Littlechild Ltr Survey Complete - Absent Bias?

[mariab]

Tom, are you referring to the Andrew Cook book? Which apparently mentions Best without revealing his source for this, AKA the none too accurate and often inventive Nigel Morland.

Pertaining to Bulling we have Littlechild's statement that “It was generally believed at the Yard that Tom Bullen {sic} of the Central News was the originator but it is probable Moore, who was his chief, was the inventor.“

[mklhawley]

Yes. I'm not saying I personally am convinced he wrote it, but there's some pretty good evidence on it, and I'm not sure the evidence against Bulling/Moore equals up. But I think it's pretty clear there was no concensus then or now as to who wrote the 'Dear Boss'.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

..and then Littlechild left the force a few years after the murders and joined in with William Pinkerton -a man who researched Tumblety in his early years and was convinced Tumblety had it in him to be the killer- doing other things. Littlechild brings up amazing detail about events that occurred 25 years prior. It looks like Littlechild was privy to the Scotland Yard discussions of the 'Dear Boss' letter, and it sounds like they were convinced back then.

By the way, thanks for looking at my non-ripper stuff. That was based upon 30 years of research and passion.

Mike

[Stewart P Evans]

No evidence

Yes. I'm not saying I personally am convinced he wrote it, but there's some pretty good evidence on it, and I'm not sure the evidence against Bulling/Moore equals up. But I think it's pretty clear there was no concensus then or now as to who wrote the 'Dear Boss'.
...
Tom Wescott

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that 'Best' wrote the 'Dear Boss' letter, or that there is any truth in his tale. In fact quite the contrary.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

It's interesting to note that George R. Sims and Charles Moore were regular guests at Melville Macnaghten's Corinthian dinners.

I wonder what they talked about as they passed the port.

Regards,

Simon

[mklhawley]

Hi All,

It's interesting to note that George R. Sims and Charles Moore were regular guests at Melville Macnaghten's Corinthian dinners.

I wonder what they talked about as they passed the port.

Regards,

Simon

My guess is knowing that Macnaghten had what Sims wanted (the Whitechapel murders case file and the information it contained), Macnaghten was in control of any ripper discussions. I'm sure there was a feeling of power Macnaghten felt by telling the famous reporter, "I'm not at liberty to say, but believe me..."

Or he may even have said, "That information is classified, since it falls under the control of Special Branch...you remember; Chief Inspector Littlechild's division."

Mike

[Simon Wood]

Hi Mike,

Do you think Sims might have asked Macnaghten where Major Griffiths got his information?

Regards,

Simon

[Hunter]

This may be off topic.. but...

Yes. I'm not saying I personally am convinced he wrote it, but there's some pretty good evidence on it, and I'm not sure the evidence against Bulling/Moore equals up. But I think it's pretty clear there was no consensus then or now as to who wrote the 'Dear Boss'.

Actually, there appeared to be more of a consensus between several of the top officials in regards to the author of the 'Dear Boss' letter than much of anything else. Littlechild and Anderson referred to a certain journalist being involved (Littlechild names him) and Swanson, in his notations in Anderson's book, confirms Anderson's statement and adds that the author was known to certain high ranking individuals at the Yard. I believe they were talking about the same journalist.

[mklhawley]

Hi Mike,

Do you think Sims might have asked Macnaghten where Major Griffiths got his information?

Regards,

Simon

Here's what Sims reported on April 5, 1903:
"I am betraying no confidence in making this statement, because it has been published by an official who had an opportunity of seeing the Home Office Report, Major Arthur Griffiths, one of Her Majesty's inspectors of prisons."


The possible concern about betraying confidence might be MacNaghten's.

Mike

[Simon Wood]

Hi Mike,

If there actually was a Home Office Report, why would Littlechild think Major Griffiths "probably got his information from Anderson who only 'thought he knew'"?

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

To Simon

Because Sims may have written to Littlechild, as he had done in public in 1903, that the [un-named] Commissioner's Home Office Report was definitive on the Ripper's identity -- on this 'Dr D' being the likely fiend.

Littlechild knew that Anderson had been part of the unsatisfying hunt for Tumblety, and naturally he knew that he had been Commissioner.

He thought that Sims was referring to the former Commissioner Sir Robert Anderson.

Littlechild knew Anderson to be very egocentric, and if he told Griffiths that this 'Dr D' was definitely the Ripper, well, he 'only thought he knew' leaving open the possibility that 'Dr D' was a red ehrring, or that he did not exist ('never heard of ...'), or is a self-serving mishmash of the real chief suspect, Dr. Tumblety (the surnames' initials are phonetic cousins).

What Littlechild did not know and could not know was that Sir Melville Macanghten, who only became Commissioner in 1903, was the author of a 'Home Office Report' about a case prior to his joing the Force.

This is because of the somewht clumsy, and thus misleading way, Sims wrote of the Commissioner's Report in 1903.

This this document was seen by Major Griffiths, and which was allegedly definitive about not Dr T but rather this Dr D.

That they really are separate individuals; separate 'suicided' doctors (actually one was a doctor but had not commited suicide, while the other had sucided but was not a doctor).

Druitt did not come to Mac's attention until 1891, at the earliest, and so of course Littelchild knew nothing about him.

What neither Griffiths and Sims knew, I do not think, was that this copy of a hallowed 'Home Office Report' (actually 'Aberconway') had never been sent to that dept., had no bureaucratic status, was not definitive to the government ot law enforcement, and in fact did not match the same doument which lay dormant in Scotland Yard's archives -- written in 1894, not 1888 -- regarding Druitt's Ripper status, and was even unsure if he was a doctor.

Mac-the-Smoothie sat with these gentlemen in their clubs and at their dinners, and their garden parties, as they went on useless tours of Whitechapel, and he pulled the strings as to what he wanted them to know, and what he wanted them to report to the public.

Jack Littlechild lifted the veil on these shenanigans, but he had the wrong police chief whom he thought was behind them ...

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

Just as a point of order, neither Anderson nor Macnaghten became Commissioner.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

To Simon


Yes, I should have written 'Assistant Commissioner' rather than 'Commissioner', as that is what I meant.

And the rest of the argument? You think it is torpedoed?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

Both Sims and Abberline referenced the Home Office file, but I personally feel it's a bit of a red herring.

I've always found it odd that Sims' rebuttal of the dismissive remarks by the "ex-Inspector" regarding the drowned doctor suspect appeared two days before Abberline was quoted in print.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

To Simon

I am not sure I understand, though God knows I hoipe you are rgiht, as it buttresses my theory!

Here's Abberline, touchngly trying to get in tiuch with Macnaghtem not realising -- as how could he -- that he is the orchetrator of the 'drowned doctor' mythos:

Pall Mall Gazette
24 March 1903

'Should Klosowski, the wretched man now lying under sentence of death for wife-poisoning, go to the scaffold without a "last dying speech and confession," a great mystery may for ever remain unsolved, but the conviction that "Chapman" and "Jack the Ripper" were one and the same person will not in the least be weakened in the mind of the man who is, perhaps, better qualified than anyone else in this country to express an opinion in this matter. We allude to Mr. F. G. Abberline, formerly Chief Detective Inspector of Scotland Yard, the official who had full charge of the criminal investigations at the time of the terrible murders in Whitechapel.

When a representative of the Pall Mall Gazette called on Mr. Abberline yesterday and asked for his views on the startling theory set up by one of the morning papers, the retired detective said: "What an extra- ordinary thing it is that you should just have called upon me now. I had just commenced, not knowing anything about the report in the newspaper, to write to the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mr. Macnaghten, to say how strongly I was impressed with the opinion that 'Chapman' was also the author of the Whitechapel murders. Your appearance saves me the trouble. I intended to write on Friday, but a fall in the garden, injuring my hand and shoulder, prevented my doing so until today."

Mr. Abberline had already covered a page and a half of foolscap, and was surrounded with a sheaf of documents and newspaper cuttings dealing with the ghastly outrages of 1888.'

Here is Sims' rude and pompous rebuttal:

March 29, 1903, Dagonet, 'The Referee'

'Severino Klosowski is occupying the cell in which the late Mr. Edgar Edwards spent his last days. Edwards, when he was awaiting trial, was very interested in the Chapman case. His remark to a warder, who had told him the latest evidence at the police-court, was "He is a hot 'un, ain't he?"

I was rather surprised to find high-class newspapers suggesting

Chapman as 'Jack the Ripper."

"Jack" was a homicidal maniac. Each crime that he committed was marked with greater ferocity during the progress of his insanity. How could a man in the mental condition of "Jack" have suddenly settled down into a cool, calculating poisoner?

"Jack the Ripper" committed suicide after his last murder - a murder so maniacal that it was accepted at once as the deed of a furious madman. It is perfectly well know at Scotland Yard who "Jack" was, and the reasons for the police conclusions were given in the report to the Home Office, which was considered by the authorities to be final and conclusive.

How the ex-Inspector can say "We never believed 'Jack' was dead or a lunatic" in face of the report made by the Commissioner of Police is a mystery to me. It is a curious coincidence, however, that for a long time a Russian Pole resident in Whitechapel was suspected at the Yard. But his name was not Klosowski! The genuine "Jack" was a doctor. His body was found in the Thames on December 31, 1888.

Here is Abberline's next salvo:

Pall Mall Gazette
31 March 1903

'Since the Pall Mall Gazette a few days ago gave a series of coincidences supporting the theory that Klosowski, or Chapman, as he was for some time called, was the perpetrator of the "Jack the Ripper" murders in Whitechapel fifteen years ago, it has been interesting to note how many amateur criminologists have come forward with statements to the effect that it is useless to attempt to link Chapman with the Whitechapel atrocities. This cannot possibly be the same man, it is said, because, first of all, Chapman is not the miscreant who could have done the previous deeds, and, secondly, it is contended that the Whitechapel murderer has long been known to be beyond the reach of earthly justice.

In order, if possible, to clear the ground with respect to the latter statement particularly, a repre- sentative of the Pall Mall Gazette again called on Mr. F. G. Abberline, formerly Chief Detective Inspector of Scotland Yard, yesterday, and elicited the following statement from him:

"You can state most emphatically," said Mr. Abberline, "that Scotland Yard is really no wiser on the subject than it was fifteen years ago. It is simple nonsense to talk of the police having proof that the man is dead. I am, and always have been, in the closest touch with Scotland Yard, and it would have been next to impossible for me not to have known all about it. Besides, the authorities would have been only too glad to make an end of such a mystery, if only for their own credit."

To convince those who have any doubts on the point, Mr. Abberline produced recent documentary evidence which put the ignorance of Scotland Yard as to the perpetrator beyond the shadow of a doubt.

"I know," continued the well-known detective, "that it has been stated in several quarters that 'Jack the Ripper' was a man who died in a lunatic asylum a few years ago, but there is nothing at all of a tangible nature to support such a theory.

Our representative called Mr. Abberline's attention to a statement made in a well-known Sunday paper, in which it was made out that the author was a young medical student who was found drowned in the Thames.

"Yes," said Mr. Abberline, "I know all about that story. But what does it amount to? Simply this. Soon after the last murder in Whitechapel the body of a young doctor was found in the Thames, but there is absolutely nothing beyond the fact that he was found at that time to incriminate him. A report was made to the Home Office about the matter, but that it was 'considered final and conclusive' is going altogether beyond the truth. Seeing that the same kind of murders began in America afterwards, there is much more reason to think the man emigrated. Then again, the fact that several months after December, 1888, when the student's body was found, the detectives were told still to hold themselves in readiness for further investigations seems to point to the conclusion that Scotland Yard did not in any way consider the evidence as final."
And Sims let him have it again with both barrels:

April 5, 1903, Dagonet, 'The Referee'

'But that several correspondents have forwarded me news cuttings, and that two or three newspapers have inserted letters questioning my statement, I should not have alluded to

The Ripper Mystery

again. It is argued that "Jack" could not have drowned himself in 1888, because there were murders in Whitechapel in 1891. The last of the Ripper series was the Miller's-court horror, which occurred on November 9, 1888. The East End murders of later years were not in the same 'handwriting.

No one who saw the victim of Miller's-court as she was found ever doubted that the deed was that of a man in the last stage of a terrible form of insanity. No complete description was ever given to the Press. The details were too foully, fiendishly awful. A little more than a month later the body of the man suspected by the chiefs at the Yard, and by his own friends, who were in communication with the Yard, was found in the Thames. The body had been in the water about a month.

I am betraying no confidence in making this statement, because it has been published by an official who had an opportunity of seeing the Home Office Report, Major Arthur Griffiths, one of Her Majesty's inspectors of prisons.

I have the photographs of several of the victims taken after their murder, in my collection of criminal curiosities, and

I Was at One Time Myself Accused

of being the guilty person. Dr. Forbes Winslow will remember the man who came to him with my portrait, and who also went to the police and said, "That is 'Jack the Ripper."'

I told the story at the time and also how one night I was actually on the spot where a murder was committed a few hours later, having with me a black bag in which there was nothing but a long and murderous knife - a curiosity which the late Paul Meritt had given me, and which I had carried with me to the Pavilion Theatre in Whitechapel.

I have no time to argue with the gentlemen, some of them ex-officers of the detective force, who want to make out that the report to the Home Office was incorrect. But putting all other matters on one side, it is an absolute absurdity to argue that a cool, calculating poisoner like Klosowski could have lived with half a dozen women and put them quietly out of the way by a slow and calculated process after being in 1888 a man so maniacal in his homicidal fury that he committed the foul and fiendish horror of Miller's-court. A furious madman does not suddenly become a slow poisoner. "Jack the Ripper" was known, was identified, and is dead. Let him rest.'

So I am confused about the dates not matching?

On the other hand, you open up the possibility that my assumption that 'Commissioner' was just short-hand for Assistant Commisioner, was really another exaggertion and deflection by Mac.

That he told Sims that Griffiths had seen (or was he just told?) that the Commissioner had written a report for that dept. of state.

Notice how a perplexed Abberline says that if the police knew he was dead they would have told the public, not grasping that Sims is backed by Mac -- that this is the public being told, if at one remove (nor does he know that Anderson, in 1895, began openly talking about the locked-up lunatic suspect).

In Sims' last salvo he uses the report to the Home Office as his rump card, but refrains from repeating who exactly wrote it. Only that it is definitive.

Sims does however make it clear that the Ripper's 'friends' knew the terrible truth and were in touch with the Yard. For 'friends' read Druitt family, or a family member, whom I argue was in touch with just Macnaghten but not until 1891.

[Tom_Wescott]

Actually, there appeared to be more of a consensus between several of the top officials in regards to the author of the 'Dear Boss' letter than much of anything else. Littlechild and Anderson referred to a certain journalist being involved (Littlechild names him) and Swanson, in his notations in Anderson's book, confirms Anderson's statement and adds that the author was known to certain high ranking individuals at the Yard. I believe they were talking about the same journalist.

The consensus is that a reporter wrote it, but as you noted, only Littlechild gives a name, Bullen (Bulling) and then contradicts this himself by saying Moore was behind it (apparently not part of the popular Yard story). If I asked you why you believe Anderson and Swanson were talking about Bulling specifically, could you tell me? Many reporters would have been known to high ranking individuals at the Yard. And let's not forget that these policemen had SUSPICION, not evidence, or proof.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott