Suppose a City PC did see something near Mitre Square

[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]

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,

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

[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.

[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

[Phil H]

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.

Are you being elitist now Simon, and arguing that somehow those of you who publish articles are books are better than the rest of us, or have somehow passed a "manhood test"? Come off it.

...until you lay out your argument in a coherent article

But as I said in my previous post - I don't have an argument!!
I was simply picking up on a factual point you made. You then sought to wriggle and misrepresent what I said. I reiterated my POINT, I did not argue anything.

I have said elsewhere Simon that I enjoyed your articles, I don'ty agree with your arguments, but you write well. I admire people - such as you - who have the time to do that, but for me JtR is just one of a number of interests I have.

I am sorry to have annoyed you, but my POINT stands.

Phil

[Jonathan H]

By her own admission in 1966 Lady Christabel Aberconway was estranged, to out it mildly, from her three siblings.

Had she not covertly made a copy of her father's document we would would not have even a copy.

The so-called 'Donner' version is I believe not real and is a part of this enmity and rivalry.

Simon Wood rasies an important concern: why would Macnaghtenw rite two different versions of the same document within days. The 'Averconway' copy of the so-called draft does not read like a draft.

In my opinion Mac either wrote it in 1884 with the official version, but not as a 'draft' but an alternate to be disseminated to the public via reliable cronies.

Or he re-wrote the official version in 1898, with the appearance of having written it in 1898 in order to mislead Major Griffiths (who remained sceptical ot ifs contents and claims.)

This is because, whether it was written in 1894 or later, it is writer-friendly in a way the official version is not. The content of the filed version, re: the three suspects, has been sexed-up for the public (and Macnaghten adn the druitt family have swapped places as to who was certain about what).

It is the 'Aberconway' version, and not the filed version, whose contents had enormous influence on the Ripper story between 1898 and 1923.

[Phil H]

Simon Wood rasies an important concern: why would Macnaghtenw rite two different versions of the same document within days. The 'Averconway' copy of the so-called draft does not read like a draft.

In your view, Jonathan. You cannot be certain of that.

In the days of handwritten documents, it is more likely that there were drafts than not.

In my opinion Mac either wrote it in 1884 with the official version, but not as a 'draft' but an alternate to be disseminated to the public via reliable cronies.

I'm pleased to see you label that as your OPINION.

Or he re-wrote the official version in 1898, with the appearance of having written it in 1898 in order to mislead Major Griffiths (who remained sceptical ot ifs contents and claims.)

So we have to assume conmspiracies, obfuscation etc etc - why not plump for the simplest explanation? Except that would not tie in with and support your convoluted and entirely imaginary thesis!

This is because, whether it was written in 1894 or later, it is writer-friendly in a way the official version is not.

One of the points about OFFICIAL DRAFTING is that things may go in as you write initially which then need to come out. What you are seeking to explain is exactly what a civil servant (like me) would expect to see.

Phil

[Jonathan H]

You don't know what you are talking about Phil H., or rather you are mis-applying professional knowledge which narrows your understanding of these sources.

Macnaghten wrote a document, twice, which was deceitful in both versions, because he gave the false impression that Druitt was a police suspect in 1888, before he killed himself. In his 1914 memoirs he admitted this was not true.

Something you will never get, becasue it suits your counter-polemoc not to, is that my theory--convincing or not--grew out of the surviving sources, not the other way round.

The version he showed the cronies was not just the one that was handy, eg. the draft as opposed to the filed version, it was the one they would accept as definitive because the suspects were sexed-up and he falsely told them that it was a definitive document of state (though I realise now I was wrong to argue that Sims was misled; he knew it wasa mixture of fact and fiction and thus not archived at the Home Office.)

[Phil H]

Of course I don't know anything , Jonathan!!

I just did the job for a lifetime!! That clearly doesn't count for anything compared to your "insights and inventions".

Have it your way. Others can judge for themselves.

Phil

[Jonathan H]

That's not an answer.

You raised questions. I answered them as best I could. You do not deal with them.

[Phil H]

I did not raise questions - I dealt with a factual point originally in response to something Simon Wood had posted.

You told me that my professional judgement was not good enough, and I effectively told you what you could do with your opinion. I was not constructing an argument, or responding to anything other than your attempt to refute what I had written. End of story.

My response was far better than you deserved in my opinion!

I stand by what I wrote.

Phil

[Jonathan H]

... And that's not an answer either.

You over-rely on your professional experience as a civil servant, as if that is really comparable to an upper crust, Victorian police administrator who reinvented himself from an Indian plantation overseer into a roving sleuth.

But that aside, where you end up in a ditch with all this is that you will not face that Mac, a civil servant, is--shock! horror!--misleading his readers in a document for file (though nobody read it) and misleading the public via its non-identical twin, which he anonymously disseminated to the public as a definitive document of state.

Let's look at another example.

Macnaghten propagated to the public that there was supposedly a Russian doctor who was a homicidal lunatic, a hater of women, who carried surgical knives, and was a major Ripper suspect (one of four) whose whereabouts at the time of the murders was unknown, but who was later in an asylum abroad.

Behind that bit of prankish fun is Michael Ostrog who was not a real doctor, actually quite a charmer of the ladies, did not carry surgical knives, was not a major Ripper suspect and who was in an asylum abroad at the time of the murders (Macnaghten did not know that when he wrote the filed version of his Report, in 1894, but he definitely knew it when he briefed Major Griffiths in 1898 still hustling this 'suspect').

By the way I get private emails too, to the effect that under no circumstances must I back down in the face of posters like you.

[Lechmere]

I think Swanson wrote at least three separate and detailed reports on 19th October 1888 for the Home Office - the references are:
HO 144/221/A49301C, ff. 129-34
HO 144/221/A49301C, ff. 137-45
HO 144/221/A49301C, ff. 148-59

It would have been somewhat easier to prepare two versions of essentially the same report on the same day - a walk in the park to an Old Etonian. There is no reason to suppose that the Aberconway version wasn't simply a draft that was toned down for official consumption.

[Jonathan H]

Not so

This was one of the first things I ever noticed had been missed by many secondary sources (Stephen Knight is sort of an exception).

In the 'Aberconway' version everything is hyped.

In the filed version everything is much more restrained.

Except for one critical aspect.

In the so-called 'draft' the family only 'suspect' that Druitt is the Ripper, and that he was a sexual maniac is only an 'allegation'.

We would expect that this bit of restraint would stay the same, if not be even more diluted in the filed version.

Instead, in the midst of restraint, Macnaghten amplifies the evidence against Druitt (though supposedly there is not even the shadow of proof to have arrested him, a lie in both versions as he was long dead) by having the family 'believe' in his culpability and to assert, for file, that he definitely got off on ultra-violence.

The family believed he was Jack the Ripper because he was Jack the Ripper, so the family believed ...

Oh, and it's possible Druitt was not a doctor as this was only hearsay information.