Why did Macnaghten deny Cutbush as a serious suspect?

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks for your words White Knight-very chivalrous and kind!
I am not sure how rigorous Macnaghten was, he comes across as a bit dilettante -or Southern sophisticate, compared say, to his Edinburgh pal Monro.Supt Cutbush had been very highly thought of in Scotland Yard, and a troublesome and nagging thought occurring to fellow police chiefs, may have been that Supt Cutbush could have been Thomas"s natural father. Imagine the concern that might have caused to the powers that be in Scotland Yard, especially now they had all got more than a whiff of the stink caused by the Sun Newspaper claiming that the Ripper was none other than Thomas Cutbush ---and had done so for five consecutive days that February in 1894 .
Norma

[White-Knight]

No Chris, I mean substantiate and elaborate on those he DOES put forward as supposedly stronger suspects. I mean he gives us very little doesn't he, especially considering he is claiming a strong conviction ,albeit in a superficially indirect way ,that Cutbush is no real suspect at all. How can he be so convinced its one of his bunch compared to Tom when he doesn't seem to know that much about any of 'em.....I say again he fails to elaborate and substantiate, he gets his facts wrong and yet he's still supposedly the man in the know and must have had good reasons...and oh he burnt 'em or they were lost or blah blah..it just doesn't wash..I still think he said what he said due to one or more of the motives discussed on this thread and summarized by myself above..I see no reason not to stand by'em. I think he knew little about his own suspects and less about Cutbush. The memoranda should and could have been a chance to slam his suspicions and information home but it wasn't and he didn't. He made a right pig's ear of it..'notes if needed' me fanny's aunt..do you think the home office weren't bothered about any real evidence accrued..just so long long as Tom got out of the firing line? surely they were both on the agenda as the two are interdependant. It was a chance to use the former to achieve the latter..but he wouldn't , couldn't or at the least just didn't do it.

Cap'n..thanks for the explaining ..I was being a bit disingenuous about me idiot's guide but you put it clearly and simply whilst I was still jobbing around your allusion.ta.and yes I am in a punk covers band called 'mutoids'.we are on My Space..if you fancy a laugh..and guess what I play ..of course.. I am the drummer!

Natalie..honoured to get a reply..layin' down me silky cape on the puddle of me relative ignorance on all things ripper..ma'am!

W.K.

[White-Knight]

blimey.just read that last post back.. bit i wrote to Natalie.. I seem to be turning into Russell Brand. Sorry about that. Must be the excitement of meeting all you jolly ripperollergisty-wisties.aagh.stoppit.its a serious site for debate and research, and in that spirit..yes I am imagining that stink Natalie, and it must have carried quite a way...

o.k. I've shut up now.thanks for putting up with me..especially you ,Chris since we seem to be in stark disagreement.

bye for now!

[Roy Corduroy]

White-Knight, Come by and sit a spell anytime. Glad to have you.

But this -

...the memorandum was not written for us. It was not meant to be a fully fleshed case for or against any of the suspects. Rather, Macnaghten was just presenting the Home Office with some notes on the men, if needed.

That's good. Wish I had said that. "If needed" which it wasn't because the Sun didn't solar power Cutbush into the forefront of infamy. This memo sat in a drawer till, what 1959.

So here we are.

Roy

[White-Knight]

Hello Roy, thanks for the invite.

That's good. Wish I had said that. "If needed" which it wasn't because the Sun didn't solar power Cutbush into the forefront of infamy. This memo sat in a drawer till, what 1959.So here we are.

Roy

I'm beginning to wish it had stayed there.

WK.

[Cap'n Jack]

'This memo sat in a drawer till, what 1959.So here we are.'

You don't know that for a fact.

[Roy Corduroy]

No I do not know that for a fact. "Sat in a drawer" is a figure of speech.

I see there are dueling threads on the memo, both here and as per Druitt, so I quote Stewart Evans in post 8 of this thread: " Macnaghten reported to the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) and the Chief Commissioner, ergo it was they whom this 1894 report was intended for."

Cutbush is a person of interest, AP, I'm not here to ambush you and your posse. Carry on. Beating the tom tom.

Roy

[White-Knight]

No I do not know that for a fact. "Sat in a drawer" is a figure of speech.

I see there are dueling threads on the memo, both here and as per Druitt, so I quote Stewart Evans in post 8 of this thread: " Macnaghten reported to the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) and the Chief Commissioner, ergo it was they whom this 1894 report was intended for."

Cutbush is a person of interest, AP, I'm not here to ambush you and your posse. Carry on. Beating the tom tom.
Roy

Yee -haa! don't mind if we do...the point is , it was travelling UP, and as such we might reasonably expect it was Mac's best case scenario, albeit necessarily perfunctory to be fit for purpose, yet it stills lacks anything substantial. You can be substantial AND pithy if you have any command of the lingo..but Mac gives us a few suggestions only, hardly enough to quell the suggestions he is said to be indirectly challenging..blimey i could go on like this all day, oh yes, I already did!

WK

[Cap'n Jack]

No worries, Roy, your interest much appreciated.
One thing - amongst many others - which gives me pause for thought is the fact that Mac states in the memo that CEO Charles Henry Cutbush is the uncle of Tom Tom.
This relationship between the two men, Charles and Thomas, has still yet to be confirmed officially.
So it's a great shame that we cannot do what Macnaghten must have done to confirm that Charles and Thomas were indeed uncle and nephew.
That is push himself off his desk, walk the few feet from his private office to the Commissioner's Office next door and bellow at Chief Executive Superintendent Charles Henry Cutbush sat at his desk:
'Damn it Charles! Is this lunatic your nephew or not?'
Now there were only two answers that Charles could have given.

[White-Knight]

After another look at The Myth, I'm more hooked than ever..Although I felt convinced by Cutbush himself as a strong candidate I had not really gone for all elements of the Mac conspiracy angle on top myself, as my earlier posts suggest. I think more recently though, the memo is looking less credible and more suspicious than ever as those gaps just haven't been filled in even after more and extensive research. Look at Druitt..Aspallek has done some excellent work and unearthed some intersting snippets but the links to him being JTR are more and more tenuous..'interesting he shows interest in legal matters',' had broad soulders','physically bigger than we thought' 'played soccer' as he admits himself, we can still do no more in terms of the geography, than get him to Cannon St.. This is real progress and all but its not even in the same league as Cutbush...still.

I've thought for a while Mac was mainly protective, prejudiced and basically a bit of a dumb toff officer, maybe he was really as 'crafty' as AP suggests too.The more Druitt fades, the more Tom Tom steps forward.As for Ostrog and Kosminski..same story.. I think that bomb really did go off back then, even more loudly than when I saddled up to this 'posse' only the other day, which prompted me to look at The Myth again.

Tell me Cap'n..I've been followin as much thread on Cutbush as pos'..but have I missed news of the missing movements of Tom Tom tween the spree and Broadmoor,as posed and laid as next step for researchers, at the end of The Myth? I am in the dark. How bout you?

[Natalie Severn]

Hi again WK,
I have"nt ever thought Macnaghten was an incompetent police chief as such, but I dont believe he was as serious and committed as Monro or Anderson.He was an old Etonian with a "Tea plantation" background and seems to have had a privileged lifestyle in London Society and enjoyed friendships with sophisticated company such as his friend the writer and journalist Sims. Macnaghten also seems to have taken great advantage of more than a few "job perks" in that he had a large collection of "freebies" or crime memorabilia from the Ripper Investigation----numbers of ripper letters and artefacts including the famous "Dear Boss" letter in red ink -he allegedly had an entire room given over to such crime trophies . This is what makes his remark about poor old Inspector Race in his Macnaghten Report sound like so much hypocrisy-----in that he wonders aloud why the knife used in the Cutbush attacks of 1891 had been in the possession of Inspector Race for the past three years instead of being in the "Prisoner"s Property Store---presumably Macnaghten was very well aquainted with " the Prisoner"s Property Store" since he had a sideline in pilfering for his "crime memorabilia" from time to time .
Whatever the case he was clearly showing his disapproval of Inspector Race and one understands this may be largely to do with Race having gone to The Sun newspaper with his story about Thomas Cutbush who he had arrested in 1891 and subsequently investigated and consequently believed was Jack the Ripper.
Unfortunately The Sun"s claims that it could not print certain aspects of the story for fear of libel though it claimed all source material was available for interested parties to see, cannot now be tested,since its all been lost in time.
Whatever the situation was, Macnaghten was having none of it concerning Thomas Cutbush and was clearly prepared to trash the story once and for all in his Report . The following three ways serve to illustrate what I mean though he empoyed some other tactics in his report as well:

a] by lambasting Race [the police source for sun"s articles] having a go at him in the report over Cutbush"s knife which he states Race had kept to himself for three years and had had no right to do so

b]by turning Cutbush"s knife attacks into "mere proddings" -which they were assuredly not,since he was sent off to a hospital for the criminally insane,Broadmoor, immediately afterwards
or

c] by a ploy that was to divert attention away from Cutbush completely and instead focussing the readers attention on three individuals he actually names ie Druitt, Kosminski and Ostrog -but about whom he says there was no shadow of proof which could be thrown at any one of them!

Macnaghten it seems really takes the biscuit for wanting to have it every which way!

[Cap'n Jack]

Nicely said, Natalie.
Does anyone have 'Prince Jack' published in 1978?
There appears to be a reference in there to Macnaghten admitting that he had burnt 'incriminating' papers on the Ripper case in 1903 before accepting his new position.
I might have got this wrong, and it might not be a reference to the Ripper case at all... but I think it probably is, and if so, why on earth would any papers have been 'incriminating'?
Only if they implicated a police officer one supposes...or a near relative.

[Cap'n Jack]

To your earlier question, White Knight
despite the best efforts of Debra, Natalie, Robert, myself, and others we have still not been able to trace or recover material relating to TC's whereabouts between the end of 1888 and his reappearance on the streets of London in early 1891.
Perhaps the most annoying detail of the Macnaghten Memo is his own failure to mention where Thomas was during those years, for he must have known, as he had employed officers who knew Cutbush - senior and junior - intimately to research that very detail.
Although this seems to leave us staring at a brick wall, I am able to peer through such solid structures and see what lurks behind... and what I see is Macnaghten reluctant to provide such information for very good reason indeed, for if Thomas was simply at home with his mum and aunt, eating buns and studying medical books, then there is absolutely no reason not to say so, as it provides material that shows Thomas to be at home, peace and representing no danger to the general public.
But Thomas wasn't at home was he?
He was more likely in a safe house, some kind of convalescent home where he could be watched by staff and a police officer under the control of his uncle Charles.
Has anyone yet thought to check the names of the Metropolitan officers resident at such homes in early 1891 to see if any of 'em worked directly for the CO's office at Scotland Yard?

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Melville Macnaghten was Mister Disingenuous.

His 1914 memoirs "The Days of My Years" tell us—

1881: Assaulted by Indian land rioters. Meets James Monro, District Judge and Inspector General of Police in Bengal. They become good friends.

1888: Returns to England. Offered the job of Assistant Chief Constable in the Metropolitan Police by James Monro, but his appointment is blocked by Commissioner Warren.

Friendship with Monro through involvement in a "Hindoo" uprising aside, I have often wondered why the job of Assistant Chief Constable in the Metropolitan Police was offered to a tea plantation manager who just happened to return from India at the appointed hour.

Police and law experience? Zero. Zilch.

Or was it?

Melville Macnaghten was in London, attending a meeting at the Banqueting Rooms, St James's Hall, June 25th 1883, to discuss the Indian Criminal Procedure Bill.

Regards,

Simon

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

The Times, 26th June 1883—



Regards,

Simon