Macnaughten Memorandum

[aspallek]

I believe the Macnaghten memorandum itself does not meet the definition of a report. That's why we call it the Macnaghten Memorandum rather than the Macnaghten Report Sometimes memoranda are placed in official files in order to get certain facts on record.

[Gideon Fell]

memorandum = Note to help the memory; record of events etc. for future use; (Law) document recording terms of contract, agreement, establishment of company, etc.; informal diplomatic message.

report = Account given or opinion formally expresssed after investigation or consideration or collation of information, description or epitome or reproduction of scene or speech or law case esp. for newspaper publication.

Oxford Dictionary.

[Cap'n Jack]

Actually, Dan, it is quite astonishing what turns up in them old MEPO files.
Why only the other day I was reading about this strange letter, dated 17th September 1888, which was found in the files.

When the Home Office asked Scotland Yard for details concerning the word 'Lipski', Anderson replied, and the rough draft of his studied reply is contained in the files, marked as such; so if the Macnaghten Memo was a rought draft of a reply to the Home Office it would have also have been marked thus.
In other words the very filing system that was created by these senior officers appears to indicate that Macnaghten's 'ramblings' were a memo rather than a report.

[Sam Flynn]

Why only the other day I was reading about this strange letter, dated 17th September 1888, which was found in the files.

What often goes unremarked, CJ, are the microscopic layers of dust deposited as 20th Century researchers merrily leafed through the files.

[Dan Norder]

I think people have suddenly started concentrating on definitions of words instead of what's really under discussion. "Memorandum" is just the word we happened to assign to this document, it's not like it somehow magically gives any specific significance, any more than the "canonical five" are really part of some canon established by a religious figure or that the "Goulston Street graffiti" must have been written in spray paint by a vandal.

A.P. even bringing up the Sept. 17th letter is an act of desperation. I was looking for examples of items written by police that were found in the police files that were memoirs and not reports, or drafts for reports. As the Sept. 17th letter has never been considered to have been written by anyone in the police no matter whether you go along with the view that it's a modern fake, an old fake, or so forth, there's no reason to even bring it up other than for A.P. to once again try to hijack a thread to talk about one of his pet fantasies.

[Cap'n Jack]

I was poking a monkey with a stick, Dan.
It jumped.
But you have ignored my pertinent comment about a similar document from Anderson being filed as a 'rough draft', which is obviously what the Macnaghten Memo was, a rough draft, but there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that this rough draft was prepared for the Home Secretary or even the Home Office.

[aspallek]

Yes, Dan, I agree. The document is what it is, regardless of what we call it. It's precise purpose or audience remains unknown. I do not believe it is in the nature of a draft even though it is handwritten. The "draft" is the Aberconway version, which Sir Melville retained.

[Stewart P Evans]

Ostrog

Ostrog isn't discussed too much these days in light of the fact that he has been crossed off the viable suspects list. However, I find it quite interesting to note that he was arrested in 1894, after Macnaghten wrote his 'memoranda', but no official comment about him being a Ripper suspect has been found anywhere in the official files. This is an 1894 Home Office report about him -



This may have implications with regard to the Macnaghten memoranda.

[fido]

Moreover Mcnaghten couldn't have proposed Klosowski/Chapman as a suspect as he wasn't in he frame until his arrest in 1903. The only suggestions that he was so suspected come in an unsubstantiated claim by H.L.Adam that Abberline questioned Klosowski's wife Luicy Baderski (something Abberline omits to mention in the PMG interviews where he stated his sjspicion of Klosowski as the Ripper), and the deeply suspect material that Donald McCormick clsimed to have been given by Dr Dutton.
Allthe best,
Martin F

[Sam Flynn]

Moreover Mcnaghten couldn't have proposed Klosowski/Chapman as a suspect as he wasn't in he frame until his arrest in 1903. The only suggestions that he was so suspected come in an unsubstantiated claim by H.L.Adam that Abberline questioned Klosowski's wife Luicy Baderski

...which sounds unlikely to have proven useful, even if true, given that Kłosowski and Baderski weren't married until the very end of October 1889.

[aspallek]

Hell Stewart,

That is a very interesting document. I am wondering what implications you find in it for the Macnaghten memorandum?

[Stewart P Evans]

Ostrog

Hell Stewart,
That is a very interesting document. I am wondering what implications you find in it for the Macnaghten memorandum?

Well in February 1894 we have Macnaghten stating, in an official report, that Ostrog was a homicidal maniac and a possibility (without proof) for the Whitechapel murders yet here he is in the same year being released from prison and paid compensation. There's no mention of this in the HO report so, presumably, the Home Office weren't aware that the police had him down as homicidal and a Ripper possibility, ergo they never had sight of the memorandum. The other possibility is that the police cleared him of suspicion after February 1894 but before the prison release reports (there is an earlier one also).

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

The Macnaghten memorandum makes less sense to me each time I read it.

In 1891 Macnaghten knew of Ostrog's detention at Banstead Asylum. If there had been a breath of police suspicion at the time that he was the "Ripper", an investigation would have soon cleared him, determining that he was in a French prison throughout the WM—a fact which didn't come to light until after Ostrog had been wrongfully imprisoned on charges of false pretences in April 1894.

This suggests that in 1891 the police held no suspicion against Ostrog being the "Ripper" and no investigation into his whereabouts took place.

So if the police didn't consider Ostrog a potential "Ripper" in 1891 why did Macnaghten have reason to do so in 1894?

Regards,

Simon

[aspallek]

Well in February 1894 we have Macnaghten stating, in an official report, that Ostrog was a homicidal maniac and a possibility (without proof) for the Whitechapel murders yet here he is in the same year being released from prison and paid compensation. There's no mention of this in the HO report so, presumably, the Home Office weren't aware that the police had him down as homicidal and a Ripper possibility, ergo they never had sight of the memorandum. The other possibility is that the police cleared him of suspicion after February 1894 but before the prison release reports (there is an earlier one also).

Thank-you, Stewart. That makes perfect sense. I have never seen the Macnaghten memorandum as a report to the HO and I don't believe it is. Your apt comment tends to lend confirmation to my thinking.

Hi All,

The Macnaghten memorandum makes less sense to me each time I read it.

In 1891 Macnaghten knew of Ostrog's detention at Banstead Asylum. If there had been a breath of police suspicion at the time that he was the "Ripper", an investigation would have soon cleared him, determining that he was in a French prison throughout the WM—a fact which didn't come to light until after Ostrog had been wrongfully imprisoned on charges of false pretences in April 1894.

This suggests that in 1891 the police held no suspicion against Ostrog being the "Ripper" and no investigation into his whereabouts took place.

So if the police didn't consider Ostrog a potential "Ripper" in 1891 why did Macnaghten have reason to do so in 1894?

Regards,

Simon

Simon, I don't beleive Macnaghten did consider either Ostrog or Kosminski as terribly good suspects. Already in 1891 Druitt's own MP, Henry Richard Farqhuarson, was blabbing in thinly-veiled terms about Druitt being the Ripper. Macnaghten would have been aware of this as we know that the police were contacted regarding Farquharson's claim. Furthermore, there is literary evidence that Macnaghten was drawing at least in part on Farquharson as a source re: Druitt.

Now the question is what was going on in Macnghten's mind between 1891 and 1894 concerning Druitt and why had he said nothing about him?

[c.d.]

Hi Andy,

Do you know what Farquharson was basing his comments on?

c.d.