Littlechild Ltr Survey Complete - Absent Bias?

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Chris,

It's not that I just think it; it's based upon evidence. Firstly, the Special Branch ledgers show Littlechild's department was involved with the Whitechapel murders . . .

More correctly, the Special Branch ledgers mention the names of some people who were thought to have some involvement in the murders or were suspected at one time or another of having a link to the crimes. That's quite different from saying Special Branch actively investigated the Whitechapel murders. I don't believe they did. It's more that in doing their work investigating the Irish nationalists some suspects in the Ripper case came under their notice.

Best regards

Chris

[mklhawley]

Hi Chris,

Now is it not intriguing that the Brooklyn Eagle article connected Tumblety to the extreme branch of the Irish Nationalists a few years ago (prior to the Whitechapel murders). This would clearly indicate Special Branch had a dossier on Tumblety prior to the murders. If so, he being a Whitechapel murder suspect and having a Special Branch file AND Littlechild's comments seems to indicate Littlechild was involved and considered Tumblety a significant suspect. It certainly makes sense.

Mike

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Mike

I am sure that Special Branch viewed Tumblety as a person of interest prior to the Whitechapel crimes because of his connections with the Fenians and the fact that he so often moved from place to place in the United States and Canada as well as across the Atlantic. His mobility alone would have piqued their curiosity, I think.

Best regards

Chris

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hello Chris,

On reflection, I would add that it is likely that this was the opinion of Littlechild alone.

He does not mention the anyone else as holding said opinion; they are his words. On balance, I would not take this as being the consensus view.

In relation to Swanson and associates, I would say there is a massive difference between Littlechild and his 'hatred of women' comment (I mean, what did he do? rant on the street corner?!) and 2 senior police officers stating a man was identified: the former is cause and effect; the latter is fact.

[ChrisGeorge]

Hello Chris,

On reflection, I would add that it is likely that this was the opinion of Littlechild alone.

He does not mention the anyone else as holding said opinion; they are his words. On balance, I would not take this as being the consensus view.

In relation to Swanson and associates, I would say there is a massive difference between Littlechild and his 'hatred of women' comment (I mean, what did he do? rant on the street corner?!) and 2 senior police officers stating a man was identified: the former is cause and effect; the latter is fact.

Hi Fleetwood Mac

Littlechild could have been saying in essence, here's a guy that I know about from my Special Branch work who came under notice in 1888 as being a suspicious character and he was detained on charges of unnatural practices but also because he was thought suspicious enough to have done the murders. So in that sense Tumblety might have taken on more importance for Littlechild than others at the Met because he already knew about him.

What I am saying is similar between the pronouncements of the different police officers talking about various suspects is the tone, the certitude, the idea that it is a done deal that the information they are mentioning proves the guilt of the various men. There's a degree I think of self deception here as well as of "I know more than you do." I just think that it wasn't as cut and dried as they want people to believe.

All the best

Chris

[mklhawley]

Hello Chris,

On reflection, I would add that it is likely that this was the opinion of Littlechild alone.

He does not mention the anyone else as holding said opinion; they are his words. On balance, I would not take this as being the consensus view.

In relation to Swanson and associates, I would say there is a massive difference between Littlechild and his 'hatred of women' comment (I mean, what did he do? rant on the street corner?!) and 2 senior police officers stating a man was identified: the former is cause and effect; the latter is fact.

Sims certainly did not consider his opinion as less than anyone else's, he's the one asking Littlechild - a man with a personal relationship with high level members inside Scotland Yard. Roger Palmer convincingly demonstrated how Anderson solicited US chief's of police on information regarding Tumblety AND that Inspector Andrews crossed the Atlantic for the purpose of investigating and collecting information on Dr. T.

It was an embarrassment that a serious suspect slipped through Scotland Yard's fingers. Swanson and Anderson were directly incharge. If they commented upon Tumblety later, it would be like throwing pie on their own face. Littlechild did not have that concern.

For you to say his 'extreme' hatred of women in such a sarcastic and joking manner tells me it's affecting you emotionally and that's the source of bias. Do you really think a Chief Inspector and the head of an international detective agency would consider yelling at women on the corner as extreme hatred?

Besides, Littlechild was the one that stated his extreme hatred of women was a 'fact on record'. He didn't say it's my unimportant opinion. This is where you are minimalizing something we have no access to; Tumblety's dossier that had this information.

[Stewart P Evans]

Irish Associations

'It is this political dimension that helps to explain Tumblety's lawyers. Devlin and Drummond's association with the anglo-rouges has already been mentioned. The Irish associations of Tumblety's lawyers were also important. The doctor's Rochester roots are again significant in explaining his apparent popularity with the Montreal Irish community. The Irish were "the most restless of Rochester's citizens". Collections were taken to aid the struggle for Irish independence. The period of organization for the Fenian brotherhood was 1857-58, and the Rochester Daily Union and Advertiser was one of "the most vociferous" of the pro-Fenian newspapers. The Rochester paper gave coverage to the political situation in Montreal, and in particular to Thomas D'Arcy McGee's candidacy in 1857-58. Devlin himself was reputed to have had Fenian connections in the 1860s. It is not necessary to identify Tumblety as a covert Fenian organizer to understand how he could be taken as a representative of certain strands of Irish radicalism.' - Michael McCulloch, 1993.

[Jonathan H]

To Mike

What's wroing wwith some people here?

The bias is so thick!

Had nobody read Palmer's Andrews trilogy where he argues, meticulously persuasively, that Tumblety was a major Ripper suspect to Anderson, to Andrews, and obviously to Littlechild (I would throw in Macnaghten too, based on Tim Divall's 1929 comment).

Why is this all so frightening?

To Lynn

You're repeating a classic modernist bias, without foundation, about the drowned barrister.

Druitt was not an homosexual. rather his people believed he enjoyed killing harlots, and this was an extraordinary notion accepted and agreed to -- years later -- by two officers of the state.

[lynn cates]

clarification

Hello Jonathan. Sorry for not being clear. I do not accept that view of MJD. I was thinking in terms of hints from the MM.

Cheers.
LC

[Jonathan H]

To Lynn

There are no hints in any source by Macnaghten, or by a Mac source-by-proxy which hints or alludes or suggests that Druitt was an homosexual.

He was a 'sexual maniac' who enjoyed killing women engaged as street prostitutes, and then mutilating their remains. This was how he achieved some sort of orgasm.

The North Country Vicar tale of 1899, which I think is likely about Druitt, says that the Ripper was an 'epileptic' maniac, whereas Sims calls it a 'peculiar' mania and then describes the very symptoms which are true of 'epileptic mania as it was thought of at the time: homicidal, suicidal, furious, shrieking and raving.

The 'West of England' MP titbit makes no such reference to the 'son of a surgeon', and nor does the one primary source which asserts he was sacked from the lesser of his two vocations for 'serious trouble'.

You may not accept this 'view' of Druitt as a maniacal murderer, and that's your right, but it flies in the face of the people who were there, his family, and those who heard the full story just a few years later, including an MP, the people the MP told, and a police chief.

Of course it's terribly important that, here, this myth of Druitt as gay be perpetuated because the alternative ...

[mariab]

On page 189, Spiro mentions the 2002 discovery of the 1888-1892 MP Special Branch index books and mentions details of the Whitechapel murders and discusses the 'U.S. detective agency' involvement on a certain case. He also talks about the case involving the plot to assassinate Balfour.

It was apparently Macnaghten who at some point thought that the Ripper was the leader of a plot to assassinate Balfour, though I'm not sure where that quote comes from. (I'd endlessly appreciate it if someone could enlighten me on this.) This rumor is absolutely not a new element. As far as I'm concerned, a new element in Spiro Dimolianis' book is Patrick Tynan, the leader of The Invincible, one of the Irish Fenian type gangs.

Other than this Clutterbuck states that "requests for assistance in the USA were not made to other "state" police forces but to a private company; the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.
Where is it written "that Scotland Yard hired a private detective agency to assist in the Whitechapel killings"?

Simon Wood is absolutely correct, the highlighted part is written nowhere, neither in Clutterbuck nor in the ledgers. A uncorroborated rumour circulating states that the detective agency mentioned in the SB ledgers pertains to a “Nielson of Wealdstone“.

[Jonathan H]

To Mariab

Here is my interpretation-explanation of this contentious source, from my recent article, 'A Pair of "Jacks"', in 'The New Independent Review'.

A few weeks back Stewart Evans challenged this revisionist interpretation of the Balfour bogey as quite mistaken -- even a bit silly. As I understand Stewart's argument, he is saying that my claim of Browne misunderstanding Mac's memoirs -- to such an extreme -- is just not credible.

I would counter-argue that my essential point holds: that Browne never came across the Mac Report, official version, probably because it was filed in 1894, and the murders by then were seen as an event only happening in 1888.

... Finally, it must be remembered that the official
version of his Report was never sent, and presumably
never requested as the ‘Broadmoor’ Ripper scoop
fizzled out. There was no scandal, and the
Farquharson-Druitt tale was not rediscovered. We do
not know if Macnaghten would have even sent this
report, only that he chose to archive it, presumably in
1894.

'Sir Melville Macnaghten appears to identify the
Ripper with the leader of a plot to assassinate Mr.
Balfour at the Irish Office.’
(Begg, Fido & Skinner, p. 439, 2010)

The official version of the Macnaghten Report was
so obscure that when Douglas Browne came to
complete 'The Rise of Scotland Yard' (London: Harrap,
1956) he never, I argue, learned of its existence. For
if he had he would have seen that Macnaghten must
have changed his mind about chief suspects. He
makes no such claim because a closer reading of the
page the contentious line above is always quoted from
reveals that it is far more likely that Browne is
misinterpreting Mac’s opaque memoirs:

[Jack’s] identity is unknown to this hour, though
definite claims to the contrary have been made, and
numberless theories propounded. Sir Robert
Anderson, who succeeded Monro as Assistant
Commissioner, CID just after the second Whitechapel
murder, says that the murderer was a low-class
Polish Jew. According to Basil Thomson, “in the belief
of the police he was a man who committed
suicide in the Thames at the end of 1888,” and who
“had probably been at some time a medical student”.
A third head of the CID, Sir Melville Macnaghten,
appears to identify the Ripper with the leader of a plot to
assassinate Mr Balfour at the Irish Office.Where
experts disagree, there is a fine opening for fancy;
others have held that the Ripper was a sailor, a mad
West End doctor, and even a midwife(1). This last
theory is a fascinating one, but will not bear close
examination. The only points on which there is very
general agreement are that the murderer lived close
to the scene of his crimes, and that since these ceased
as unaccountably as they had begun, either ...'
[Emphases added]

The following is Browne's citation of Mac's memoirs at the bottom of his page:

(1.) W. Stewart, op. cit. Sir Melville Macnaghten, in 'Days of my
Years', quotes the following anonymous verse received at Scotland
Yard:
I’m not a butcher, I’m not a Yid,
Nor yet a foreign Skipper.
But I’m your own light-hearted friend,
Yours truly, Jack the Ripper.”

Browne is clueless that Macnaghten did not
disagree in his memoir with his successor’s notion of
a suicided fiend!? Notice that Browne quotes 'Days of
My Years' at one remove, via William Stewart’s 'Jack
the Ripper: A New Theory' (London: Quality Press,
1939). Macnaghten’s chapter is devoted solely to the
un-named Druitt but whose demise in the Thames is
withheld.

So how does a plot against Arthur Balfour, Chief
Secretary for Ireland between 1887 and 1891 (later an
Edwardian, Tory Prime Minister) get shanghaied into
this account?

It has been suggested that this ‘other’ suspect
might be the Ripper suspect and Fenien sympathizer,
with deep pockets, the Irish-American Dr. Francis
Tumblety (I think Macnaghten does allude to ‘Dr T’,
but not here.)

Far simpler and more likely is that Browne is
making the same mistake regarding the literary
flourish with which Macnaghten ended his chapter on
the un-named Druitt: ‘Laying the Ghost of Jack the
Ripper’ with the ‘Protean’ maniac almost omnipotent
against the un-named Assistant Commissioner, Sir Charles Warren, who resigned, and the un-named Home Secretary, Henry Matthews, who nearly did too:

'I incline to the belief that the individual . . .
committed suicide on or about the 10th of November
1888, after he had knocked out a Commissioner
of Police and very nearly settled the hash of one
of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of
State.'
(Macnaghten, p. 62, 1914)
[Emphases added].

Browne has, I argue, absorbed the mistake of
ex-policeman turned theorist, Edwin T. Woodhall, in
his 'Jack the Ripper: Or When London Walked in
Terror' (London: Mellifont Press, 1937) which
conflates those last lines of Macnaghten with Dr. Holt,
the so-called ‘White-Eyed Man’. Woodhall’s Snidely
Whiplash of a ‘suspect’ was supposedly arrested, then
dramatically escaped by literally punching a
Commissioner and threatening a Minister, and who
ends up satisfyingly mangled in the wheels of a
paddle-boat sailing on the Thames.

Browne has misunderstood the import of
Macnaghten’s memoirs — having not seen them at
first hand perhaps — and assumed that a ‘principal’
Secretary of State really was a target for the
Whitechapel fiend. Knowing of only one plot that
could fit the time-frame of late 1888, that against
Balfour which was aborted, Browne came up with,
well, nonsense. Anybody looking at the internal
version of Macnaghten’s Report — if you knew of its
existence — or carefully reading the same police
chief’s memoir, would realize the mistake (like
Odysseus, Macnaghten is also his own ‘No Man’ figure
whose memoirs were neglected then and are neglected
now).

'The New Independent Review' – Issue 1

I would also add that the men involved in the plot against Balfour hardly seem capable of being Ripper suspects, and nobody else claims that they were in the extent record.

On the other hand, I would add this qualification of my own theory.

Macnaghten is a slippery customer and I think he spent some of his time trying to figure out how to obscure Druitt, and this may have been an early experiment with such deflection.

More likely, Browne on a page devoted to memoirs has misundertood Mac's. He was not the first and he will not be the last.

[Barnaby]

I want to comment on the methodology of the survey and not Tumbletly as a suspect. As others have noted, the results of this survey - in the absence of appropriate controls - are almost a foregone conclusion. I suspect that similar results would be obtained if those not familiar with the case were given scenarios involving Druitt, Kosminski, Barnett, Kelly, Sicket, or any number of other suspects. This is the same phenomenon that many of us experienced when, new to the case, we read a suspect book and became convinced...until we read another suspect book and became convinced again...Unfortunately this still affects me!

It might be interesting if intelligent people naive to the case were given the best arguments put forward for - say - the top ten Ripper suspects and then asked to rank-order these suspects. While we have something like this on the website, most of us have knowledge/biases that contaminate our responses. Not that knowledge is a bad thing! This raises the question what is the purpose of asking the opinion of people not knowledgable of the case?

[Jonathan H]

The advantage of 'outsiders', so to speak, is that they are relatively and/or potentially free of bias.

When given a good look at the memoirs of Macnaghten and Anderson, at Sims' various writings, at Anderson's comments from 1888 through to 1910, at the Littlechild Letter and the newspaper reports about Dr T., at the 'West of England' MP titbit and the North Country Vicar tale, at Aaron Kosminski's limited medical info., at Cullen's deranged-social-reformer theory, at Evans' and Rumbelow's 'Sailor's Home' theory, and so on, the following is what usually happens:

Cullen's theory is dismissed as a sick, Marxist put-on, but Druitt is, to them, a very serious suspect because you have clubby-class incestuous interconnections between Druitt, Farquharson, and Macnaghten. Whether Mac's memory failed him, or it was all by design, is irrelevant. It's the 'certainty' that counts and was long-lasting (most think his memory was dodgy).

Jack Littlechild and the US newspaper reports leave then aghast that this tale was never found before 1993. That a retired, senior police chief wrote this is taken very seriously, although Tumblety seems way too flamboyant and eccentric to actually be the serial killer.

Aaron Kosminski always wins hands-down as the fiend, initially, as he was backed by such a senior policeman, and his reputable off-sider. That is until ... they discover that nobody else knows about this alleged slam dunk witness identification?! This strikes people as impossible. Such a story would have leaked like the proverbial sieve.

The other thing which torpedoes enthusiasm for this tale is that Anderson and/or Swanson seem to have no cognition that 'their' preferred suspect was out and about for years after the Kelly murder, let alone that he was not dead in the madhouse shortly after being sectioned.

I don't usually set this up as a party-piece.

It just evolves that way because I am writing a book and people ask how it is going? Then they want to know more, and they become absorbed into the contradictory material, because it is fascinating as a puzzle.

Look at us.

Sometimes though the personalities and private issues of the people come to the fore and it becomes quite competitive, like a Pinter play fueled by South Australian wine ...

[lynn cates]

not mainstream

Hello Jonathan. Again, I was not referring to homosexuality. I spoke about being outside the mainstream. Tumblety was homosexual; Kosminski masturbated. As you point out, MJD was considered a sexual maniac. All 3 were outside the Victorian sexual mainstream.

Cheers.
LC