Suppose a City PC did see something near Mitre Square

[Phil H]

seriously, COULD it have been a well-known foreigner, but not Jewish? Thus the description?

In 1888 the word "foreign" was mainly a synonym for "Jewish" so far as i am aware.

In the politically ICORRECT 1880s there were precise words for many non-British groups - you'll find many of them in the Sherlock Holmes books - words like lascar, levantine, wog, oriental, eastern, as well as specific (and now not quotable) words for people of African descent etc etc.

Phil

[pinkmoon]

I think we most agree this story is not true it's the most obvious answer boring I will admit but the right one

[Lechmere]

Jonathan

If I take you literally ‘No, not at all’ means that you think that:
Macnaghten thought it was true that the man seen by the City PC was Kosminski and not Druitt;
Macnaghten didn’t want to mask Montague Druitt’s guilt;
The Druitts were of no significance to the Conservative Party; and
The City PC story was not a lie and accordingly Macnaghten did not originate it nor spread it.

Is that you stance?
Or are you going all coy on this.

My take on the supposed City PC ID is that it is a localised urban myth that went around the police force and spread from there. I would suggest this myth matured through gossip over several years until it became a perceived as the truth.

The story is not mentioned in the February 1894 version of the Macnaghten Memorandum.

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).’
The identity of the murderer, who was only possibly seen, was not even hinted at.
Jonathan you incorrectly stated that:
‘Macnaghaten had written a second version of his 'Report' in which a PC sees maybe 'Kosminski' with Eddowes.’

In 1898 Griffiths said:
‘This man (the unnamed but obviously Kosminski suspect) was said to resemble the murderer by the one person who got a glimpse of him - the police-constable in Mitre Court.’
Clearly Griffiths' only source for information was not the Aberconway version as he provides extra information – the person seen by the City PC was said to resemble the ‘Polish Jew, a known lunatic’ which is presumed to be identical to Kosminski. Griffiths would be a poor historian if he relied on one source for his information, so maybe he fleshed out the details about the City PC from someone other than Macnaghten, with Anderson being the obvious source.

Are you going to suggest that Macnaghten deliberately fed this disinformation to Anderson – in which case we are back to square one and you are reneging on your ‘no not at all’ response.

[Lechmere]

The City PC story possibly had its genesis in this probably inaccurate early news story from the Derby Daily Telegraph, of 1st October 1888:
‘indeed one of the policemen who saw the body [Eddowes] in the mortuary expressed his confident opinion that he had seen the woman walking several times in the neighborhood of Aldgate High Street...
The police theory is that the man and woman, who had met in Aldgate, watched the policeman [Watkins] pass round the square, and they then entered it for an immoral purpose.’
In 1905 Sagar of course also mentioned that a City PC saw someone of Jewish appearance coming out of Mitre Square.

[Jonathan H]

Reneging? Oh God, please don't let me be thought a reneger ...!

By 'not at all' I meant that your caustic and crude version of my theory is not valid.

I do not think that Macnaghten thought the Druitts were important, in themselves, to the on-going health of the Conservative Party.

It is simply that he was a compassionate man, and a bit of a 'lone ranger' at CID, and the Ripper was quite dead, and the Tories would hardly be helped by this solution coming out, not to mention the potential for ugly libel suits--so what to do?

Part of thre 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.

Can you imagine what it must have been like for Macnaghten when he discovered that the Druitt solution was not only strong, it was the solution! He had achieved--so he thought--some of his ambition about a case wtih which he was obsessed. He had found Jack, albeit too late.

By the way you are quite wrong about your notion of the cop seeing the fiend as an urban myth.

And Griffiths, who was not an historian at all, clearly used only Mac's alternate version of his Report.

This is obvious because it was an invention, deliberately or not, of Macnaghten's. I think it was to hide what he believed was a sighting of Druitt by Lawende.

It also meant he could beef up the Polish Jew suspect, somewhat, by giving the false impression that he was being investigated in 1888, and might have been seen by a Bobbie (and addingthat he hated all women, not just harlots--all females are in danger)m and was sectioned soon afterwards.

None of those bits of data are true and I think Macnaghten knew they were not true.

You are also mistaken in thinking that 'Aberconway' does not make it clear that it there may gave been a sighting of 'Kosminski' near the scene of a murder.

This is from 'Aberconway', wherein Macnaghten knows that the Polish suspect is very much alive:

'No. 2 Kosminski, a Polish Jew, who lived in the very heart of the district where the murders were committed. He had become insane owing to many years indulgence in solitary vices. He had a great hatred of women with strong homicidal tendencies. He was (and I believe still is) detained in a lunatic asylum about March 1889. This man in appearance strongly resembled the indivdual seen by the City P.C. near Mitre Square.'

[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).

[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]

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).

[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]

[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.

[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?

[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

[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 Phil H,

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

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