How do Suspects compare?

[PaulB]

Paul.
The suggestion that Tumblety was arrested is repeatedly introduced by Mike, and in one instance he refers to the Littlechild letter as proof:

"Tumblety was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the Whitechapel murders, has been corroborated by the Littlechild letter...."

It is this erroneous claim that I was referring to, and I'm glad to see that you also agree this was wrong.

Too much reliance is being placed on unsourced American newspaper stories which claim Tumblety was arrested.

Of all the people in America whom Scotland Yard would be required to put the most trust in, is Inspr. Byrnes, who had Tumblety under surveillance and could place him in custody at a moments notice.
When asked by a reporter if Tumblety could be arrested for anything here (US), "The Inspector replied that although Tumblety was a fugitive from justice under $1500 bail for a nominal offence in England, he could not be arrested here".
Which clearly demonstrates that Tumblety was not wanted for anything so serious as murder, for which he could be arrested in the US if requested by Scotland Yard.
Continuing in a similar article published in, The New York World, Inspector Byrnes explained; "...of course he cannot be arrested for there is no proof of his complicity in the Whitechapel murders, and the crime for which he was under bond in London is not extradictable".

Therefore Paul, Mike's insistence on Tumblety being arrested in London (when there is no proof of his complicity) is clearly based on missinformation in the US. Tumblety was not, and could not, be arrested as a suspect in the Whitechapel murders.
Detained?, questioned?, maybe, because hundreds were that is not impossible, but arrested? No!

The issue, as you kindly remind us, was the original point I made which started this discussion, that Tumblety claimed to have been a suspect, "is not established that this was true".

Given the enthusiasm with which the press attach suspicion to anyone whom the police show an interest in it is not remarkable that Tumblety is touted as a suspect by the press while not being regarded as an official suspect by the police. Afterall, the press are also concerned with selling copy.

So we are left with the passing remarks of John George Littlechild, and his 25 year old (in 1913) accusations of Tumblety being as suspect, but from what source?, because Littlechild was not involved in the Whitechapel murder case.

Regards, and Happy Easter to you and yours.
Jon S.

Hi Jon
It is difficult sometimes to know who or what is being cited and in what context, especially as we can all be less precise than we should be - Tumblety was suspected and was arrested and in the circumstances it's easy to use the words interchangeably.

The Littlechild letter was a very exciting discovery and immediately elevated Tumblety to what is probably an unmerited status as a suspect. There is, however, no reason that I can see (I am happy and receptive to any reasoned argument) to disbelieve Littlechild's statement that Tumblety was a suspect, no matter that he was writing 30-years after the event, and he is corroborated by the US papers and Tumblety himself, albeit that they are almost certainly wrong to say that he was arrested on suspicion of being the Ripper. Just to add, yes, Byrne's comment is paramount in any consideration of Tumblety as the Ripper, but not that he was suspected. As said, I read Littlechild as saying that Tumblety expressed a hatred of women and for that reason came under suspicion. But Littlechild himself seems to have discounted him, although did note the coincidence of his departure/death with the cessation of the murders.

I am grateful for the reference to Josephus. It allowed a detour, brief but wonderful, into real history. And, of course, a happy Easter weekend to you too.

[Jonathan H]

To Wickerman

You are being too reductionist. Dr. Tumblety was clearly a Ripper suspect to Scotland Yard, the question is to what extent and for how long?

In 1913 Littlechild is querying Sims and his suicided doctor prime suspect, and the reply he received was about Druitt: eg. 'Dr D'.

No such suspect was known to him, at least not exactly as put by Sims.

Jack Littlechild decided to clarify the real story, as respectfully as he could to his class superior, yet he did not challenge a central tenet of Sims' writings: that a [maybe] suicided medico was the prime police suspect of 1888.

[Wickerman]

Jon,
Littlechild does not say Tumblety was 'arrested as a Ripper suspect', he says he was suspected of being Jack the Ripper, which aredifferent things.

Paul.
The suggestion that Tumblety was arrested is repeatedly introduced by Mike, and in one instance he refers to the Littlechild letter as proof:

"Tumblety was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the Whitechapel murders, has been corroborated by the Littlechild letter...."

It is this erroneous claim that I was referring to, and I'm glad to see that you also agree this was wrong.

Too much reliance is being placed on unsourced American newspaper stories which claim Tumblety was arrested.

Of all the people in America whom Scotland Yard would be required to put the most trust in, is Inspr. Byrnes, who had Tumblety under surveillance and could place him in custody at a moments notice.
When asked by a reporter if Tumblety could be arrested for anything here (US), "The Inspector replied that although Tumblety was a fugitive from justice under $1500 bail for a nominal offence in England, he could not be arrested here".
Which clearly demonstrates that Tumblety was not wanted for anything so serious as murder, for which he could be arrested in the US if requested by Scotland Yard.
Continuing in a similar article published in, The New York World, Inspector Byrnes explained; "...of course he cannot be arrested for there is no proof of his complicity in the Whitechapel murders, and the crime for which he was under bond in London is not extradictable".

Therefore Paul, Mike's insistence on Tumblety being arrested in London (when there is no proof of his complicity) is clearly based on missinformation in the US. Tumblety was not, and could not, be arrested as a suspect in the Whitechapel murders.
Detained?, questioned?, maybe, because hundreds were that is not impossible, but arrested? No!

The issue, as you kindly remind us, was the original point I made which started this discussion, that Tumblety claimed to have been a suspect, "is not established that this was true".

Given the enthusiasm with which the press attach suspicion to anyone whom the police show an interest in it is not remarkable that Tumblety is touted as a suspect by the press while not being regarded as an official suspect by the police. Afterall, the press are also concerned with selling copy.

So we are left with the passing remarks of John George Littlechild, and his 25 year old (in 1913) accusations of Tumblety being as suspect, but from what source?, because Littlechild was not involved in the Whitechapel murder case.

Regards, and Happy Easter to you and yours.
Jon S.

[PaulB]

No time to rest there is a crime to be investigated :shakehead:

You go and play.

[Trevor Marriott]

I’m not throwing down any gauntlet to you, Trevor, and all you ever find to pick up is your inflated pig’s bladder on a stick which you wave around as you prance and cavort like the unfunny court jester of the message boards that you are.



It is very noticeable that nowhere in this whole sentence do you volunteer any reason – any reason at all – why my perfectly sensible and reasonable observation puts me out of touch with reality. Like so much of what you say on the boards, your sentence is just verbal flatulence.

For the record, although I really shouldn't bother, I am not trying to prove that Tumblety was a police suspect. Chief Inspector John Littlechild is telling you that Tumblety was a police suspect, and Littlechild was there and was in a position to know, and if you think he was wrong then you have to prove it or at least present a good and reasoned argument, and you have done neither. Instead you claim that every source is reporting hearsay, as if that negates what they say, and because you don’t understand anything about how to treat historical source documents, because your ignorance is so profound that you can actually come here and flatulate something so asinine as claiming that historians ‘automatically accept without question as gospel what has been written in the past…’, you can’t understand why your arguments are wrong.

For a long time I have wondered just what your agenda is on here. You say you are not trying to prove Tumblety was a police suspect and you say the same in relation to Kosminski. Yet when others try to do the same you seem to want to pour water on the fire. I think the reasons and explantions which have been put forward far outweigh the reasons you keep putting forward.

You also keep telling us that this ripper mystery now should not be looked upon as a criminal investigation but looked upon as historical anaylsis of the facts. Well the facts are not correct and have been proven to be innacurate and unreliable.

As to the criminal investigation side, you explain why that side should be ignored when there has been more new material and evidence come to light in the past few years than ever before and some is still being unearthered and other new material has yet to be made public.

All of which could have a dramatic impact on this case, and you never know there is still a chance that the missing piece of the jigsaw may turn up. So tell me where do you see the historical side of this going then because you cant keep playing the history card for ever.

And whilst Mike Hawley knows a great deal more about this subject than you ever will, which God knows isn’t difficult, I haven’t sought to rely on anything he has said, and if you think I have then you can produce it and show it to everyone. All I have done is to observe that in response to Mike’s lengthy and detailed post, you wrote: ‘I give up with you people that research is not from official sources so it must be hearsay.’ To which I said, correctly, that you think hearsay diminishes a source so when you encounter anything in the sources you don’t like you dismiss it as hearsay, so ‘it’s hearsay when Littlechild says it, it's hearsay when Smith says it, and its hearsay when the newspapers say it, and self-seeking publicity when Tumblety himself says it, and the reports of Anderson requesting samples of Tumblety's handwriting is a journalistic invention because you think he would already have them.’

And whether Mike Hawley’s use of Smith may not have been correct, it’s significant that Wolf highlighted it, not you.

I dont need to delve to deep into Tumblety because I know he was never a police suspect. As I said before feel free to look at hearsay eveidence and newspaper articles in the name of history but dont insult and put down those who look at it in another light.

If you were a detective you would have a job to catch a cold let alone a criminal with your mindset.

So go away and enjoy the day, Trevor. Give the pig's bladder a rest.

No time to rest there is a crime to be investigated :shakehead:

[PaulB]

Mr Begg
Again you throw down the gauntlet and again I pick it up and again the sabre rattling commences.

I’m not throwing down any gauntlet to you, Trevor, and all you ever find to pick up is your inflated pig’s bladder on a stick which you wave around as you prance and cavort like the unfunny court jester of the message boards that you are.

Your post clearly shows you are so out of touch with reality and I cant be bothered anymore but if i were you I wouldnt waste anymore time on trying to prove Tumbelty was a police suspect.

It is very noticeable that nowhere in this whole sentence do you volunteer any reason – any reason at all – why my perfectly sensible and reasonable observation puts me out of touch with reality. Like so much of what you say on the boards, your sentence is just verbal flatulence.

For the record, although I really shouldn't bother, I am not trying to prove that Tumblety was a police suspect. Chief Inspector John Littlechild is telling you that Tumblety was a police suspect, and Littlechild was there and was in a position to know, and if you think he was wrong then you have to prove it or at least present a good and reasoned argument, and you have done neither. Instead you claim that every source is reporting hearsay, as if that negates what they say, and because you don’t understand anything about how to treat historical source documents, because your ignorance is so profound that you can actually come here and flatulate something so asinine as claiming that historians ‘automatically accept without question as gospel what has been written in the past…’, you can’t understand why your arguments are wrong.

And whilst Mike Hawley knows a great deal more about this subject than you ever will, which God knows isn’t difficult, I haven’t sought to rely on anything he has said, and if you think I have then you can produce it and show it to everyone. All I have done is to observe that in response to Mike’s lengthy and detailed post, you wrote: ‘I give up with you people that research is not from official sources so it must be hearsay.’ To which I said, correctly, that you think hearsay diminishes a source so when you encounter anything in the sources you don’t like you dismiss it as hearsay, so ‘it’s hearsay when Littlechild says it, it's hearsay when Smith says it, and its hearsay when the newspapers say it, and self-seeking publicity when Tumblety himself says it, and the reports of Anderson requesting samples of Tumblety's handwriting is a journalistic invention because you think he would already have them.’

And whether Mike Hawley’s use of Smith may not have been correct, it’s significant that Wolf highlighted it, not you.

So go away and enjoy the day, Trevor. Give the pig's bladder a rest.

[Jonathan H]

Two thoughts on the so-called Loftus version.

I subscribe to the Evans-Rumbelow theory (2006) that he's just plain wrong because the Cutbush ref. makes no sense; his memory having been contaminated by Cullen's book, and therefore an unreliable source.

The real third version of the 'memo' is Macnaghten's memoir chapter as he has obviously adapted 'Aberconway' for public consumption - and under his own name.

On the other hand Loftus might be recalling accurately?

I don't think so, but this could represent Macnaghten's raw first draft as to how to deal with 'The Sun' and the Home Office: via inlcuding Cutbush as a suspect but one of three. Plus using Pizer, a genuine 1888 suspect, and turning Montague into Michael Druitt (the first name borrowed from Ostrog?) As in, this is his first draft at mixing fiction with fact.

He thought better of it, and instead made Druitt into a might-be-a-doctor and Cutbush as definitely never a Ripper suspect.

As I say I think this is less likely as I don't believe Mac would have been so politically inept as to concede Cutbush as a suspect at all.

[Trevor Marriott]

Mr Begg
Again you throw down the gauntlet and again I pick it up and again the sabre rattling commences.

Jon,
Littlechild does not say Tumblety was 'arrested as a Ripper suspect', he says he was suspected of being Jack the Ripper, which aredifferent things. and Littlechild specifically states that 'Tumblety was arrested at the time of the murders in connection with unnatural offences'. What is being discussed here is a statement that Tumblety was suspected.

And not forgeting any grounds for his suspicion, and I am still waiting or you or anyone else to disclose them

It isn't too far of a stretch to suppose that when arrested on the indecency charges that he would have been questioned about his whereabouts at the time of the murders. In fact, it could even be argued that Tumblety was arrested on the indecency charges so that he could be questioned about the murders. In fact, one might even go so far as to argue that this is what did happen and was what gave rise to the US newspapers and Tumblety's own claim that he was arrested in connection with the Ripper crimes.

Your post clearly shows you are so out of touch with reality and I cant be bothered anymore but if i were you I wouldnt waste anymore time on trying to prove Tumbelty was a police suspect.

I also notice that Wolf Vanderlin posted something yesterday which kicks into touch part of what you and Mr Hawley seek to rely on, and the silence from him has been deafening ever since.

I must buy Mr Vanderlin a drink when i next see him


.

[PaulB]

It's possible, but since both versions of the Mac Report clearly differentiate between a Russian doctor and an English doctor (or might be a doctor?) who drowned himself in the Thames, I think it is more likely that Thompson has half-remembered bits and pieces of Sims.

Probably the Le Queux mythos has also contaminated his recollection.

Yes, it does. Although he could be misremembering and conflating names in the MM, much as what's his name remembered Cutbush named as a Ripper suspect in the MMD when the MM was written specifically to exonerate him.

[Jonathan H]

It's possible, but since both versions of the Mac Report clearly differentiate between a Russian doctor and an English doctor (or might be a doctor?) who drowned himself in the Thames, I think it is more likely that Thompson has half-remembered bits and pieces of Sims.

Probably the Le Queux mythos has also contaminated his recollection.

[PaulB]

Did he ...?

He seems to have fused Druitt and Ostrog: a Russian medico who took his own life.

This of course, again, suggests that the Mac Report -- official version -- was unknown to officialdom, or at least a dormant document so Thompson had to rely on a flailing memory.

It is also, a consequence, I argue of Mac's too opaque 1914 memoirs.

Dr. Pedachenko was William Le Queux's Rasputin-inspired fiction, from presumably an hoax document. The significance is that this flamboyant and bombastic best-selling author rejected the memoirs of Anderson and Macnaghten, and the writings of Sims to reboot the Ripper as an unsolved mystery -- which he had solved.

He was the first to do this, and would not be the last.

Thompson wrote:
'The belief of CID officers at the time was that [the Whitechapel murders]
were the work of an insane Russian doctor and that the man escaped arrest
by committing suicide at the end of 1888.' He had earlier referred to this theory in Radio Times where he referred to the doctor as a student and the suicide as drowning in the Thames.This is clearly an amalgam of Ostrog and M.J. Druitt. So arguably Thompson was aware of the Macnaghten Memorandum or something based thereon, but I don't really see why it is necessary to suppose that Thompson had any knowledge of or interest in the Ripper case. He was busy carving out his own empire, fantasising about espionage and Thelma de Lava. Well, maybe not the latter.

[Jonathan H]

Did he ...?

He seems to have fused Druitt and Ostrog: a Russian medico who took his own life.

This of course, again, suggests that the Mac Report -- official version -- was unknown to officialdom, or at least a dormant document so Thompson had to rely on a flailing memory.

It is also, a consequence, I argue of Mac's too opaque 1914 memoirs.

Dr. Pedachenko was William Le Queux's Rasputin-inspired fiction, from presumably an hoax document. The significance is that this flamboyant and bombastic best-selling author rejected the memoirs of Anderson and Macnaghten, and the writings of Sims to reboot the Ripper as an unsolved mystery -- which he had solved.

He was the first to do this, and would not be the last.

[harry]

Sir Basil Thomson replaced Macnaghten in 1913,so argueably would have had access to any information,of an official nature,that had been available to those who were involved in the Ripper killings.So why,as has been reported,did he favour Alexander Pedachenko to have been the ripper?

[PaulB]

I agree with everything in Paul's previous post.

I just wish to add that Christian monks copied and recopied the voluminous works of Flavius Josephus partly because his two, brief references to Jesus the Christ provided non-Christian evidence of their Lord's historical existence.

In fact, the much stronger argument is that the two references are crude, Christian forgeries from the Fourth Century by Bishop Eusebius, and that Josephus never referred to Jesus (or his relations), either because the saviour was such an obscure figure (he was allegedly crucified alone unlike other rebels, such as Spartacus) or did not exist at all, or 'Jesus of Nazareth' is a myth though inspired by a real figure, such as the mad prophet Jesus Ben Ananias (who was killed by a Roman catapult during the siege of Jerusalem).

For one thing, none of the early, pre-4th Century Christian fathers, who were familiar with Josephus' works, use what we call the 'Testimonium Flavianum' in their defence of the historicity of Jesus against Pagan scepticism.

Thanks for that. Even though it is Easter, that might not be sufficient justification for going way off topic to discuss the historicity of Jesus. Indeed, some might consider such discussion to be inappropriate! You are right that there is huge argument about the Testimonium Flavianum, as inevitably there would be, but whether it is wholly or partly an interpolation by or before Eusibus (or not an interpolation at all) is questioned, especially as Origen may have seen something relating to Jesus, albeit not the whole passage as we have it. It further illustrates the point, however, that Josephus isn't discarded as 'worthless' simply because there is questionable or even highly doubtful material in it, or, as happens quite a bit, because we don't understand what it is telling us.

[Jonathan H]

I agree with everything in Paul's previous post.

I just wish to add that Christian monks copied and recopied the voluminous works of Flavius Josephus partly because his two, brief references to Jesus the Christ provided non-Christian evidence of their Lord's historical existence.

In fact, the much stronger argument is that the two references are crude, Christian forgeries from the Fourth Century by Bishop Eusebius, and that Josephus never referred to Jesus (or his relations), either because the saviour was such an obscure figure (he was allegedly crucified alone unlike other rebels, such as Spartacus) or did not exist at all, or 'Jesus of Nazareth' is a myth though inspired by a real figure, such as the mad prophet Jesus Ben Ananias (who was killed by a Roman catapult during the siege of Jerusalem).

For one thing, none of the early, pre-4th Century Christian fathers, who were familiar with Josephus' works, use what we call the 'Testimonium Flavianum' in their defence of the historicity of Jesus against Pagan scepticism.