carwash?

Monty

[PaulB]

Whatever you do, don't let him know the identity of 'Kermit'.

Martin, you mean? Oh, damn.

[Stewart P Evans]

Kermit

Damn.

Whatever you do, don't let him know the identity of 'Kermit'.

[PaulB]

Paul, fancy you letting everyone know that our code name is 'The Muppets'. Trevor only guessed at that.

Damn.