Why did Macnaghten deny Cutbush as a serious suspect?

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks for the press cutting.Do you happen to know what this Bill was about Simon?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Norma,

Here's the potted version [The Times, same date]—



Imperialist tactics—

Travel abroad in the name of the Sovereign, rape, pillage and generally cause military mayhem, establish a new regime with lots of pompous landmarks and form a club which none of the locals are allowed to join.

Regards,

Simon

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Simon.Not for nothing were the British known in their colonies as "The Perfidious Albion"!

[Simon Wood]

Hi Norma,

Britain was, and continues to be, the most treacherous nation in the world.

Yet people still like to think cosy things about Robert Anderson and James Monro.

Regards,

Simon

[Natalie Severn]

Well yes,but then the British have probably had more experience than anyone else in the field , Simon.And yes,to read what Monro and Anderson got up to by way of deceit ,duplicity and disinformation in the 1880"s makes your head spin.

[Cap'n Jack]

'Britain was, and continues to be, the most treacherous nation in the world.'

I can confirm that, they paid me £75.00 for Bangladesh, and then took the East India Company off me.
Bastards.

[Mort Belfry]

Aaron Kosminski,along with Montague Druitt and Ostrog were named in the memorandum as "more likely than Cutbush" to have been JtR----.Something doesnt make sense here,particularly since the memorandum is full of confusing innaccuracies about the ages occupations and institutionalisations of his various leading suspects.

Macnaghten does give a reason, which isn't too silly:

It will be noted that the fury of the mutilations increased in each case, and, seemingly, the appetite only became sharpened by indulgence. It seems, then, highly improbable that the murderer would have suddenly stopped in November '88, and been content to recommence operations by merely prodding a girl behind some 2 years and 4 months afterwards.

In terms of the signature killing of the known victims, Cutbush does seem to be an unlikely Ripper. On one hand you have a repeated offender who, given the opportunity, will shred a human being into as many pieces as possible, and on the other hand you have a bum stabber.

Hi Mike,
I'd rather say that Druitt and Kosminski are more likely suspects than... Ostrog.

I don't think Macnaghten necessarily loses credibility for mentioning Ostrog. Given research into him we know Ostrog to be a weak suspect now, but for Macnaghten writing back in 1894 or whenever it was, without this research having been done Ostrog would have seemed as likely a suspect as say someone like James Kelly does to us now.

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Mort Belfry,
It depends on what type of killer the Ripper was.If he was insane and suffering from paranoid schizophrenia for example,he would probably have been "hearing voices" which he believed were instructions to kill the street walkers whose reproductive organs were "diseased" etc etc He would not have been getting a buzz doing such murders as these, just believing himself to be "under orders to clean up the streets"for example [I know this was crafty Sutcliffe"s line but they didnt believe him and neither do I -the evidence pointed there to a sexual serial killer who wore a special suit etc].
The Whitechapel terror lasted about four months.The attacks escalated during that particular killing spree its true but it is misleading to think that after such an episode of insane killings the rippers "mind gave way" as Macnaghten suggests.He could indeed have committed suicide --lots of people with that illness did---but equally he could have gone into remission from his illness,ceased to hear his voices and presented as reasonably well and functional for some time. The next episode of psychosis could have been of a quite different order.The command voices next time could have been telling him to carefully check his water supply which was being poisoned by Catholic extremists [Cutbush"s Uncle had this exact delusion and its recorded in his Times Orbituary] or as in the case of Thomas Cutbush,that doctors were trying to poison him with drugs and needed to be shot-which he tried to do.
The notion that all insanity took the form of an unbroken line of increasing intensity is profoundly wrong.The episodes can get worse each time they occur as the mind eventually begins to disintegrate but it usually takes many years to reach burn out-ten or more-[see medical notes on Kosminski showing sharp deterioration around the turn of the century 1900 which was nine or ten years after his admission].It doesnt normally happen in just a few months . Today modern drugs can control the course of the illness to a large extent.

[Mort Belfry]

The Whitechapel terror lasted about four months.The attacks escalated during that particular killing spree its true but it is misleading to think that after such an episode of insane killings the rippers "mind gave way" as Macnaghten suggests.

I purposefully didn't add that bit to the quote as that wasn't the point I wanted to illustrate. Obviously whatever happened after November 1888 to put a stop to the killings is a matter for pure conjecture and Macnagthen's comments about his mind giving way is just an easy dodge on his part. But whether arrested, interred or dead we'll likely never know what stopped him killing. What I wanted to highlight was Macnaghten's point that the Whitechapel murderer and Thomas Hayne Cutbush are unlikely to have been the same person.

What Macnaghten outlined in the quote I gave above is a precursor of profiling and a basic understanding of signature killings that was put into practical use by the FBI's behavioural unit and NCVAC in the latter end of last century.

In the case of Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly it is obvious that the Ripper's obsession is not for rape or sadism, but for the physical destruction of what were probably objects of sexual desire to him. Like Jeffrey Dahmer, the Whitechapel murderer likely has anatomical interest in the dead.

Casually stabbing somebody years later would not be a satisfactory release on any level for the perpertrator. The victim has to be dead before the Ripper gets any thrill from it, which is why the first thing he did with his victims was to slash their throats. The Ripper wouldn't run the risk of getting caught with victims that he wasn't even going to kill, there would be no gain to the risk.

[Cap'n Jack]

'What Macnaghten outlined in the quote I gave above is a precursor of profiling and a basic understanding of signature killings that was put into practical use by the FBI's behavioural unit and NCVAC in the latter end of last century.'

And which the FBI has very publicly disassociated themselves from this very year in dramatic fashion.
They have also recently stated that to see sexual motives in crimes which have no sexual motives at all is much like pissing on the dog that barked up the wrong tree.
Which is exactly what you do here.

[Natalie Severn]

Its not a "definitely ascertained fact" that the ripper did get a "thrill" from his killings.He may have killed under a delusion that he had to do "God"s work" and "clean up the streets" or because he had a paranoid delusion about women who had tried to sell their bodies to him ---or had actually sold their bodies to him and had passed on an std to him in the transaction,causing him to develop an obsessive need for revenge by pulling out the reproductive organs of "unfortunates".
A fairly common punishment in Afghanistan for example is to mutilate and remove the genitals of the enemy and push them down the throat.I doubt the culprits are sexual serial killers. It happened too ,to the overthrown Prime Minister of Afghanistan some years back, when the Mujahadeen overthrew the secular government of Afghanistan .It happened only the other day when its alleged "vigilantes' murdered a convicted child molester and then mutilated his genitals,and left his caravan looking like Mary Kelly"s room must have looked.
Thomas Cutbush didnt only stab women in the streets.He made other violent attacks one of which was when he tried to cut the throat of a female relative.

[White-Knight]

thanks for those replies Natalie and Cap'n Jack, and hello Simon ,(interesting cuttings) and Mort!....very frustrating Cap'n those hidden months.. yes i was aware of the basic lack of soundness of the claims in the memo,Natalie, it was the level of disingenuity that interests me most ,having had a slightly 'cosy' notion myself that though Mac was deflecting from Cutbush ,it was more from ignorance and prejudice than knowing conspiracy. I'm still not completely sure but i'm heading towards conspiracy the more I think about that sentence, those missing months, and the picture painted of his character by cuttings like the one provided by Simon.
Mort ,as a look into the kind of killer JTR (and Tom) may have been, have you checked out the aforementioned Jack The Myth?.. very convincing on the question of 'type' or 'kind of killer',the problem of 'type' and linking the 'JTR type', such as that may be, to schizophrenia, and to Tom. I thought so anyway!

Capn'..the checking you mentioned...sounds like a route to me...I'm no researcher, unfortunately , but if I did find the time, how /where would I even start, or does the fact that I'm even asking the question really reveal a level of ignorance that makes it redundant to ask? officers assigned to convalescent /safe house duties...cross reference to those working for relevant parties..would we/you anyone have knowledge of the cross reference seems a starting point? i.e; likely directory of potential rank and files who MAY have been assigned such a duty..(must be a ton of coppers in that fold) ..and surely if the conspiracy holds, such activity would have been buried (or burned!?) very deeply. Where to start?

As a different by-line, another research possibility ? and probably for another thread, what do we know of the (four?) orderlies Tom Tom is said to have so springily dodged? part of the conspiracy at that point do folkses think? I want names named ! I guess I'll be lucky....plus....I work in care, and have been trained in restraint techniques (so don't mess with me ,right?) -did our orderlies share the luxury of any relevant training of the time? what was the level of known 'technique'? a quick koshing perhaps? I like the idea of Tom the urban freestyler and on the face of it, its a remarkable bit of escapology, cunning and guile to re-emerge fully dressed to join the throng ,but the gloss could be taken off the start of the jolly a bit if he was under the watchful auspices of say, Mr Baraclough on 'Porridge'.

still beating the tom-tom.. (thanks Roy!)

WK.

[Cap'n Jack]

Most don't mention it, White Knight, but Mac did build a cut-out clause to his meandering Memo, and it is this I think where he scratches at a very simple truth:
'as a possible alternative, was found to be so hopelessly mad by his relations, that he was by them confined in some asylum'.

As I firmly believe happened to Tom Tom, bang a drum.

[White-Knight]

how's this?..

Sir M:yes, some asylum or other, oh,.. do you think its important which one do you ? aah, no I don't really think so....no..no..no...not really...why..you plannin' a visit?.. no...it doesn't matter which one...., its just a simple little loony bin,..for a simple little loony... well.. you have to put them somewhere don't you?,..there's a lot of them about these days,yes streets are littered with 'em, eating off the pavement some of 'em, but no,no, I really can't be bothered to remember which one, I might do later...when I get the port out.. and I might write it all down... that's a good idea... yes splendid..I'll do that..yes... mind you... in a few years I'll probably have papers everwhere... I'll have to have a good clear out ...yes ..a good clear out...yes......, and then I'll probably accidentally chuck some of them on the fire ..or did I do that already? mmmm...............do you know,..I can't remember!... oh well ,doesn't matter........ Now, where was I?, oh yes, no..not the ripper no, not little Tom Tom...but good he went in there, yes ,good he went in .., very good, for the best ...yes.....but very sad for the family though ..yes.....very sad....oooh, those poor women, how they must have suffered...how did they sleep at night? ooof ..I can't imagine...what!!? .....I mean...you couldn't walk the streets at night ,no... couldn't walk the streets..yes it was for his own good yes , put him away they did yes, of course, it was for a very long time .......well, the bottoms of the nation simply wouldn't be safe would they?....no....stop it, no, stop messin' about...if that nutter was strolling about the place nobody's posterior would be safe would it? ...no..., flippin Sun..poking and prodding about like that! no, nobody's derrier in any state of safety whatsoever...no....

(Aside): Particularly mine!


From, Up Whitechapel!
Sir Frankie Howerd as Sir Melville Macstrappon
or Kenneth Williams..I'm not fussy!

o.k,.. after the tumbleweed........................................ ...

1.Have I overstepped the line yet?
2.Cap'n, I do declare, I strongly suspect you are quite right!

W (in a seventies sit-com mood tonight) K.

[Natalie Severn]

Its not particularly funny White Knight-someone creeping up behind you and stabbing you with a knife in the street and causing hemorrhage,shock etc......

In anycase I think the way Cutbush was presented in 1894 was so far from the truth.Its as though they wanted to "laugh off" [and therefore " diminish"] these knife crimes.
Thomas Cutbush was very mentally unbalanced--actually a vicious little sicko with a thoroughly ghoulish interest in women much of the time---studying their anatomy and making wierd diagrams of them being "disembowelled" as well as these knife attacks on young women in the streets .He also wrote strange letters to his doctors accusing them of trying to kill him and actually threatened to shoot one of them with a gun he had taken to the doctors surgery.I dont think the doctor "laughed it off"
He callously left an old man for dead after deliberately pushing him down a stone staircase for annoying him,and attacked a female relative with a knife held at her throat .None of them thought him a joke.
He also seems to have terrorised his warders at Broadmoor with his unexpected vicious attacks on them.