Macnaghten knew about Druitt being a barrister?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

Of course the Daily Mail 'gimmick' story was the same as what Macnaghten was promulgating via Griffiths.

"How would they know that?"

By reading the relevant pages of Griffiths' book.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

No, Simon, you're off-track my friend.

The Vicar has the suspect alive for some time after the Kelly murder, because that way he can make a confession [which matches the timing of the suciide of the real Druitt].

That's quite different from the Major.

Sims understands this and that is why he [quite inaccurately] slams this story -- the Ripper had no time to confess because he was an incoherent husk, a 'shrieking, raving fiend' -- who killed himself that very night or next morning.

Actually the person of whom Sims writes wuth such pompous certainty was completely coherent and killed himself quite inexpicabke three weeks later.

This matches the Vicar's Ripper.

In other words, on a key detail, the Vicar is diverging from Major Griffiths' sccount.

It also lacks the singular, colourfulk detail of the Thames drowning, or any colourful deatil about how this suspect died at all.

That's not much of a yarn?

Plus, the Griffiths' account is definite about the fiend having been an English doctor, like Henry Jekyll, whereas the Vicar has the dodgy-soiunding 'a good position' and at one time a surgeon'. This matches Mac's 'said to be a docotr', though nobdoy knew that then.

A person of good position, eg, a barrister, who might have been a doctor, and then again maybe not fits Montie Druitt and the posthumous machinations which swirled around him.

If the Vicar story is entirely a concoction -- and it maybe, or not about Druitt -- then you would expect it to a more satisfying tabloid yarn than this?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

My goodness, you actually believe the Vicar story.

I'm outta here. Time to leave you to your historical fantasy fiction.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

Simon,

The moment somebody's counter-argument is challenged, about anything connected with Druitt, they beat a hasty retreat, or they just keep repeating the same argument and hope I will give up.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

A hasty retreat? Don't flatter yourself.

I have simply learned better than to waste time arguing with your particular brand of preposterous logic.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

Oh, back already Simon ...?

You big tease!

People will think we're in love, mate.

By the way 'preposterous logic' is a tautology, a revealing one at that.

Now if you are going, then go, but if you are hanging around then show some intellectual courage and argue the points, instead of bottling out at the first sign of a challenge to the stale, sterile paradigm.

[Adam Went]

Jonathan:

But none of that explains why Mac's attempts at being "deceitful" are so thinly veiled - if he was truly trying to hide the identity of the man, why not say something like "He died shortly after the murders ended", or even "He committed suicide after the Mary Jane Kelly murder" - it's a lot more open to question than openly stating the suspect drowned himself in 1888, one does not need to be a brain surgeon to narrow down that field.

Furthermore, in his initial memorandum, he names the suspect for the benefit of the home office, giving and spelling his name correctly (about the only thing he did get right), but then he deliberately fibbed about everything else? Presuming for a moment that the memorandum ever did get sent on to the Home Office, would somebody there not be interested to check up on this Druitt character, who had been named by Macnaghten, find out the truth about him and then realise that Macnaghten was just plain wrong, if not totally incompetent? Why didn't he lie about his name too?

That's not even mentioning the fact that some of Macnaghten's former associates at Scotland Yard could and probably did read his comments saying the Yard knew who the killer was - if that was me, i'd be approaching him and saying "So, Mac, what's all this about then?"....I find it hard to believe that nobody would have done that following those comments, and presuming they did, it had little effect on their statements post-1913/14 in regards to Druitt.....probably they realised just as well as the majority of others both then and now that Macnaghten wasn't even involved with the Ripper case and was receiving a lot of recycled information, with which he then decided to involve himself.

Some of the Macnaghten press reports from 1912 I have already posted up on JTR Forums, though his comments specifically on JTR came from 1913...so far, anyway.

This really is developing into some bizarre thing you'd expect to see on a TV show or movie.....the policeman, the vicar, the politician, the journalist and the man who went insane - what adventures will they get up to next?

Cheers,
Adam.

[Jonathan H]

Adam,

The Mac Report official version was never sent to the Home Office, as it was probably never requested. In effect, it is the first draft of Abberonway which we know was shown,in much revised form, to literary cronies four year later.

Had the Druitt identity actually been read out in public by Asquith there would have been no name given, no age given, no mention of Blackheath, with the false details of: 'doctor' and the suicide taking place around Nov 10th 1888. That would have been enough to deflect the cruel searchlight away from the young tragic barrister.

So why mention Druitt at all?

Good question.

Because this was Jack the Ripper, after all.

You can't not have the real fiend's identity, in some kind of standby, if tabloid push comes to govt. shove.

It always amazes me the credulity of some people about the ludicrous paradigm that it could not be concealment by Mac because Druitt's identity was so easily located.

Really ...?

By whom, exactly?

Nobody did it. Nobody attempted it. Why not give Mac the credit that he judged the media of his time correctly. They would not try and find Druitt and they didn't.

You could not publsh the man's name for libel reasons.

Adam, please don't go on tiresomely about how the family could not, or would not sue because they were not themselves the suspects. The 1891 MP story -- with the actual 'suspect' long dead -- alludes to this very element of the law, and other newspapers nervously refused to publish this little fragment without removing the 'son of a surgeon' detail.

The next time the un-named Druitt will reappear, in Griffiths in 1898, he will be a middle-aged doctor. And the Major had nervously changed 'family' in Aberconway into 'friends' to further libel-proof himself, or his publishers, against legal retribution.

It's a fact that cannot be denied, facts being stubborn things.

A fact missed in every secondary source I know of, though not Howells and Skinner which I have not read.

But you have.

So, they did analyse the meaning of this detail, or even notice this tiny and telling alteration?

Why would reporters bother back in the 1900's when the great George Sims, amateur criminologist, had already told the story of the Drowned Doctor. He had the clubby police contacts. What more is there to investigate when the name cannot be published and the identity of the relations is problematic?

Answer: they didn't investigate.

Some other poster wrote that Macnaghten needed better training as an illusionist?

God spare us!

Look, nobody, but nobody, found Druitt before the name was handed to Dan Farson in 1959 on a plate -- and even then he could not intially find him in the records.

You cannot argue with success and yet people do.

Actually, Macnaghten was so adept at this charade that he not only gently misled people then, he does it now!!

People are handed the probable Ripper and they go, no it could not be him.

Not, because they subscribe to a sensible and provisional argument that it probably isn't him --which is fair enough -- but because Druitt is definitely innocent!

Now that's a conjuring trick worthy of Houdini?!

[Adam Went]

Jonathan:

No, I understand that the memorandum wasn't requested, but my point was that IF it had been, then the name of the killer is sitting right there in ink, waiting for anybody to check it out, and instead Macnaghten decides to cover up more innocuous facts like his true age or his true occupation? That's like trying to hide an elephant with a tree branch. It's probably fortunate for Macnaghten, then, that the memorandum never was requested!!

If it was necessary to cover up the facts before revealing a name to the public, why not have Macnaghten forward all the known available facts to the Home Office, then have them contact him again along the lines of "Ok, how much of this is safe to reveal to the public, what should we change?".

The libel argument is a poor one. If there was concern over the name being leaked to the public and then a subsequent case being made of it, why would Macnaghten then name not one but THREE suspects? Obviously that then increases the risk of being sued by not one family, but three - and yes, I know this was all to do with the memorandum which nothing ever came of and no case was ever brought forward for libel, but it could have been so, so much different, quite easily....Macnaghten was very lucky indeed.

Griffiths wasn't the only one who changed the "suspicion of family" to "suspicion of friends" - good old George Sims did exactly the same thing! But of course, suspicion of family sounds much more dramatic, and therefore more appealing to Macnaghten.....if there ever really was any truth to the story, could it not be little more than an old acquaintance of Druitt's who, for whatever reason, had an axe to grind with him and took full opportunity on the back of the Ripper murders and his subsequent suicide?

I have indeed read Howells & Skinner's book, though I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what they had to say about the change from 'family' to 'friends', i'll have to skim through it again....the book is an excellent read, but the last few chapters are quite perplexing - extraordinary attempts are made to link and combine several different theories, not least the Royal Conspiracy and the theories of the likes of Stephen Knight, Michael Harrison and Dr. Stowell into one big argument against MJ Druitt - then of course the suggestion is made that Druitt was murdered as opposed to a suicide in order to cover up the secret of his ties with a select group of influential people - need I say more, really?
Certainly glad I didn't buy it in order to be convinced of Druitt's guilt - even handwritten notes from a former owner of the book at the end of it say that Walter Sickert is a more likely candidate.

Look, Druitt may have been many things but a serial killer he was not - it's not just about Macnaghten, it's about the entire case against him as it stands, or the lack of one outside of the theoretical and the fantasy.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Jonathan H]

Actually, the threat of libel is critical to undertanding the Jack the Ripper mystery.

Both Macnaghten and Anderson preferred suspects who woiuld never, and could never be charged with the Whitechapel crimes -- yet they both ended up totally convincedf they had found the fiend.

In my opinion the sources, meagre as they are, overwhelmingly favour Macnaghten and not Anderson [but I respect that a strong case can be mounted for Anderson/Swanson/Kosminki]

The Mac Report of 1894, had it gone to the Home Office and been read out in the House by Asquith -- minus the names -- would have sufficiently diverted the attention of the press away from the Druitts.

Plus, he added nothing suspects to further diminish Druitt as the suspect as question could be raised as to why this Super-suspect was not arrested?

How do we know this?

Because another version of this same document, even more veiled and distorted in its content, was disseminated to the public in 1898, by Griffiths, and by the widely read Sims from 1899 to 1917.

We have sources, like the 'Illustrated Police News' of 1899 dismissing the Vicar's dead surgeon, partly because Griffiths is not saying that the 'dcotor' was definitely the fiend, just more likely than the other pair.

Yet in Mac's memoirs the retired police chief reverts to what his source claimed, that is the MP story of 1891; there is only one major suspect and 'in all probability', due to 'certain facts' leading to 'conclusions', this was the Ripper, like it or lump it.

Nobody made the connection between the 'Drowned Doctor' with Druitt, at least not in public where it counts. Mac had used Tumbelty as a shell by which to redact Druitt back into the 1888 investigation.

This is obvious.

It is shown by the Littlechild Letter -- it's Littlechild's main point. He's alerting Sims that his profile is somehat accurate, and a lot not.

We see Mac doing the same thing with two suspects in the Railway murder of 1897: suspect fusion creating suspect diversion.

[I thank again Debra Arif for putting me onto this, and want to stress that this does not mean she agrees with my interpretation.]

Now did Mac do this consciously?

We don't know.

Sims is key here, providing us with a portal into Mac's knowledge, or fading knowledge, or jumbled knowledge, or discreet manipulation of the same data.

It's not a theory that Macnaghten hid Druitt -- i's a fact. He's hidden, cocooned, impentrable inside 'substantial truth under fictitious form'.

The only question is whether it was intentional or just very lucky for all concerned?

It is unclear whether Sims ever saw the Aberconway version, or whether he was relying on Griffiths and then Macnaghten, verbally, to tell him more fiction about Druitt; unemployed, no family at all, lived with or near concerned pals, fabulously affluent, twice in an asylum -- and let out too soon.

None of these details are true, but Sims published them and then Macnaghten, in his own memoirs, denied that the un-named Druitt had ever been in an asylum.

Which is spot on.

'Ripperology', to use a conveneint broad term, gives him zero credit for what his memoirs got right, only what they get wrong.

Macnaghten may have had a terrific memory, not perfect, but phenomenal nonetheless.

For example, Mac knew that Druitt's father was a doctor, and he knew that Druitt's mother had been in a madhouse, and he knew that William Druitt was desperately searching for Montie, and he even recalled the tiny detail that Druitt's body was found with a first class train pass from Blackheath to London.

The reason he added this detail, of the train ticket, to the Aberconway version for Griffiths and Sims, is that he wanted to locate 'Dr D' far away from his city legal chambers, and he wanted to eliminate Dorset and Bournemouth from the story altogether. Mission accomplished. [The actual name of 'Blackheath' was only used once, in 1915, by Sims].

[Adam Went]

Jonathan:

That's all well and good as a theory, but it's nothing more than that, a theory, and it is a hell of a lot to swallow as fact. The FACTS are that some of those involved, notably Griffiths and Sims, had a different view to what Macnaghten had - meaning that they had either distorted the information further deliberately, had forgotten the details or were in actual disagreement with the versions of Macnaghten.

The fact that suspects were named who were already dead or locked up is an indication of the less than broad minded views of certain officers in later years, who tried to salvage some of their own reputations and that of the force by claiming to have more knowledge of the truth behind the case than they really did have - you must understand that it burned them all on the inside for the rest of their lives that the killer was never brought to justice, and for some, it would have been their coping mechanism, convincing themselves that the case had been solved to their knowledge, when in fact, it hadn't - for Macnaghten, who it cannot be stressed enough, was not involved with the Ripper investigation of 1888, it takes on a different kind of importance - not a "save my reputation" importance but a "be the knight in shining armour who rushes in to slay the monster once and for all" importance.

Macnaghten never states who or where his "private information" comes from, nor does he ever state who the family members or friends were who supposedly suspected Druitt, even 25 years or more after he died - why not be more specific? Was he hiding the fact that this information never actually existed, or if it did, it was later discovered to be a fabrication?
The Druittists certainly do their own case no favours by disagreeing on these very points.

We could learn a lot in the Ripper case and make a lot of progress by just simplifying things. If the suspect can be made to fit the evidence, you've got a good suspect. If the evidence needs to be made to fit the suspect, you've got a bad suspect, and reading through this thread, it cannot be denied that it is almost entirely reliant on the latter.

Let me ask you this, Jonathan, if you're a betting man, how much would you be willing to wager that Druitt and Jack the Ripper were one and the same?

Cheers,
Adam.

[Jonathan H]

My life against a dollar.

Griffiths and Sims are not independent sources on Druitt; they were completely the literary crony-creatures of the police chief.

Two years before 'Mysteries of Police and Crime' in 1898 Griffiths had dismissed the theory of the Ripper being a real life Jekyll and Hyde. Once he is exposed to the so-called 'Home Office Report', eg. the Anberconway dodgy document, the Major is totally under Mac's spell -- and reverses himself 180 degrees.

Mac especially misled Sims with extra, juicy details, which show that Mac both fictionalized and manipulated the profile of the 'Drowned Doctor'. Sims had correctly written, from 1888 to 1891, that the constabulary were clueless, now, from 1899, he moves in lock-step behind his police patron and thus writes propaganda for the Yard -- nonsense about how they were about to arrest the mad medico.

One of those details, in Sims, about the frantic chums, stretches right back to the inquest report on Druitt showing that Mac knew, at least originally, that the Ripper was a 31 year old barrister who had killed himself three weeks after the Kelly atrocity.

That detail confirms that William Druitt is the family member who was 'in touch' with the appropriate authorities -- but in 1891, not 1888, if at all.

Like a lot of people you misunderstand the significance of Macnaghten not being on the Force in 1888.

It's irrelevant.

It's irrelevant, in terms of investigating Druitt [you know, Jack the Ripper] because he was not known to police as a suspect until the story leaked in West Dorset via the Tory MP in 1891. By then Mac had been with SY nearly two years. You also do not appreciate that it is Macnagten who investigated Druitt, 'who laid the ghost' to rest, which he implicitly takes sole credit for in his memoirs, and in Aberconway.

As a source, Macnaghten is very strong because he has nothing to prove about the Ripper mystery, publicly and professionally speaking, and his choice of fiend goes completely against the expected bias: in terms of race, creed, class and convenience of the suspect.

Never forget, Macnaghten attached himself to an excruciatingly inconvenient suspect, and knowing that he took steps -- in his Reports(s) and briefings to Sims -- to de-emphasize this element, but then, in retirement, came clean about Druitt: he was unknown to police for years.

You keep talking about evidence as if you are police detective?

The Ripper mystery cannot be solved that way, and therefore cannot be solved absolutely.

In terms of historical methodology, however, arguments can be mounted about who was likely to be the fiend. I think the strongest argument is the one for Macnaghten having it correct about Montie, but it by no means the only strong historical argument. Everybody on these sites believes that I am mistaken, to put it politely.

But those are the sort of arguments left to us. There are no others.

Torturing the sources to fit your prejudice won't get that square peg through the round hole, nor will relying on the stalest of cliches.

Look, by temperament, you need a different mystery, Adam.

A more recent, unsolved crime which research could perhaps facilitate an arrest, and charges being laid and a just conviction.

For example, the late novelist, crime buff, and society essayist [and father of a murdered daughter] Dominic Dunne did something like this regarding the Martha Moxley murder mystery, even contributing to a conviction [of Michael Skakel] a quarter century after that poor girl's appalling murder.

[Simon Wood]

Mac's "Literary Chums"

Hi All,

A little chronology.

Major Griffiths' "Mysteries of Police and Crime", published Thursday 8th December 1898.

Western Mail/Daily Mail North Country vicar story, published Thursday 19th January 1899.

Three days later–

George R. Sims "Jack drowned in Thames" story, first published Sunday 22nd January 1899.

It's easy to see how Sims first heard the story. And all the small details he subsequently added over the years owed their origins to Major Griffiths' book.

In fact, in April 1903 Sims wrote, "I am betraying no confidence in making this statement [about Jack the Ripper], because it has been published by an official who had an opportunity of seeing the Home Office Report, Major Arthur Griffiths . . ."

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

Sims is wrong on the Vicar as the latter was not claiming to have heard the confession himself, and he is wrong that the Major sighted a definitive 'Home Office Report' -- the document he saw was not even an accurate copy of the document which gathered dust in SY files.

Sims added to the story over the years with details which were not in Aberconway -- which does not say that the Ripper was unemployed, does not say he had ever been in an asylum, or that he was affluent.

True, he may have just made all that up.

Except that Aberconway does not mention that the family was searching for their missing member, which plugs Sims back into the inquest report on Druitt's death.

But I quite understand why the obvious here has to be denied at all costs.

[Adam Went]

Jonathan:

If Sims and Griffiths and the like were influenced by Macnaghten, it’s probably because those officers in the force who would have known who the killer was if anybody did (and I mean Abberline, Anderson, Littlechild, Swanson, Warren, etc), should they have come to hear of Macnaghten’s suspicion of Druitt, probably laughed at him about it – and so the only support he could get for his farcical theory was from others less involved with the case or not involved at all.

It doesn’t matter whether Druitt’s name came up in 1888 or 1891 or when, one of my points all along has been that if he hadn’t committed suicide when he did, or at least if he had done so in 1898 rather than 1888, then his name would never have come up in relation to the investigation – and so his death, the dismissal from the school, the supposed slip into insanity, the whispers and rumours going around about him, were enough to convince Macnaghten – and he became the convenient suspect. That Macnaghten would also have Kosminski and, inexplicably, Michael Ostrog, on his list shows that he was targeting the easy, safe suspects rather than others who we know the police were keeping an eye on in 1888, or those who were still free.

You talk about William Druitt being a possible source but then in “The Ripper Legacy”, Howells & Skinner make the suggestion that Montague’s suicide note was in fact written by William, and that he deliberately helped to cover up information at the inquest into Montague’s death. How on earth are any of us supposed to give any credence to the case against Druitt if you Druittists yourselves can’t even agree on what’s right or wrong!?

I keep saying all of this but none of it seems to sink in. I thank you for your kind advice regarding my choosing another mystery, but must reluctantly decline as I am quite happy with this one.

Instead, how about this:
I hereby pledge that if nobody else is able to do it, I will take it upon myself to uncover the necessary proof to show that M.J. Druitt was not/could not have been Jack the Ripper, and clear the name of an innocent man once and for all – sooner rather than later.

Cheers,
Adam.