Littlechild Ltr Survey Complete - Absent Bias?

[Stewart P Evans]

Statement

Well I thought as you know a thing or three you would know seeing as you mentioned that he had.
...

I didn't make that statement, someone else did. But at least I know that I know a bloody sight more about the case than you do.

[Trevor Marriott]

Do not try to be clever Trevor, it doesn't suit you.

It was suggested in the A To Z, a long time ago (twenty years ago in fact, the authors being well ahead of you in this field), that Browne (and he said so himself anyway) had been given access to the records at New Scotland Yard. That being the case the authors stated that Browne's statement that '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', 'cannot be casually dismissed.' They then point out Browne's very early access to the official files, the [reasonable] presumption that he saw documents which have since gone missing, and that there were Fenians aspiring to assassinate Balfour.

Extrapolating from that they state that Macnaghten, 'may have heard and recorded suspicion of a Fenian as the Ripper, prior to hearing the information that convinced him the Ripper was Druitt.' These, in my opinion, are reasonable statements and also tie in with Warren's contemporary idea (as far as it goes) of the identity of the Ripper.

Thank you for your answer it was most helpful

Perhaps the authors were ahead of me then but they seem to have fallen behind of late.

[lynn cates]

clarification

Hello Simon. I meant that, just as it was convenient for WHH, the darling of the Tories, to avoid a perjury trial by being warned and disappearing, so also it would not do for the WCM investigation to get too close to Red Jim. (If it had, the fact that he was in British pay might arise. Given his role in certain dynamite plots, that fact could prove embarrassing.) Hence, a good "theory" for the WC murderer needed to be found. Farqy "found" it.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

vote

Hello Simon. Lovely find. Permit me to cast a vote for MJK.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Sir Charles

Hello Mr. Evans.

"And why is this so bizarre? Warren's own theory was that a secret society (such as the Fenians) was responsible for the murders."

Thanks for pointing this out. Sometimes Sir Charles' view gets lost in the shuffle.

Cheers.
LC

[Fleetwood Mac]

Seems the problem is twofold, Stewart:

Those I label as 'Tumblety naysayers' are those who seek, at every opportunity, to say that he was not a suspect at all. And this is what you appear to be doing, for you are saying that you think that it was only Littlechild who did.

At no opportunity I have said Tumblety was not a suspect.

Taking into account all the other 1888 sources and information I should have thought that it was obvious that he was a suspect.

Hawley asked for opinions based solely on the letter, although he has moved the goalposts since, granted.

[Jonathan H]

To Stewart

We will just have to agree to disagree on that one.

Browne says that these chiefs disagreed but Mac did not disagree about Browne missed, possibly because he misunderstood the import of Mac's memoirs. He was certainly ignorant of the Mac Report official version, and thus ignorant altogether about Druitt whom Mac believed, rightly or wrongly, was the fiend 'some years after' he took his own life..

To Lynn

I think that in early 1891 Mac met with Farquy, shut him up, and then moved on to a discreet meeting with William Druitt. He was thus handed the entire tale, and it was one he found totally, painfully and perhaps unexpectedly convincing.

As the M.P. titbit implies, to merely hear the story is to be impressed, even to be convinced.

The titbit even hints at a confession, which is what I believe the 'North Country Vicar' tale pivots on.

The gentleman murderer confessed to an Anglican priest. Sims creates a mythical version, with the 'mad doctor' confessing his urges to physicians in an asylum -- prior to the murders.

Mac's temperament was to be charming and reassuring, to get Montie off the hook as a fellow Gentile gentleman. To get the family to see that they were mistaken somehow; that their anguish and 'belief' was unjustified -- for whatever reason. Perhaps grief and hysteria has led to this ludicrous conclusion?

Instead Mac did no such thing.

Rightly or wrongly he agreed with their terrible belief and their posthumous diagnosis of sexual mania.

His dlilemma, from an official point of view, was what then to do about this bombshell knowledge 'which came to me subsequently' (Mac, 1913) ...?

To Simon

That's right 'Remarkable Fiction', with the 'son of a surgeon' element nervously and awkwardly air-brushed into 'the son of a father with homicidal mania.'

You just don't get it, do you?

They were hedging their bets because the libel implications were so frightening -- so you call it fiction.

What the title 'Remarkable Fiction' confirms is my 'case disguised' theory; fictionalising is exactly how the Druitt tale will be dealt with seven years later when the story is relaunched by Mac via Griffiths and then Sims as the 'drowned doctor'.

Remarkable fiction indeed, in fact a classic work of fiction was borrowed for this libel-proof profile: 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'!

Or, as the unidentified North Country Vicar so astutely sums it up: 'substantial truth under fictitious form'.

And ...

The allegedly dodgy dates, you asserted about Sims and Abberline in 1903?

Still no response on that have you ...?

[mklhawley]

Seems the problem is twofold, Stewart:



At no opportunity I have said Tumblety was not a suspect.



Hawley asked for opinions based solely on the letter, although he has moved the goalposts since, granted.

Oh, contraire Mr (or Mrs) Mac,

You started that right on your first post.

I'm surprised anyone needs a survey.

The following is clear from the letter:

1) He was a suspect in Littlechild's mind.
2) He was a very likely suspect in Littlechild's mind.
3) Dr T was up near the top of the pile, but not alone, there were other 'favoured suspects'.
4) He goes on to explain why he feels he's a very likely suspect.
5) And the reasoning is weak, extremely weak, nowhere near enough to be convincing.

The following is not clear from the letter:

1) Whether or not 'amongst the favoured suspects' means this is his own opinion, or the consensus within police corridors.

Evaluating DR T's status from that letter alone:

1) He was among Littlechild's favoured suspects.
2) The reasoning is shockingly poor, and suggests the logic of a by gone age, which I suppose it was.

Your rhetoric is boring.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

I'm sorry. I didn't know a response was called for.

I merely thought it strange that Sims' remarks about Abberline and the drowned doctor theory came out a few days before Abberline's words appeared in print.

Any thoughts about the Ripper theory which appeared a month before Farquharson?

Regards,

Simon

[lynn cates]

meeting

Hello Jonathan. Thanks.

"I think that in early 1891 Mac met with Farquy, shut him up, and then moved on to a discreet meeting with William Druitt. He was thus handed the entire tale, and it was one he found totally, painfully and perhaps unexpectedly convincing."

Wish we knew more about this.

Cheers.
LC

[robhouse]

Any thoughts about the Ripper theory which appeared a month before Farquharson?

Hello Simon,

What theory would that be then?

Rob H

[Simon Wood]

Hi Rob,

Later Leaves, Volume II. Montagu Williams Q.C. January 1891—

"I have something to say in reference to the Whitechapel murders that I think will be read with interest by many of my readers.

"Without entering into the details of those horrible tragedies, I may mention that they all occurred within the Worship Street and Thames districts, and that, as I foresaw the possibility of the assassin, if arrested, being brought before me, I made it my business to personally visit all the scenes of the crimes, and to make what medical and other inquiries I thought desirable.

"As my readers are aware, the murderer has not been arrested; but a curious set of circumstances which tend, perhaps, to throw light upon the mystery came to my knowledge at the time.

"For excellent reasons, I shall abstain, at any rate at present, from entering into the details of this matter.

"It is not, however, that I lack the necessary permission of the person principally interested. He has placed in my possession all the documents relating to this matter, and has unreservedly given me permission to make whatever use of them I like. The reasons for my reticence are concerned merely with the interests of justice.

"I was sitting alone one afternoon, on a day on which I was off duty, when a card was brought to me, and I was informed that the gentleman whose name it bore desired that I would see him.

"My visitor was at once shown in. He explained that he had called for the purpose of having a conversation with me with regard to the perpetrator, or perpetrators, of the East End murders. He had, he said, taken a very great interest in the matter, and had set on foot a number of inquiries that had yielded a result which, in his opinion, afforded an undoubted clue to the mystery, and indicated beyond any doubt the individual, or individuals, on whom this load of guilt rested.

"My visitor handed me a written statement in which his conclusions were clearly set forth, together with the facts and calculations on which they were based; and, I am bound to say, this theory—for theory it, of necessity, is—struck me as being remarkably ingenious and worthy of the closest attention.

"Besides the written statement, this gentleman showed me copies of a number of letters that he had received from various persons in response to the representations he had made. It appeared that he had communicated his ideas to the proper authorities, and that they had given them every attention.

"Of course, the theory set forth by my visitor may be a correct one or it may not. Nothing, however, has occurred to prove it fallacious during the many months that have elapsed since the last of this terrible series of crimes.

"As I have said, I cannot take the reader into my confidence over this matter, as, possibly, in doing so I might be hampering the future course of justice. One statement, however, I may make, and, inasmuch as it is calculated to allay public fears, I do so with great pleasure. The cessation of the East End murders dates from the time when certain action was taken as a result of the promulgation of these ideas."

ENDS

February 1891—Farquharson.

Regards,

Simon

[Stewart P Evans]

Suggestion

To Stewart
We will just have to agree to disagree on that one.
Browne says that these chiefs disagreed but Mac did not disagree about Browne missed, possibly because he misunderstood the import of Mac's memoirs. He was certainly ignorant of the Mac Report official version, and thus ignorant altogether about Druitt whom Mac believed, rightly or wrongly, was the fiend 'some years after' he took his own life..
...

The suggestion here was not that Browne had seen Macnaghten's 1894 report but that he had seen an official report that subsequently went missing but which stated that the Ripper had been identified with the leader of a plot to assassinate Balfour. Which is, of course, possible. It is certainly more likely than your suggestion that Browne made the wrong interpretation of Woodhall's writings.

[lynn cates]

huh?

Hello Simon. Huh? Farqy wrote that?

Cheers.
LC

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lynn,

No. Farqy's story appeared a month after Williams' anecdote.

Regards,

Simon