'Jack' and the Balfour Plot?

[Jonathan H]

A poster asked me what I thought about the theory that Macnaghten seems to have made reference to the Ripper being connected to a putative Irish plot against the relevant Tory minister, Balfour, in 1888.

Could this is be -- at a stretch -- an oblique reference to police agitation over Dr. Tumblety?

In my opinion, the answer is a strong no.

The reference from Doug Browne ['The Rise of Scotland Yard', 1956] is so at odds with everything else Macnaghten wrote about the case, even though he is a topsy-turvy figure, I think this is a gyration too far.

In Browne's book he makes no reference to seeing classified Special Branch files to do with Mac. That's an assumption, and a good one, but perhaps unnecessary.

On the same page as the startling comment about Mac, Browne is writing about Anderson's memoirs [and his Polish Jew suspect] and then that another Assistant Commissioner 'identified' the fiend with the Balfour plot.

In my opinion Browne is misreading the last lines of Mac's memoirs about the Ripper 'knocking out an [un-named] police commissioner' and very nearly 'settling the hash' of an [un-named] sec. of state. Of course, Mac means Warren and Matthews.

Like an early writer on the case [Leonard Matters I recall?] Browne has mistakenly taken those metaphorical words of Mac literally. Therefore, Browne wondered which minister the Ripper was threatening, and finding only some sort of plot against Arthur Balfour in 1888, he has put the two together.

It seems that Browne never had access to the Mac Report, official version, which would have told him that perhaps M J Druitt was the same suicided suspect as the one Mac alludes to -- without details -- in 'Days of My Years'.

In other words, if it really was a reference to Mac, the Irish terrorists and the Ripper, one would expect Browne to discreetly mention that this Assistant Commissioner seemed to have changed his mind about the best Ripper suspect.

He does not ...

Now whether Mac was hiding Druitt-in-Tumblety, or Tumblety-in-Druitt via the 'Drowned Doctor' mythos is an entirely separate line of competing arguments.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Jonathan,

That's an interesting idea, but Browne was specific that the alleged Ripper was the 'leader of a plot' to assassinate Balfour, whom he also named specifically. He would certainly have been aware that no police commissioner or secretary of state almost died at the hands of a Ripper suspect, so I don't see how he could have read Macnaghten's memoirs and come away with that claim. You seem to be all too willing to accept that everyone but Macnaghten was a blithering idiot. Do you think its possible you're overestimating Macnaghten's power of reasoning and underestimating that of his peers?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

P.S. I also don't see how the 'Balfour plot' could have anything at all to do with Tumblety, just for the record.

[Jonathan H]

To Tom

Yes, I do seem to make it Macnaghten versus the World.

But I stand by what I wrote due to my interpretation of the balance of probabilities.

We know from other sources that Mac does not 'identify' the Ripper with a plot against Balfour. Therefore it is comparable to the single source on Dr T and his collection of uteri -- not reliable unless something else turns up to corroborate it.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Jonathan,

Yes. your interpretation of Browne's work is interesting indeed.
In my honest opinion though, I believe that it must be remembered that he did infact get access to apparently unseen (by any known living person) files. What these files were, we do not know.
However, it is pretty safe assumption to say that his comment about "the leader of the plot to kill Balfour" would have come from an SD file, as the SD was the department that dealt with all things Irish, Fenian wise, would it not?

On that basis therefore, I don't personally think there is ground to dismiss Browne's comment in favour of Druitt, Tumblety or anyone else.

best wishes

Phil

[Jonathan H]

To Phil Carter

Yes, you maybe absolutely right. No question Browne had access to intelligence files which are restricted in perpetuity.

It is just that when you see the actual page that Browne wrote those lines on, which I had not see until relatively recently, his comments about Mac and an alleged Ripper-terrorist comes right after he mentions Anderson and his memoirs -- not classified files.

I believe that, in this context, Browne may simply be referring to two ex-Chief's memoirs, the latter of which he has misunderstood. Possibly because he has read Matter's book and this has contaminated his (mis)understanding of 'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper'.

A chapter I might add that he is not alone in not appreciating.

According to Macnaghten -- a slippery Brer Fox I grant you -- the Ripper had no motives except that he was consumed with a sexual mania which compelled him to eviscerate prostitutes.

The very fact that Browne does not explain his -- to us -- extraordinary comment in light of the filed version of Macnaghten's 1894 Report is, I argue, very telling [eg. he was unaware of it].

Of course, I could be dead wrong. When dealing with contradictory fragments all opinions are provsional.

A strong, historical argument can be made, in my opinion, that Tumbelty was Mac's real chief suspect -- but you don't need Browne's strange left-of-field comment to back it up.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Jonathan,

You too may be correct, indeed.
True, and as you say, dealing with contrary fragments do make opinions provisonal. It could, and has been argued, that both Mac's and Anderson's comments were smokescreens, or even less than that, to let the general public know, that all was under control. Therefore the stories of the two suspects. Mac seemingly through Sims, and Anderson all on his lonesome.

Agreed, taken by itself, Browne's comment is left of field. It matches nothing we know of, except a comment about a dead Coroner from an article from 1921, saying that he had contacted the Home Office saying that he suspected Fenian involvement, for them to apparently reply with words akin to " we have heard that from other sources before."

Tumblety is a different kettle of fish though, and the only way to infact know anything about Tumblety's involvement, Fenian or otherwise, is through some sort of File on the man, that would have to magically appear from out of the blue from some obtuse place. Not that I am being flippant or irreverent in any way, but the 125th is coming up soon, isn't it... so who knows?

best wishes

Phil

[Jonathan H]

To Phil Carter

It would be even better if David Cameron, the fellow Etonian [Mac] and Oxonian [Druitt[ and Druitt look-a-like was secretly a Ripper buff?

If he could just do a Roy Jenkins and release the Tumblety file, if there is, or ever was, such a file?

I remember the diappointment over Jimmy Carter, who as Gov. had filed a UFO report and so UFO buffs hoped that he would reveal secret govt files, and so on. What he had really seen was Venus -- as usual.

I also remember when Al Gore was first elected Veep to Clinton and he had talked briefly about really getting out the truth about the JFK Assassination and that quietly faded away. It was too late anyhow. Oswald's tantalizing links with a group with embittered nutters who wanted Kennedy dead -- a few Anti-Castro Cubans -- was not vigorously pursued by the FBI, despite an internal Warren Commission opinion that, if there was a low-level conspiracy, it was they who hatched it.

Regarding that internal opinion, the Coleman/Slawson Report was declassidied in 1975, whilst we may never see the file on Tumblety if it still exists?

Just to be absolutely clear regarding the double 'smokescreen' theory.

I think that Anderson is not doing that.

I think he is sincerely, self-servingly and egocentrically mis-remembering the Ripper case, by 1910. He sincerely thinks that back in 1888 Scotland Yard had a prime suspect, an insane Polish Jew who was positively identified by another of the same treacherous class. This story is demonstrably false, by comparing it to all the other primary sources we have -- except the Swanson Marginalia. Yet the latter is limited in value by being ambiguous and unofficial.

My take on Macnaghten is that he was being deceitiful, but paradoxically about a suspect he sincerely believed to be the fiend.

What this police chief was relentlessly doing -- until his own memoirs -- was concealing from the Home Office, the press and the public that the un-named Druitt, by far the best suspect in his opinion, came to the attention of CID leadership embrassingly late, by over two years, and what is more not from a police source.

By contrast with all those dodgy machinations, J G Littlechild is a breath of fresh air; Sims' English 'Drowned Doctor' was in reality an Irish-American who had been arrested and got away, and as for Anderson he 'only thought he knew'. Littlechild still sees Tumblety as a very likely, contemporaneous suspect who was -- to his knowledge -- never cleared. And, unlike Druitt and Kosminski, there was an official file on this suspect.

If only we could ...?

[Phil Carter]

Jonathan,

If only, if only.
I am in total agreement with you as regards Kosminski. A story that is demonstrably false. But that is Anderson in a nutshell.
I feel Druitt was a scapegoat, after the event. Not to hide a name, but a lack of one to be given that was available to the general public..
As regards Dr.T, near, but yet so far, I'm afraid. Like you, I saw a refreshing view when this gentleman's name appeared.
Who knows eh? Someone may still open the locked door of the SD files...that is if the files don't get purged through BEFORE the door opens.
Not that I am in any way thinking that sort of thing happens..... whoops, being cynical again. Must be age...

best wishes

Phil

[celee]

To Phil Carter



Just to be absolutely clear regarding the double 'smokescreen' theory.

I think that Anderson is not doing that.

I think he is sincerely, self-servingly and egocentrically mis-remembering the Ripper case, by 1910. He sincerely thinks that back in 1888 Scotland Yard had a prime suspect, an insane Polish Jew who was positively identified by another of the same treacherous class. This story is demonstrably false, by comparing it to all the other primary sources we have -- except the Swanson Marginalia. Yet the latter is limited in value by being ambiguous and unofficial.
...?

Okay,

A simple explanation. There was a Polish Jew suspect. Swanson marginalia is genuine. However, the witness that identified The Polish Jew suspect did not convince other Police officials because he or she refused to come forward in a court of law. Anderson just assumed that the witness refused to testify against a fellow Jew and send him to the hangman. However the witness probably was not 100% sure of the suspects guilt.

Your friend, Brad

[Stewart P Evans]

Witnesses and Suspects

As regards viable witnesses and suspects, at the time of the murders, the police appear to have reduced them to the following -

Witnesses:
1. Mrs. Long.
2. PC 452 Smith.
3. Schwartz.
4. Lawende.

Suspects:
1. Man seen by Mrs. Long.
2. Man seen by PC Smith.
3. First man seen by Schwartz.
4. Second man seen by Schwartz.
5. Man seen by Lawende.

This reduces the witnesses to the final list compiled by the police at the end of the murders. It does, of course, exclude the Macnaghten named suspects who, for whatever reasons, were arrived at on a later date.

[Jonathan H]

No, no, Brad I agree that the Marginalia is genuine.

I wrote that it was 'ambiguous' as to whether this is an account Swanson agrees with, or is just recording -- possibly for his own amusement -- from Anderson's pompous mouth.

It is 'unofficial' for whilst it is a primary source by a retired official it is not a document of public record, just notations in Anderson's book -- which did not have to, or were ever expected to be, taken as definitive about anything.

Can I direct you to read the 'Did Anderson Know' chapter of Evans and Rumbelow's superb 'Scotland Yard Investigates' and then see if you still believe it is so straightforward [perhaps you will?]