Suppose a City PC did see something near Mitre Square

[Phil H]

Thank you.

I'm not much concerned with what people say about me on the face of the site, to be honest.

You should see the supportive PMs I get from lurkers and others. they make what I write well worthwhile.

Thanks again.

Phil

[Stephen Thomas]

Given time constraints, I doubt Macnaghten would have have written, "Personally, after much careful & deliberate consideration" in a draft version and then gone onto pen a definitive version.

With respect, a civil servant, seeking to achieve the right tone in a draft, might well include phrases that qualify or give a context to the finished document.

The phrase, Personally, after much careful & deliberate consideration contains two important elements that guide the reader in considering and understanding what follows:

A) Personally, - this makes it clear that the author is setting down his OWN opinion and not an official view arrived at through formal discussion or as the outcome of a committee or working group. To anyone reading the document years after the drafting of the document, that would be important.

Contrast what that word, personal, implies, contrasted to - "it is the considered view of officials" or "it is the view of myself, Dr Anderson and Mr Swanson..." or "Ministers have been advised that".

So, I believe that the word is important and would have reflected MM's concern to be clear - hence it would have been in his mind as he drafted.

B) after much careful & deliberate consideration - this clause makes clear that MM is not writing spontaneously, or "off the cuff". What he says is not a casual, throw away remark. He has pondered the facts and reached a conclusion only after mature reflection. Again, the clause orientates the reader in an important aspect of what they are reading. It would be a point the writer would want to ensure was included the final version.

Sorry to disagree, but I write as one who spent 37 years drafting official briefs, submissions, file notes and reports. These things are and were important. My initial training in drafting came from civil servants who still used the conventions that would have been familiar to MM.

Hello Phil

Some people have been slagging you off recently for your arrogant manner in your posts over the years but you do offer much to this strange field of study.

Your post quoted above is top notch stuff.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Phil H,

By now, you, an ex-Civil Servant, really should have learned to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.

From where did you get all that patronizing crap about me being embarrassed because it undermines what YOU [me] wish were the case.

As you appear to know everything about anything, let's not beat around the bush or have any more words until you lay out your argument in a coherent article for the Whitechapel Society, Ripperologist or Jack the Ripper Writers.

I look forward to your argument.

Regards,

Simon

[Phil H]

Changing the basis of the discussion, Simon?

Please don't bet your last brass farthing on the Donner version.

It is not really relevant to what I was saying. Read my post again:

If the version seen in India with Donner - which always sounded to me like preliminary notes - existed, he may have written THREE versions in one day.

So I qualified my sentence, and fully accept that the Donner version may not have existed. But my point was that to write two versions in one day is quite possible as is even more.

Which refuted the point you made and from which you are now seeking to divert attention.

What is troubling you about the Aberconway Version being subsequent to the February 1894 version?

NOTHING troubles me about the order in which the versions were written. I was responding to your statement:

Given time constraints, I doubt Macnaghten would have have written, "Personally, after much careful & deliberate consideration" in a draft version and then gone onto pen a definitive version.

My point was that he could well have done so. Your statement is thus IRRELEVANT to the ORDER in which the two manuscripts were written.

I am sure you understood what I had said without my having to explain it again. You are simply embarrassed to admit it because it undermines what YOU wish were the case.

Phil

[Simon Wood]

Hi Phil H,

Please don't bet your last brass farthing on the Donner version. At best it is a family myth which, by Christopher Monro's own admission, originated in unseen documents whose very existence is uncertain.

What is troubling you about the Aberconway Version being subsequent to the February 1894 version?

Regards,

Simon

[Phil H]

If the version seen in India with Donner - which always sounded to me like preliminary notes - existed, he may have written THREE versions in one day.

1) A sort of plan - as one might for an essay - arranging his facts, ensuring he would have a logical order, maybe marshalling his material;

2) a preliminary draft seeking to get the wording right and ensure tone, style and arguments are correct and clear; and

3) the file copy/fair copy - which will further refine the style, tone and text. (I detect a removal of some sentiments and material between 2 and 3 by which I infer that MM, on reflection, thought them inappropriate for the file version.)

I have often done three or more drafts in a day, indeed, in a couple of hours when something was wanted urgently by Minsiters.

I see no problem here.

Phil

[Simon Wood]

Hi Phil H,

Are you suggesting that Melville Macnaghten wrote both versions within four days?

Regards,

Simon

[Phil H]

Given time constraints, I doubt Macnaghten would have have written, "Personally, after much careful & deliberate consideration" in a draft version and then gone onto pen a definitive version.

With respect, a civil servant, seeking to achieve the right tone in a draft, might well include phrases that qualify or give a context to the finished dosument.

The phrase, Personally, after much careful & deliberate consideration contains two important elements that guide the reader in considering and understanding what follows:

A) Personally, - this makes it clear that the author is setting down his OWN opinion and not an official view arrived at through formal discussion or as the outcome of a committee or working group. To anyone reading the document years after the drafting of the document, that would be important.

Contrat what that word, personal, implies, contrasted to - "it is the considered view of officials" or "it is the view of myself, Dr Anderson and Mr Swanson..." or "Ministers have been advised that".

So, I believe that the word is important and would have reflected MM's concern to be clear - hence it would have been in his mind as he drafted.

B) after much careful & deliberate consideration - this clause makes clear that MM is not writing spontaneously, or "off the cuff", what he says is not a casual, throw away remark. He has pondered the facts and reached a conclusion only after mature reflection. Again, the clause orientates reader in an important aspect of what they are reading. It would be a point the writer would want to ensure was included the final version.

Sorry to disagree, but I write as one who spent 37 years drafting official briefs, submissions, file notes and reports. These things are and were important. My initial training in drafting came from civil servants who still used the conventions that would have been familiar to MM.

Phil

[Simon Wood]

Hi Bridewell,

The last installment of the Sun's "Cutbush" article appeared on Monday 19th February 1894.

Macnaghten's Memorandum was dated 23rd February 1894.

Given time constraints, I doubt Macnaghten would have have written, "Personally, after much careful & deliberate consideration" in a draft version and then gone onto pen a definitive version.

Regards,

Simon

[Bridewell]

The Aberconway version, which was presumably written at a later date, says:
‘No one ever saw the Whitechapel Murderer (unless possibly it was the City PC who was a beat near Mitre Square).’

Why would the Aberconway version be written at a later date? The wording is the same in most respects, so is it not more likely that one was a first draft and the other the finished article?

[Jonathan H]

Well I won't forget because I've never seen it before.

Australia!?

It's like what Tom Divall claimed Macnaghten told him, in his 1930 memoirs, that the murderer had fled to the States and died there in an asylum.

With echoes of Littlchild writing to Sims in 1913 and saying that Tumblety vanished abroad, 'believed' to have taken his own life.

[Chris]

Let's not forget what the Seattle Daily Times of 4 February 1905 said about Sagar's recollections (presumably quoting an as yet unidentified British source):
The theory of the city police is that "Jack the Ripper" was a butcher who worked in "Butchers' Row," Aldgate, and was partly insane. It is believed that he made his way to Australia and there died. "The police are satisfied as to the identity of the man," remarked the inspector, "but what became of him we don't know."
[my emphasis]

[Lechmere]

Jonathan
Regarding Sagar I'm referring to his account of a Jewish person leaving Mitre Square immediately before the body is found - not the Butcher's Row stuff.

Macnaghten - in his Walter Mitty mind is a super-cop.
Many of the policemen could not accept defeat and came up with their own solutions after the event - Sagar was no different.
Not surprisingly, as these solutions were unofficial and products of their own imagination, they do not agree with each other (save Swanson seems to be agreeing with Anderson in a subservient manner - if the marginalia is genuine of course).

[Jonathan H]

Saving the best for last--and in brackets.

Oh well, we must be grateful for crumbs I suppose.

Macnaghten shifted around the witnesses of the night of the double atrocity: the three Jews from the second murder site to the first and the Bobbie from the first to the second.

The Walter Mitty analogy is possible but I think it's over-stated. That character is a day-dreamer of derring-do, whereas Macnaghten had turned himself, for real, into a Super-cop.

The 1905 account of the 'City Press', purportedly of what Sagar said, is, I agree, very like what Macnaghten will concoct:

'The police realised, as also did the public, that the crimes were those of a madman, and suspicion fell upon a man, who, without a doubt, was the murderer. Identification being impossible, he could not be charged. He was, however, placed in a lunatic asylum, and the series of atrocities came to an end.'

The main theme being he must be the Ripper as no other murders were committed. That rules out Druitt and Kosminski in a stroke (no identification is possible and it's a private asylum).

This is echoed by implication in Anderson's memoirs and stated directly in the Marginalia.

There is nothihng here about surveillence.

That comes from here, lifted from one of Scott Nelson's fine essays:

'In his memoirs, retired City of London Police Inspector Robert Sagar reportedly said about the Jack the Ripper murders, “We had good reason to suspect a man who worked in Butcher’s Row, Aldgate. We watched him carefully. There was no doubt that this man was insane, and after a time his friends thought it advisable to have him removed to a private asylum. After he was removed, there were no more Ripper atrocities.” (Reynolds News, 15 September 1946.)

But when is this supposed to have taken place?

After the Kelly murder? After the Coles murder? Either way it does not fity Aaron Kosminski, surprise, surprise.

[Lechmere]

Caustic and crude?
Jonathan
I merely cut out the obfuscation and summed up your theory in a nutshell.

I agree with you here:
‘Part of the sterility of many debates is not appreciating that these were once real, living people who had all the strengths and weaknesses of real, living human beings.’

Yes I recognise Macnaghten’s faults – he was a Walter Mitty and a self-serving liar.
You think he was a liar but mixed it with some sort of philanthropy, who had a faultless elephantine memory (when he chose to employ it).

So you do think that Macnaghten invented the City PC sighting!
Presumably you think Sagar was influenced by Macnaghten as well?
(I will concede the point about the Aberconway version mentioning the Jewish aspect of the Mitre Square sighting).