Why did Macnaghten deny Cutbush as a serious suspect?

[White-Knight]

mac denial

just to summarize, get directly back to the question, say hello and work in my two pennies..possible reasons for the denial of Cutbush as a suspect:

1.embarrassment.. the sun, and Race were making claims..if true :VERY embarassing for him, for the law..hadn't they been bashed enough?

2.His own theory..ever increasing violence and likely suicide.they don't though do they, serial killers , they go on till they're caught or killed..usually.. although there are exceptions.or are there? long periods of inactivity could be long gaps in activity..couldn't they?

3.cover up..and conspiracy..masonic ties, protection of the Cutbush family and its police officer member and of the class to which they belong..unproven ..like most things! but highly plausible...Cutbush family lots of fingers in a lot of pies ..well known ,respectable, middle class, property owning,rigid class prejudice demonstrably proven in the merest scan of LVP. free masonry popular in the police officer class too..apparently! We don't know what Mac knew or thought he knew about the name connection.But the name IS the connection isn't it? Its enough.Possibly.

4.Ignorance..(links to 2.)paranoid schizophrenia unknown at least by this term at the time although it seems some in the know where able to differentiate between various types of insanity..and levels of danger..Race leading ..enough at least to determine what level of security was required ..not Mac though, by the look of it. love the parallel to Sutcliffe and the man from Newcastle.. highly plausible.

There's been speculation that Mac knew more on these boards.There's been speculation that possible witnesses knew very little..because that's what they said..very little. I think the opposite is the more likely.Mac had every reason to divulge.Possible witnesses had far less..I think.

On Tom...AP and Natalie have it for me.

Mac only strengthens the case for Cutbush by his dismissiveness..its gotta be down to one or more of the above hasn't it? Sure its a response to the Sun but is this all he's got!?.. a few nutters with little or no pre-disposition to violence? It's not that good really is it?

Tom's particular box of crackers still seems the best fit to me..thought so long before this thread, thought so more after AP and now with the first files..still think so.....it was him or "who". I'd bet my pretty bonnet on it.

Don't forget the drawings too y'all!

And the family? well..your story might change a bit as your mind ran amok in disbelief ,suspicion, conviction, horror, uncertainty,protectiveness, influence of others...etc etc....

long admired your anlysis and researches Natalie and you too AP ..and your rigour and resources Mr Evans..look forward to more on this avenue..don't want to sound a sycophant but i am, as a poster ,new here , and i gotta at least say thanks for giving me much free and interesting reading..wish i had more time to research more myself..I am not worthy....

thanks.I'll shut up now.

WK

[Robert]

Hi AP

Losing a father would indeed affect a child more than losing a brother (or in Thomas's case, never having had a father rather than losing him, since he couldn't have remembered his father). But just from the point of view of explaining Macnaghten's error, the brother/father mix-up might do. The way I read Macnaghten, he seems to be suggesting that Thomas's madness if anything was due to the syphilis. Or, as an alternative, inherited from his "excitable" mother and aunt.

[Cap'n Jack]

Nicely done, Robert, but I fear we disagree here.
The early death of a father is a far more influential factor than the early death of a brother. I lost three brothers myself, but only recently a father.
Macnaghten is implying that the early death of his father was a contributing factor to his madness, as it would have been, loss of male role model and all that, but he wasn't dead was he?
He was siring bastards down under.
No good news for Thomas all round.
My impression of Thomas tells me that he wouldn't have given a jot either way.
Too busy with the currant buns.

[Robert]

Hi AP

One explanation for Macnaghten's mistake about Thomas's father, might be that he had been reading the 1891 police reports, or talking to Race or McCarthy, and simply misread or misheard the word "brother" and substituted instead the word "father."

We know that Thomas had a younger brother, who died in infancy. Macnaghten's statement "his father died when he was quite young, and he was always a 'spoilt' child" seems to relate the spoiling to the death of the father - no fatherly discipline. But if the original police report said that his brother died when he was quite young and he was spoilt, then it still makes sense, since I suppose it's fairly normal for a mother who has lost one child to make a special fuss of the other one.

[Cap'n Jack]

How could Macnaghten, with all the sources available to him, have got the Thomas Cutbush story so wrong on the 23rd February 1894, when a newspaper half way across the world was able to get it so right on the 29th March 1894?
The 'Qu' Appelle Progress' from Canada:
'This man was born in 1863 in London. His father separated from his mother, whom he is said to have treated badly. In the case of the father, the morbid element appears in the ill-treatment of his wife, the neglect of his child, and finally in his flying from his responsibilities and in his contracting a bigamous marriage abroad. The boy was employed in several offices, but in none of them for a long time, and in nearly every case his dismissal came from some such irregularity as one would expect in the case of such a man. One of the worst of these irregularities was his constant irregularity of hours. He had begun at an early age that system of night walking and stopping in bed late in the mornings which finally developed into his turning night into day, and working under the protection of darkness his fiendish crimes. At the time when he committed the Whitechapel murders, this tendency had so far developed that he spent most of every day in bed, and it was not til 9 or 10 o'clock at night that he ever went forth.'

[Cap'n Jack]

Just to keep things neat and sweet, folks, I'll point out that I was having a gentle dig at Stewart by turning his argument on himself; and that it is not my belief that a person who commits suicide is insane.
However for the purposes of history it is worth pointing out that suicide or even attempted suicide was a criminal offence in the LVP; and the poor souls who survived the attempt often found themselves locked up in an asylum for the rest of their lifes.

[aspallek]

Having learned only minutes ago of the suicide of a former friend and colleague in the pastoral ministry reminds me that suicide is often in the mind of the victim a final "rational" act. My friend was was well-respected by his colleagues but was constantly re-buffed by a faction within his congregation, those he was trying to serve. I always considered him an extremely logical and pragmatic individual. Although he apparently left no note I suspect that he considered his final act to be perfectly rational despite the fact that he leaves a wife and two daughters.

Go figure.

[diana]

Sara, I have to post this. Your last comment has been niggling away at me.

Given what happened recently in Florida, I feel I must ask you if you were speaking in generalities about suicide, or if it was more personal than that.

If you feel more comfortable PM'ing me that's fine.

I probably have embarrassed you for nothing and made a fool of myself, but the alternative would be worse.

[Sara]

<< I suppose the crutch piece of the discussion has to be Executive Superintendent Cutbush's role in the entire affair.... I know you'll agree with me that the suicide of such a high ranking officer is an extremely rare event in the history of British policing. .....

You said earlier that a person who commits suicide must be insane.
Well Stewart, I couldn't agree more. >>


You are both quite wrong.

In many circumstances even to a well-balanced mind, suicide can be a totally rational reaction to a combination of life crises, some of them inflicting repeated agonies either mental or physical.

In many situations, including terminal illness associated with chronic pain, or desperate grief, it may appear to be the ONLY rational course of action.

[Natalie Severn]

Yes Andy,Tumblety is a serious suspect and I have not dismissed him.I believe he was probably a psychopath or sociopath.Another phrase they used to give for a psychopath was a "plausible rogue"----can you think of anyone who that term better fits than Tumblety? But whether he was the Whitechapel murderer or not is another matter.There would have to have been a reason for bumping off these women.Maybe they had all been in Sir Edward Jenkinson"s circle of "barmen and pavement artists" who were paid to go into pubs and pick up information from Fenians?
Druitt is different.But at the moment I am more interested in Cutbush though its possible both men thought they were Jack the Ripper----but neither of them were!

[aspallek]

Stewart,
He certainly does and ok,-as far as his superiors in the police force were concerned he was barking up the wrong tree.The problem with this is that I tend to see them all rather tied to their own theories---and unable to see the wood for the trees.Macnaghten seems to have had a theory whereby the ripper made a series of 5 attacks of increasing intensity to satisfy his sexual madness and deviancy,which culminated in the horrific events at Millers Court whereupon" his mind gave way and he committed suicide" the following day.Anderson conceived of a man with solitary "lower than a beast " habits,----here indeed is a strange vision taking shape in Anderson"s mind of a "foaming at the mouth lunatic" -"caged in an asylum"!But not one of them seem to have considered taking a deeper look at Thomas Cutbush"s mental condition---- not even when the Sun got hold of the story from one of their rank and file policemen.At this point they see only a [probably deteriorated] Thomas Cutbush who went out "jobbing" in Kennington in 1891! Macnaghten actually says so in his own words---re The Ripper "the fury of the mutilations INCREASED"---he even underlines the word "increased " for emphasis in his memorandum----this Cutbush chap ,by contrast- " was merely prodding women in the behind"-you can almost feel his exasperation though actually Cutbush was "stabbing" women with a "knife" and injuring them and drawing blood in Kennington streets but still,I agree, that in no way compares with Jack the Ripper"s activities in 1888 .
However, if instead of rejecting the candidacy of Cutbush on the basis of the 1891 "jobbing" crimes not comparing with JtR"s 1888 killing and mutilation spree, and considers instead the malignant and baffling nature of Thomas Cutbush"s illness ,one sees that what he got up to in Kennington in 1891 need not have had anything whatsoever to do with what he may have been getting up to in 1888......"the moving finger writes------he may have moved on to a totally different agenda by then!
Cheers
Norma

Norma,

I would only say that the notion of the killer's mind giving way resulting in his suicide immediately after the last murder pre-dates Macnaghten. Farquharson (MP from West Dorset) already in 1891, in what is clearly a reference to Druitt claimed that the Ripper was a "son of a surgeon" who committed suicide immediately after the last murder. I believe that Macnaghten's writing shows reliance on this assertion as he clearly struggles to reconcile Farquharson's timing of the killer's suicide with what he knows to be true of Druitt. Mac knows the timing of Druitt's death since he writes of his being found on 31 Dec after being in the water "upwards of a month." Sir Melville knows this does not add up to a suicide on 9-10 November yet he steadfastly preserves that notion in his writings even while pointing to Druitt as the most likely suspect.

Yes you are correct in that Macnaghten highlights three suspect types: the career criminal/con artist (Ostrog), the raving lunatic (Kosminski) which he got from Anderson, and that which he favors: the disturbed English gentleman (Druitt) fingered by his own MP. Where the suspicion of the career criminal/con artist came from is unclear. I will say, however, that Tumblety loosely fits this category and he was clearly a contemporary suspect.

[Stewart P Evans]

Insane

<< I suppose the crutch piece of the discussion has to be Executive Superintendent Cutbush's role in the entire affair.... I know you'll agree with me that the suicide of such a high ranking officer is an extremely rare event in the history of British policing. .....
You said earlier that a person who commits suicide must be insane.
Well Stewart, I couldn't agree more. >>
You are both quite wrong.
In many circumstances even to a well-balanced mind, suicide can be a totally rational reaction to a combination of life crises, some of them inflicting repeated agonies either mental or physical.
In many situations, including terminal illness associated with chronic pain, or desperate grief, it may appear to be the ONLY rational course of action.

I don't need anyone to describe the reasons for someone committing suicide to me. I have dealt with more suicides than I care to remember, my first one being in 1970 when I dealt with a terminally ill man who overdosed and slashed his wrists in bed. I was only 21 years old at the time. After that I dealt with many forms of suicide from various motives, including hangings, shotguns, and jumping in front of a train.

But, of course, anyone in a normal state of mind does not commit suicide. Suicide is committed when the balance of the mind is impaired. And you don't have to be a raving lunatic to be mentally unsound, temporarily or otherwise. Insanity is defined, inter alia, as being not of sound mind or irrational. Certainly it is not rational to kill oneself in the way that Druitt did and I made the reference to in relation to Druitt. There are degrees of insanity but I do not intend to get into a debate about it, nor to argue semantics.

[Cap'n Jack]

So all in all we have a situation in the early 1890's concerning the identity of Jack the Ripper, much like we had in the more modern hunt for the identity of the Yorkshire Ripper, with the most senior officer convinced that the culprit was of a certain type and location, whilst less senior police officers were convinced that the killer had already been in police custody for a lesser offence.
But only the most senior police officer has an official voice, with the less senior police officers having to resort to unofficial tactics to be heard.
This is all very common in even modern murder cases, as I conclusively demonstrated in the 'Myth' when I researched and wrote it in 1991.
Go back, read and absorb what I wrote all those years ago... and please do not try and maintain that my efforts had no impact whatsoever.
I dropped a fine bomb back then.
You boys are just beginning to absorb the dust.

[Natalie Severn]

Race seems to have had a real 'bee in his bonnet' over this theory.

Stewart,
He certainly does and ok,-as far as his superiors in the police force were concerned he was barking up the wrong tree.The problem with this is that I tend to see them all rather tied to their own theories---and unable to see the wood for the trees.Macnaghten seems to have had a theory whereby the ripper made a series of 5 attacks of increasing intensity to satisfy his sexual madness and deviancy,which culminated in the horrific events at Millers Court whereupon" his mind gave way and he committed suicide" the following day.Anderson conceived of a man with solitary "lower than a beast " habits,----here indeed is a strange vision taking shape in Anderson"s mind of a "foaming at the mouth lunatic" -"caged in an asylum"!But not one of them seem to have considered taking a deeper look at Thomas Cutbush"s mental condition---- not even when the Sun got hold of the story from one of their rank and file policemen.At this point they see only a [probably deteriorated] Thomas Cutbush who went out "jobbing" in Kennington in 1891! Macnaghten actually says so in his own words---re The Ripper "the fury of the mutilations INCREASED"---he even underlines the word "increased " for emphasis in his memorandum----this Cutbush chap ,by contrast- " was merely prodding women in the behind"-you can almost feel his exasperation though actually Cutbush was "stabbing" women with a "knife" and injuring them and drawing blood in Kennington streets but still,I agree, that in no way compares with Jack the Ripper"s activities in 1888 .
However, if instead of rejecting the candidacy of Cutbush on the basis of the 1891 "jobbing" crimes not comparing with JtR"s 1888 killing and mutilation spree, and considers instead the malignant and baffling nature of Thomas Cutbush"s illness ,one sees that what he got up to in Kennington in 1891 need not have had anything whatsoever to do with what he may have been getting up to in 1888......"the moving finger writes------he may have moved on to a totally different agenda by then!
Cheers
Norma

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Stewart for the materials you posted on Race today following Jake"s comments.Thanks to Chris too for this census material on Race.
Does anyone have the Labouchere article in The Truth that Jake referred to?
Norma